Paper short abstract:

We would like to explore the various ways of defining, professionalizing, and exercising public relations practices and how to reflect about their resonances through the borders of various countries and fields.

Paper long abstract:

Propaganda, marketing, public relations, communication, ad, were among the most developing practices during the Interwar period. Transfers, exchanges, translations, circulations were extremely dense and multi-polarized. The professionalization of the spin doctors in the US echoed agit-prop institutionalization in the SU, propaganda vs propaganda. The practical reflection on esthetic efficiency was embodied in intensely circulating movies, photographs, posters, slogans, and the like. How to historically think about these complex phenomena having a locally defined birth and a global life? Only opposing local and global would not suffice if we do not follow the manifold translations between languages, technologies, know-hows, political programs, and academic disciplines as linguistics, psychology, or even sociology.