The boys are back in town: Rethinking the feminisation of public relations through the prism of social media

This article examines, via a survey of public relations practitioners working below senior management level, whether technician - type roles, far from being a ‘velvet ghetto’, are now providing a place in which a practitioner’s status can be validated and social capital built and whether this shift is having an influence on the debates surrounding the feminisation of the profession. The study discovered that the technician role is ecoming increasingly polarised and those who carry out mechanical - type social media roles (such as running an organisational Twitter feed or being an organisation’ spokesperson in online forums) have less opportunity to build social capital online than those who are able to ‘be themselves’ in social media interactions.