Global public relations and the crisis of unethical journalism in the United Kingdom

In view of calls for a more established body of knowledge in the practice of public relations in the international context, this paper uses the analytical framework of global public relations to analyze the impact of environmental variables, political economy, culture, media system and level ofactivism, on the crisis of the News of the World in 2011. Although the crisis began with a single case of phone hacking, the crisis was exacerbated by news organizations’ investigation into other instances of unethical journalism for which the News of the World was also responsible. This descriptive study examines the utility of the framework of global public relations in analyzing the confluence between external influences and internal processes which led to the closure of the tabloid. Implications for the practice of global public relations are also discussed