Study: ‘True Blood’ offers ‘complex portrayal’ of PR

I focused on representations of public relations in the first four [seasons], finishing with the bloody death of AVL spokesperson turned bad, Nan Flanagan. Flanagan is initially represented as a rational and corporate-style spokesperson before the AVL is revealed as a front-organization for the shadowy authority. Given the gendered representation of public relations in popular culture, where female practitioners often have trivial roles, it is interesting to consider this portrayal of a powerful female public relations practitioner. Flanagan highlights the contradictions and paradoxes in the representation of public relations and accurately depicts that there is no single reality of public relations. Rather, Flanagan’s practitioner plays with multiple identities of public relations and adopts multiple discourses from social justice to corporate greed.