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Under the umbrella of the Center for History & Corporate Communication, efforts are united to conduct historical PR research and to explore and promote the communication of corporate history. The Center addresses communities of communication and history scholars, as well as communication practitioners who communicate history and the communication industry interested in their own history. It is headed by Prof. Dr. Günter Bentele (University of Leipzig) and Leipzig alumnus Prof. Dr. Felix Krebber (Pforzheim University of Applied Sciences, Business School).
Review of the founding conference on 23.9.2021: Communication of History – History of Communication
Under the conference motto "Communication of History – History of Communication," some 90 communication scholars, historians and communication practitioners discussed the emergence of corporate communication in the 19th century and corporate history as a topic of communication at the University of Leipzig on Thursday, September 23. The digitally broadcast conference marked the official founding of the Center for History and Corporate Communication. The initiative of the Günter Thiele Foundation for Communication and Management will in the future promote research and connect practitioners on the strands addressed in the conference.
- Read more about the conference in the follow-up report.
- Browse through the conference program, which we have archived.
- Become part of the network. Contact Prof. Dr. Günter Bentele (University of Leipzig) or Prof. Dr. Felix Krebber (Pforzheim University of Applied Sciences, Business School).
- On this website, we inform about new activities of the Center. Suggestions are welcome.
You are invited to visit the online museum for public relations.
More information you can get from Prof. Dr. Günter Bentele.
pr-museum.de
The project pr-museum.de pursues the goal of providing historical knowledge/information about the history of public relations and communication management in Germany to students, practitioners and interested parties. The history of medicine or law are an important part of any law or medicine degree. It follows that a knowledge about the development of the profession, its most important players, the emergence of a formal corporate communications as well as its instruments and processes should also form a fundamental part of degree programs in communication management.
The website will initially focus on the 20th and 21st century. Modern public relations started at the at the beginning of the 19th century -first in the political arena and then spread to the economic arenay and beyond. The website's content covers topics ranging from the most important players in PR history (e.g. Otto Hammann and Albert Oeckl), PR in organizations (e.g. corporate communications at Krupp and Siemens) to the most important instruments and processes in PR (e.g. press conferences and PR campaigns).
PR Archive
The PR Archive has a diverse collection of PR materials. The archive comprises of 3 parts:
- A historical archive with articles from 1949 to 1979
- A modern archive with examples of press kits, leaflets, booklets, employee and customer magazines environmental reports, and annual reports
- A collection of 600 bachelor and master theses, PR magazines, and PR literature
The creation of the PR Archive was initiated by Professor Günter Bentele. In 1993 he took over the first chair of Public Relations in a German-speaking country at the University of Leipzig. Collecting all bachelor and master theses is at the heart of the initiative to support teaching and lecturing. The material, magazines and literature left/bequeathed to the archive support research in the fields of public relations, communication management and strategic communication.