Richard Alan Nelson, Ph.D., APR

Professor of Mass Communication & Public Affairs

Editor, Journal of Promotion Management

Manship School of Mass Communication

211 Journalism Building

Louisiana State University

Baton Rouge, LA 70803-7202 USA

Specialties: Strategic Management, Public Relations, Propaganda, & Advertising/Marketing Communications

Phone:

225.578.6686 Fax: 225.578.2125

Office:

246 Hodges Hall Hours: by appointment

Email:

Rnelson@LSU.edu

Website:

http://richardnelson.org

Education
Ph.D., Communication, Florida State University, 1980
M.A., Communications, Brigham Young University, 1975
A.B., Political Science, Stanford University, 1969

Background
Richard Alan Nelson is an internationally-known business communication and public relations/public affairs educator and consultant. Currently he is a Professor at Louisiana State University’s Manship School of Mass Communication.

The Manship School of Mass Communication at LSU

In addition, he is an Affiliate Member of the Centre for Marketing and Communications at the Hull University Business School in the U.K.; serves on the Advisory Board for the Master of Management in Communication Program of Trisakti University’s International Business School in Jakarta, Indonesia; and was a visiting academic in the School of Advertising, Marketing and Public Relations at Queensland University of Technology (Brisbane, Australia) in 2004, the Department of Marketing and Business Strategy at Hull University (2006), in the School of Marketing at Curtin University of Technology (Perth, Australia) in 2007, and in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Iowa (Spring 2010 semester, forthcoming).

Nelson is past president, board of directors member and annual congress program co-chair of the International Management Development Association (IMDA), past president and board of directors member of the International Academy of Business Disciplines (IABD), former board of directors member and current editorial board member in the American Society for Competitiveness (ASC), as well as former head of the Public Relations Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC). He is professionally accredited by the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) and in 1998 served as an elected director on the executive committee of the PRSA Educator’s Academy. Dr. Nelson is also affiliated with the National Communication Association (NCA).

Nelson is recognized in LSU's Experts Guide and Speakers Bureau, the Louisiana Public Policy Guide, the Heritage Foundation’s Annual Guide to Public Policy Experts, and previously served on the Advisory Council of The Media Institute’s Center for Media Analysis, another Washington, D.C. think tank featuring nationally-known professional and academic leaders.

He has a particular interest in assisting the progressive Muslim world. Nelson’s research focuses on business public policy, strategic planning, management, ethics and political communications issues. He is the author of more than 90 articles, essays, and reports on business and media industry topics ranging from the public opinion role played by paid persuaders, to the impact of new communications technologies, to state promotion of motion picture and television industrial development. He is co-author of Issues Management: Corporate Public Policymaking in an Information Society (Sage) and has individually written several books, including Florida and the American Motion Picture Industry (Garland), Lights! Camera! Florida! (Florida Endowment for the Humanities/Florida Humanities Council), A Chronology and Glossary of Propaganda in the United States (Greenwood), and Propaganda: A Reference Guide (forthcoming, Greenwood).

Richard and the cover of his latest book, A Chronology and Glossary of Propaganda in the United States. Click on the picture of the book above for a link to Greenwood Press, here for the online version at Questia, or here to find if a library near you has a copy. The socialist poster is from New York in 1919.

Since Fall 1999, Richard Alan Nelson has been has been editor of the refereed Journal of Promotion Management as well as a related Promotion Management book series established by Haworth Press and now published by Routlege in the Taylor & Francis Group. From 2005-2008, Nelson was also editor of Journal of Website Promotion.

In addition, he serves on the editorial boards of 16 other refereed publications (listed alphabetically):

Advances in Competitiveness Research

Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics (Perth, Australia and Bradford, England)

Competition Forum

Competitiveness Review: An International Business Journal (England)

Corporate Communications: An International Journal (England)

ESIC Market: Economic and Business Journal (Madrid, Spain)

EuroMed Journal of Business (Nicosia, Cyprus and England)

International Journal of Business, Accounting, and Finance (IJBAF)

International Journal of Business and Economics Perspectives (IJBEP)

International Journal of Business and Public Administration (IJBPA)

International Journal of Commerce and Management (England)

International Journal of Education Research (IJER)

Journal of International Consumer Marketing

Journal of Marketing Communications (Oxford, England)

Journal of Transnational Management, and

Service Business. An International Journal (Berlin, Germany).

Previously he was a member of the editorial board for Journal of Mass Media Ethics.

This ongoing program of research, commentary, and service continues to bring recognition. For example, he was selected as one of the top 50 most influential public relations scholars in a citation study published by the Journal of Public Relations Research in 1999. In addition, in 1991 he was named “one of the 216 most cited authors in communication” who “as the core scholars in the field of communication, have contributed to as well as shaped its development in the past 10 to 20 years.”

He was named an LSU Alumni Association Distinguished Professor in 1997, one of the institution’s highest honors. A colleague wrote that, “Professor Nelson is an academic renaissance person in the sense that he manages to perform well in multiple areas.” From 1999-2005, Nelson also served as the Manship School’s public relations area head, and from 1994-1999 as its Associate Dean for Graduate Studies and Research. In that capacity, he successfully supervised creation of an innovative Ph.D. program in Mass Communication and Public Affairs. Campaigns & Elections has noted that "This new doctoral opportunity speaks volumes about the burgeoning profession of practical politics and its increased specialization. It will make the school unique in its ability to turn out professionals and scholars at the highest level." His Master's and Doctoral degree guide is also used by students a number of institutions.

Richard teaching a seminar

Earlier, Nelson directed the Public Relations Sequence in the A. Q. Miller School of Journalism and Mass Communications at Kansas State University. He also previously held positions as an Associate Director of the International Telecommunications Research Institute and tenured faculty member at the University of Houston.

Nelson’s professional background includes work as a trade magazine editor, weekly newspaper journalist, government public information coordinator, television news writer, and management consultant. He has been married since 1974, is the father of two daughters (Veronica and Victoria), and is a dual citizen of the United States and European Union (Ireland).

Aaron Mathews, Veronica Nelson Mathews and kids.