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Introduction/Overview

KEY POINTS

» Propaganda, by definition, is designed to influence thought and behavior.

» In the United States, we believe that we aren’t influenced by propaganda because we live in a democracy.

» Marketing, advertising and public relations are all forms of propaganda, thus making propaganda universal in democratic societies.

» Propaganda in the United States is so embedded in culture that we don’t notice that it is there, much less the influence it has on our lives.

» We need to question who funds and benefits from the propaganda we have in the United States.

The PR INDUSTRY

KEY POINTS

» The public relations industry employs over 200,000 people and collects millions of dollars every year from clients ranging from wealthy individuals and corporations to government agencies.

» Fleishman Hillard, Weber Shandwick Worldwide, Hill & Knowlton, Burson Marstellar and Citigate/Incepta lead the public relations industry in total revenues.

» Public relations firms go out of their way to keep their campaigns hidden from the public they seek to influence.

» The public relations industry is owned by the advertising industry and its mission is to influence public opinion, news information and public policy on behalf of its clients.

» The biggest PR clients include the tobacco industry, the chemical industry, the petroleum industry, the logging industry, the mining industry, and the drug industry.

» Big business has the connections, money and time to insert their messages into the media, giving them a tremendous advantage in public opinion debates (over less connected and moneyed people and organizations).

» PR continuously integrates new technologies into its toolbox of strategies for swaying public opinion.

» Public relations isn’t always problematic – press releases, press conferences and other publicity serve to inform the public about things happening around them.

» The problem arises when public relations is allowed to remain hidden and unexamined in ways that benefit specific interests that themselves remain hidden.

THE PR INDUSTRY: ROOTS IN CONFLICT

» The PR industry’s origins can be traced to the turn of the twentieth century when conflict between capital and labor came to a head. Big business and government turned to early PR practitioners to ease increasing social unrest.

» World War I was one of the first coordinated PR campaigns, orchestrated by President Wilson to convince Americans to support U.S. involvement in the war.

» The Creel Committee, also known as the Committee on Public Information, formed by Wilson and comprised of leading journalists, advertisers and writers of the day, sought to persuade Americans to support Wilson's decision to enter WWI.

» The success of the Creel Committee’s efforts demonstrated to government and industry alike the importance of using propaganda when introducing campaigns to the public.

» Edward Bernays, who was a member of the Creel Committee and is often credited as the grandfather of PR, knew how to use the media to help spread corporate messages. He staged and publicized women smoking in the 1929 Easter Day parade. The campaign, which was funded by the American Tobacco Company, helped to break the taboo of women smoking in public.

» This campaign successfully demonstrated how the use of hidden techniques could help business ultimately prosper – into what today has become billion dollar markets.

» By some estimates, as much as 50% of the information we think of as news originated from a PR company.

NOT LOCAL, NOT NEWS

KEY POINTS

» Surveys show that the public most trusts their local news team to tell them what is happening in the world, but local news departments are increasingly facing severe budgetary cutbacks which impact their ability to produce newsworthy reporting.

» Public relations firms provide ready-made, pre-packaged stories to news stations around the country. These stories, known as video news releases (VNRs), are created for clients and produced by former journalists who are now PR professionals.

» Because of the budgetary crisis, TV news departments are using VNRs in their news broadcast. News directors could label them, but if they did, they would be admitting that they use stories not produced by journalists.

» Spotting video news releases in the news requires a careful eye. Watch for camera shots that a local news team wouldn’t be able to gather.

Third Party Advocacy

» One of the most popular PR techniques relies on a third party, a person with no apparent connections to the company or industry, to advocate for a client’s product or issue. The idea is that the public wouldn’t trust a car manufacturer that said global warming isn’t a problem, but would more likely trust an atmospheric scientist saying the same thing.

» Third party advocacy works because what experts say is generally trusted by the public.

» Whenever you see an expert saying something you suspect isn’t true, type his/her name into an Internet search engine to research his/her affiliations.

» Another strategy used by PR firms is the front group, an organization – usually non-profit – that is set up to look independent, but which is funded and controlled by an industry.

» Whenever you hear a euphemistic sounding name such as the Water Environment Federation or the Temperate Forest Council, you can likely turn the needle 180 degrees and find out who’s really behind the organization.

Managing Crisis

» Corporations have learned that they don’t actually have to address crises that happen, but rather they need to manage the public perception about the crisis.

» The Tylenol poisoning case is often used to illustrate how a crisis was handled properly. Johnson & Johnson, the parent company, upon hearing that some of their capsules were found laced with cyanide, began a full-scale campaign to reassure Americans that the problem would be resolved.

» The Exxon-Valdez oil spill is an example of a company handling crisis poorly. Because the company did very little to reassure the American public about its efforts to rectify the problems caused by the spill, it still has to contend with poor public relations.

» Public relations firms are now helping companies not only with immediate damage control, but also are strategizing how they can help their clients avert future crises.

» When Alar, a pesticide used on apples, came under attack by consumer groups, the American Council on Science and Health, an industry-funded non-profit organization, wrote language for a food disparagement law, which would make it illegal to publicly criticize food products.

» In 1996, Oprah Winfrey hosted a show on Mad Cow Disease. When she stated she would never eat beef again, some Texas ranchers took her to court citing the Texas food disparagement law. She ultimately won the case, but the law remains on the book and the cost of the trial serves as a deterrent to journalists throughout the United States.

Silencing Debate

» Genetically engineered food was first available on the market in the mid-1990s.

» In Europe, there was widespread concern that there hadn’t been enough testing on genetically engineered plants to be producing food for general consumption.

» In response to this concern, the biotechnology industry hired public relations firms in the United States to begin assuring the people that there was no reason for alarm, that genetically-engineered food was not only safe, but also essential for feeding and nourishing people in third world countries.

» Public interest groups have attempted to pass legislation that requires that all GMO (genetically-modified organism) food available on supermarket shelves be labeled, but Congress has repeatedly failed to pass this legislation.

» The debate on genetically engineered food in the United States has been largely one-sided, favoring industry over public concern about the effect this technology could have on agriculture, science and public health.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

INTRODUCTION

1. How do you define propaganda? When have you heard the term propaganda used?

2. Why does John Stauber describe marketing, advertising and public relations as propaganda?

3. Why don’t we think of marketing and advertising as propaganda? How might somebody who defends these institutions distinguish between what they do and what propagandists do?

THE PR INDUSTRY

1. Why does the PR industry want to remain out of view?

2. Why do corporations invest in public relations instead of advertising? What is the difference between an ad campaign and a public relations campaign?

3. What role does money play in public relations?

4. What new technologies might the public relations industry find useful?

5. Is public relations inherently problematic?

THE PR INDUSTRY: ROOTS IN CONFLICT

1. Woodrow Wilson was able to change his stance on World War I using public relations. How and why do you th think the Creel Committee’s PR activities succeeded in shifting public opinion?

2. If these early PR campaigns were investigated and widely reported to the public, do you think there would have been public outcry? Is the PR industry overly dependent on secrecy?

3. What sorts of stories that are packaged as news do you think originate from public relations?

NOT LOCAL NEWS

1. Why is expertise so widely trusted?

2. How else, aside from expertise, might information be conveyed to the public?

3. Third party advocacy and front groups both seek to distance messages from their source. Can we make sound decisions about political, social and economic issues in our lives if we don’t know where information is coming from?

THIRD PARTY ADVOCACY

1. Does anyone in your family watch the nightly news? What other news sources do you and your family members have?

2. Video news releases are created for a company, produced by a PR firm, aired on a news program, and absorbed by the public. Who has the greatest responsibility to tell us that VNRs are regularly used – the company, PR firm or journalists?

3. Is a VNR a valid news source? What makes a VNR different from a news report done by journalists?

MANAGING CRISIS

1. How has crisis management changed since the days of the Tylenol scare and the Exxon Valdez spill?

2. How is the food disparagement law an example of crisis management?

3. Besides writing governmental laws to protect corporations, how else might public relations help companies avoid future crises?

SILENCING DEBATE

1. Why do you think there was such widespread concern about genetically-engineered food in Europe, but not in the United States?

2. How did public relations help to shape the public discussion regarding GMO foods?

3. Why do you think the biotechnology industry opposes labeling?

Post Viewing Discussion Questions

» What role does public relations play in a democracy?

» What is the value of PR?

» How have new technologies facilitated the growth and success of the public relations industry?

» Why do you think public relations works so well in the United States?

» How might it be possible for public interest groups to compete with public relations?

» How does corporate ownership of mainstream journalism serve the goals and interests of the big players within public relations industry? How might it work against the interests of smaller public relations efforts?

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