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Media Diary 10:  Public Relations

Reread the Dowie Quote from page 370.  Do you agree with his assessment of the profession?  What is your feeling about public relations?  When do you think it is useful for the culture?  When do you think it is harmful?

“PR has become a communications medium in it’s own right, an industry designed to alter perception, reshape reality, and manufacture consent.  It is run by a fraternity carefully organized so that the only insiders can observe their peers at work…It is critical that consumers of media in democratic societies understand the origin of information and the process by which it is mediated, particularly when they are being deceived.” – Mark Dowie

 

                 Mark Dowie was completely correct in his assessment of public relations.  When he says it’s “an industry designed to alter perception, reshape reality and manufacture consent,” he hits it right on the head.  The public relations industry is focused on getting people to ignore the obvious: that corporations want money.

                 I think public relations is inherently dishonest, and I say that as someone who has worked PR for various charity organizations.  The entire purpose is to take people’s time and money.  Now matter how noble the product a PR person is selling, they are still selling something.  The book made an argument for the positive benefits of PR using Mothers Against Drunk Driving as an example.  I am not sure I agree with this assessment.

                 Public Relations are only positive when they stick to the absolute truth.  A few years back, MADD published a list of punishments incurred by drunk drivers in other countries.  This list was given to me in a 200 level sociology class by a professor who I greatly respected.  He gave the class the list and presented it as true.  He didn’t suspect that MADD would lie.  On the sheet it said that the penalty for drunk driving in El Salvador is death.  Since I have friends from El Salvador, I asked, and found out that it wasn’t true.  Now I question everything MADD says, since they’ve demonstrated a willingness to lie in support of their agenda.

                 While I’d be the first to say that we need to do something about drunk driving in this country, I think we need to stick to the facts when we campaign against it.  The public needs to know the truth.  They have a right to it.  I think the fundamental flaw with PR is that it hides the truth behind a façade to bend the public to a corporation’s or organization’s will.  The fact of the matter is people would probably do the right thing anyway, if they were given the facts.  MADD didn’t need to disparage the El Salvadorian people to make a point about drunk drivers.  They had plenty of other strategies focused on the reality of drunk driving that worked much better.  In short, PR is at its most harmful when it’s not telling the truth.  If it took a clue from Dragnet and stuck to “just the facts, ma’am,” society in general would be much better off.

Copyright 2005

by Amanda Evans

Date: 05/03/05