Public Relation is the New Propaganda - Research Paper Example

Introduction There is a thin line between public relations (PR) and propaganda in the current political arena since both of them seeks to influenceperceptions. In modern democracies, PR is the attempt by the elite to influence the opinion of the majority. Propaganda on the other hand is the use of biased opinions mostly by state actors in a bid to ensure that they not only attain public support for their actions, but also ensure that they are able to create a means of unifying the public towards a common course. As such, PR undermines their opinion, which is their democratic rite of public participation. PR campaigns relate to propaganda in that large corporations influence media to create their public image through advertisements as well as regulating the information released by the mass media to the public as news. PR and propaganda undermine democracy since governments and large firms ensure that false or exaggerated information is released by the mass media as news. Mass media is used as a means of creating a good impression about these corporations and governments to their audiences using the manipulated information. By so doing, the media and the corporations end up being used as means of providing the public with false information, essentially bringing about a situation where the public comes to be deprived of the necessary information to develop correct opinions. Research Goal The goal of this research is to establish the relationship between public relations and propaganda by asserting, in relation to Doorley and Garcia’s (2011) belief that the public relations (PR) industry is a branch of propaganda. In addition, this paper will assess how the mass media works to facilitate particular causes through hiding particular information from the public. Therefore, this research paper will attempt to show how the democratic or undemocratic nature of PR campaigns. In this paper, I am going to evaluate whether the Public Relations industry undermines or supports democratic governance: What is the effect of PR campaigns on public opinion?. . Governments and large corporations control what media houses release to the public as information (Doorley and Garcia, 2011). This is known as PR, since the governments want to shield the public from knowing their bad side, and at the same time propaganda since it is a technique of manipulating the public. Public Relations can be considered to be powerful and effective campaign tool in democratic institutions not only in Canada, but also in the globalized world. This research will form a basis of understanding how PR and propaganda campaigns relate, and the impact of this relationship on the institutions of democracy. I will show how communication and PR influence the development of the public image and the reputations of businesses within the operational environment. The research is also intended to expose the fact that large corporations and governments have the potential of using the mass media to spread propaganda and manipulate public perceptions in the name of Public Relations. This research is therefore relevant to the public, businesses and the mass media as it explores how propaganda is spread in disguise of public relations. Definition of Important Terms Used in the Research Propaganda is biased information that sometimes promotes particular ideas or points of view in the political arena (Edelman, 2013). Propaganda is often misleading and tends to be exaggerated with the motive of swaying the public opinion. Therefore, the primary goal of propaganda is persuasion of the audience with an attempt of influencing it emotionally, and shaping its opinions and attitudes for political gain. Public Relations This is a strategic communication process with a view to building relationships between organizations and their publics that mutually benefit either of them (Bruning , Dials & Shirka, 2008). Since the role of PR is communication management between various organizations and their audiences, its main focus is to create and maintain a positive image and affiliation with the desired audience. Democracy Democracy is a political practice that allows for the citizens of a state have ultimate power so that they are able to rule directly or through their representatives who are elected freely (Wedel, 2009). Political Economy Information Political economy is a concept about the economic value of valuable goods and services and natural laws governing their production and distribution (Gilpin, 2011). The concept of political economy information came to exist because of sociologists, political scientists and communication practitioners’ tendency of evaluating phenomena from an economist’s point of view. As a result, this condition makes them appear political economists, and this is how the theory of political economy information came to existence. Different theoretical models exist for the purpose of illustrating the correlation between PR campaigns and propaganda and how they affect development of democratic relationships in the contemporary society. In order to understand the scope and the goals of the research effectively, this section is going to explore the most prominent and effective theoretical perceptions. In order to better understand the relationship between PR and propaganda, four critical theories of representation, namely liberal, participatory liberal, discursive and constructionist. In the representative liberal theory, the few elites whose power is limited by the constitution (Ober, 2009) control the government. The constitution is based on the protection of individuals’ liberties, equality and rights of the minority groups. Elections should be free, fair and competitive between diverse political parties, and power is separated into different arms of the government. However, this form of government brings about a situation where there is an alienation of the subjects from the decision making process like constitutional amendments, leading to imposed closure with relation to decision-making. The participatory liberal theory is based on the participatory liberal model, which advocates that all citizens should be given an opportunity to participate in the process of decision-making (Pateman, 2012). Governance according to the theory is characterised by empowerment, utilisation of a wide range of styles for the public to present its ideas effectively so that imposed closure can be avoided. This theory is compatible with the public sphere model introduced by Jurgen Habermas, which is important in figuring out the public and its various abilities within the representative democracy context (Habermas, Lennox & Lennox, 1974). According to Habermas, a public sphere is a rambling space in which both individuals and groups converge to deliberate on issues of common interest and if possible reach a common discernment. However, if a common judgment is not reached, the public sphere is reduced to nothing but a rhetorical sphere. In this case, participatory democracy can be reduced to mere rhetoric, which is one of the most outstanding features of leaders who embrace the PR strategies in their campaigns. Discursive theory is one which has a focus on authentic deliberation as opposed to mere voting is the most important source of fairness for the law (Baber & Bartlett, 2009). Deliberations are made among decision makers and are free from biasness of unequal political power. Constructionist theory on the other hand is one that is used to promote the concept that all citizens should be included in decision making processes, empowerment, recognition, narrative creativity hence avoiding exclusionary closure towards the expansion of the political community (Stout, 2009). The propaganda model advanced by Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman perceives the private media as commercial houses whose interest is to sell a product, i.e., readers and audiences to advertisers rather than the primary interest of quality news to the public (Stewart, 2009). According to this model, there are five filters that regulate the type of news presented in the news media, and they include ownership of the media, source of funding for the media, sourcing, flak, and the ideology of anticommunism and fear. The first filter stresses on profit making by the news media owners hence most of them end up sacrificing news objectivity if that is what it means to maximize profit. The source of funding in media houses is advertising hence the need for most newspapers to attract advertising so to enable them cover the cost of production. The affluent who own businesses in the society pay the media owners to advertise their businesses, hence have the power to compel the media to marginalize any information that collides with their interests. This implies that news presented in the media houses are in most cases biased in order to cater for the interests of the advertisers. Further, Chomsky and Herman argue that such an influence on the media reduces newspaper buyers to the product of the media houses sold to the businesses that purchase the publicizing space. On the third filter of sourcing news for the mass media, Chomsky and Herman argue that the mass media is dragged into a symbiotic interconnection with influential sources of information by economic necessity and correspondence of interest. This means that the mass media sources news from government institutions and large businesses and corporations because this is where news is likely to happen. Journalists who tend to offend these strong news sources by criticising the furnished material suffer threatening, implying that the media cannot run the articles that are likely to hurt the interests of large businesses that fund them. Flak work to regulate public information through negative responses to media statements or programs. This comes in form of lawsuits especially when a programme portraying a negative image about a given organization is aired on TV, or a statement criticising a corporation is published in a newspaper. The fifth filter stresses on anti-ideologies and works to spread hatred and fear of those groups that threaten one’s status. Communism used to pose a big threat to the US and other western powers but it has been replaced by anti-terrorism ideology as a mechanism of controlling the masses (Skoll & Korstanje, 2013). From this model, it is clear that governments and large corporations have the power to use their resources to gain access to the media and convey their intended messages to the public. From this perspective, the mass media is not democratic since everything that is printed or aired must be filtered to suit the interests of both the media and corporations. It is evident that most governments employ propaganda as a tool for controlling their subjects. Public Relations industry is a branch of propaganda, as both of these concepts are aimed as persuading the intended subjects to conform to some opinions. The mass media on the other hand is facilitating the achievement of the intended causes by those applying PR and propaganda through the content they release as news. Therefore, PR and propaganda is inevitable in the current structure of the society since the execution of services of social importance in such fields as politics, finance, manufacturing, agriculture, education, and PR and propaganda influence health largely. Powerful individuals through PR and propaganda can manipulate the public sphere model that is related to the participatory theory of democracy. Participants in the deliberations may not reach a common conclusion hence turn the public sphere to a rhetorical sphere. The PR and propaganda applied by large corporations and governments undermines democracy in that this strategy limits public participation through persuasions. People are swayed into accepting what the leaders deem good at the expense of participating in democratic processes of decision making through deliberations. By shielding some information from being accessed by the public, these large corporations deny people the liberties as spelt out in the constitution. What is released is what people believe in as the truth and adhere to it, and because this information is manipulated to suit the interest of large businesses, such information that people believe in is propaganda. The media is not independent as long as news must pass through the filters before being released to the public. This implies that newspaper buyers and those who watch TV will remain the products being sold to the businesses that have paid for the advertising space and news will play a negligible role as the product of this media. As long as the mass media is tied up in the five filters, then it will continue playing a marginal role as sustaining and promoting democracy is concerned. Democracy will be masked by propaganda and rhetoric if the information reaching the public is moderated to suit certain interests. The theory of anti-ideology is what most governments, through the media use to intimidate and scare away their competitors. Democracy recognizes freedom of speech as one of the liberties and the government can use it to create enmity between the public and opposition. Therefore, there is need for all democratic institutions to join hands in the pursuit for a stronger democracy that recognizes all citizens. However, this may be difficult to achieve since democracy advocates for capitalism, which in turn advocates for the maintenance of the status quo. This means that the rich will always use PR and propaganda to maintain the status quo, and this will be achieved through regulation of the information that reaches the public. Conclusion Constructionist theory has three major advantages that include popular inclusion, empowerment of citizens, recognition of the citizens and ensuring no exclusionary closure towards expansion of the political community. However, popular inclusion is expensive both in terms of time and money hence many governments, especially in the developed and the developing world may not embrace it. Discursive theory stresses on popular inclusion and deliberations to reach a consensus rather than popular vote, but faces the major setback of the public sphere turning to rhetoric sphere if consensus is not reached. The participatory liberal model has two major strengths, which are popular inclusion and empowerment but it is very expensive to run in terms of both time and money. Representative liberal theory encourages free market among other liberties but has two major setbacks; it is dominated by the elites and locks out the majority in the decision making process. Chomsky’s model stands out as the best model with relation to making propaganda and spreading it using PR strategies. For sure, the five filters do affect the quality of news released by the mass media, and notably turns the newspaper buyers into products to be sold to large corporations. References Baber, W. F., & Bartlett, R. V. (2009). Global democracy and sustainable jurisprudence: deliberative environmental law. Cambridge. MA: MIT Press. Bruning , S. D., Dials, M., & Shirka, A. (2008). Using dialogue to build organization–public relationships, engage publics, and positively affect organizational outcomes. 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