Mass Media in a Changing WorldSecond Edition

George Rodman

Brooklyn College of CUNY

HISTORYINDUSTRYCONTROVERSY

Mass Media

Jason NixJournalism Instructor and Program Director

JOURN 110Spokane Falls Community College

Chapter 12

Public Relations and Politics: The Image

Industries

Chapter Outline• History• Industry• Controversies

What is Public Relations?

Journalist PR specialistServes general public Serves client

Avoids taking sides Promotes client’s point of view

Controls all information Provides information

Depends upon PR Depends upon journalists

Uses one form of media Employs various media

individualistic Team players

Goal: inform the public Goal: generate goodwill for client

• It differs from journalism

What is Public Relations?

Advertising Public relationsTries to seduce Tries to motivate with fact

Controls the message Provides information

Flashy with exaggeration Low-key and serious

Expensive Relatively inexpensive

Relies on repetition Efforts are fresh

Broad audience Aimed at specific audience

Consumers try to avoid ads Journalists are constantly seeking out stories

• It differs from advertising

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HC3xwlfcFM

A Brief History of Public Relations

• What is public relations? • Integrated marketing• Internal publics • External publics

A Brief History of Public Relations

Precursors of Public Relations• People have always had opinions and

others have always tried to influence those opinions.•Ancient Greeks hired Sophists• Most people in the colonies were

indifferent to the cause of American independence. Patriots used PR techniques, such as the Boston Tea Party of 1773, to gain public support for the war.

• press agents worked to generate publicity for their hype.•P.T. Barnum•In the 1800s, railroads encouraged

the westward migration to generate customers for their services.

A Brief History of Public Relations

Public Relations As a Profession• Ivy Ledbetter Lee: the father of the

modern public relations industry. • Lee believed that the goal of public

relations was not to fool or ignore the public.

• Early presidents used PR:• Andrew Jackson hired 60 former newspaper

reporters to help push through legislation• Woodrow Wilson hired PR professionals to

encourage enlistment in the armed forces and the purchase of Liberty Bonds.

• FDR and the WPA projects

Edward Bernays coined the term “public relations counsel” in his 1923 book, Crystallizing Public Opinion.

A Brief History of Public Relations

• The Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) was founded in 1948 to promote professional standards and put forth a positive image. PRSA adopted a code of ethics in 1950.

• By stressing nonviolent forms of protest and enduring physical and verbal abuse in the 1950s and 1960s, civil rights organizations such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) won a public relations war in their fight for Constitutional rights being denied to minorities by local governments.

• The FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted Fugitives” Program started off as a reporter’s request to name their most-wanted fugitives. Subsequent positive publicity after the story culminated into the “List.”

A Brief History of Public Relations

• Today, countries with expanding economies such as Korea and some countries of the former Soviet union, hire public relations firms to improve the perception that international investors have of them.

• In the wake of the September 11th, 2001 attacks on the United States, the U.S. government established media specifically designed to sway anti-U.S. sentiment in the Arab media:•“Al Hurra” is a slickly produced Arab-

language cable television network.•Radio Sawa is an Arab-language radio

service.• Radio Farda is a Farsi-language radio

service.•Hi Magazine is a geared towards Iraqi

elites.

A Brief History of Public Relations

• When someone poisoned Tylenol capsules in 1982, the president of Johnson & Johnson and other company officials sat down for a teleconference, a news conference in which newsmakers and reporters are in different locations but joined by a satellite hookup. This conference involved 600 reporters in 30 cities and allowed the company to explain the extraordinary precautions that Johnson & Johnson was taking to protect consumers.

• Teleconferences are also known as videoconferences and satellite media tours.

Milestones in Public Relations History timeline

Understanding Today’s Public Relations IndustryTop Public Relations Agencies by Number of

Employees

Source: PR Central at www.prfirms.org, accessed August 2006

Understanding Today’s Public Relations IndustryPublic Relations Activities

Public relations is a broad field that includes a wide range of activities. Research, counseling, and communication, however, are the three primary activities of the industry.

Understanding Today’s Public Relations IndustryPublic Relations Strategies

These are the primary strategic functions that public relations professionals perform their clients.

Understanding Today’s Public Relations Industry

PR Activities• Research that occurs through the public

relations process is used to:•define problems,• identify publics,• test concepts,•monitor the progress of a campaign,•evaluate its effectiveness when it is over.

PR practitioners are involved in decision-making and organizational policy-making of companies and politicians. This includes coaching clients on how to behave in an interview, offering grooming advice or teaching how to avoid answering direct questions.

Understanding Today’s Public Relations Industry

PR Strategies• News management techniques include:

•publicity stunts to create human-interest stories,

•creating news hooks to interest media gatekeepers in the information that clients want to publicize,

•developing media relations, or press relations, that maintain contact with reporters,

•using leaks and trial balloons to test public reaction to a major policy,

•granting exclusives to just one news outlet to increase the impact of publicity.

PR maintains good community relations by giving corporate aid to schools, charities and nonprofits.

Understanding Today’s Public Relations Industry

• Crisis management is the action used to repair a client’s public image following an emergency, such as a major error, accident, or sabotage.

• Lobbying is any attempt to influence the voting of legislators. The name comes from the practice of PR representatives speaking to lawmakers in the lobbies outside their hearing rooms.•U.S. companies spend hundreds of

millions of dollars annually in their lobbying efforts.

•Multi-million dollar industry associations are set up purely for the purpose of influencing how laws are written.

Understanding Today’s Public Relations Industry

Some Public Relations Tools• Press releases, or news releases, are short

documents, written in standard news form, for insertion into news reports.•Canned news and editorials are digital files

to be inserted verbatim into feature or editorial sections.

•Audio news releases include interviews and sound bites ready for insertion into news reports.

• Video news releases (VNRs) are ready-to-broadcast tapes. For example, a drug company might distribute a VNR that provides interviews with experts who have developed and tested a new drug along with satisfied users.

Understanding Today’s Public Relations IndustrySample Press Release Format

Understanding Today’s Public Relations Industry

Some Public Relations Tools• VNRs have become increasingly

controversial in recent years, and have come to be called Fake News, when they are used without attribution.

• A 2006 Center for Media Democracy study found 36 VNRs that had aired on 77 stations.

Controversies

The Ethics of PR Tactics• Many PR professionals and journalists

have a “love-hate” relationship. Neither respects the other’s job yet they need each other. Journalists call PR people “spin doctors and “flacks,” which derives from the term for WW II anti-aircraft fire.

• To some, spinning is the practice of twisting the truth so that what is said puts the best possible face on the facts. Critics contend that most spinning is a type of lying, or a half-truth at best.

• “The Big Lie” occurs when people state something they know to be untrue and stick to it in spite of all evidence in the hopes that the press and public will become confused by the issue and forget about it.

Controversies• Greenwashing is covering up environmental

problems caused by the client by associating that client with beneficial environmental actions.

• Many critics believe that freebies, including junkets, meals, and gifts designed to curry favor with reporters and magazine writers, amount to bribes.

• Much PR operates behind the scenes without attribution. One survey revealed that almost half of TV news directors admitted that they did not identify the source of VNRs on their programs.

• PRSA encourages ethical behavior by issuing accreditation to experienced members with good records who pass an extensive written and oral exam.

Mass Media

Jason NixJournalism Instructor and Program Director

JOURN 110Spokane Falls Community College