Governments and PR....To what cost?

As mentioned in an earlier posting, the topic up for discussion is not that our governments use PR tools to manipulate the general public through the mass media. The point is the almost aggressive approach to media manipulation employed to justify monumental events like the decision to invade a country.

Even though journalist's life are made easier when they news gathering task is made easy for them ( Alison Theaker, pg 34)that doesn't mean that every portion of news feed will be swallowed whole. When faults, lies and half truths are found out they only serve to erode the trust that the electorate have in their chosen government.

No matter what George W.Bush acheives in his two terms of presidency, the Iraq issue will always leave a bitter taste. Also on this side of the pond even though Blair is in his third term, it is with a greatly reduced majority and with calls for him to step down and hand power over to Gordon Brown.

Another effect of this trend is that with more and more consultancies like the Lincoln Group vying for contracts to act as third parties in spreading questionable government messages, where does this leave the PR industry from an image standpoint.

Public Relations and Media Management may work on clothing lines, cosmetics or movies but if they cover shaded truths all the consumer has to do is to stop using that product.

What is the real fallout when it comes to our governments? The results are probably seen in the ever decreasing number of voters. When it comes to governance, PR can only do so much.

Don't forget Mr. Blair!!

The US and their Public Relations campaign aside for the moment, there can't be a weblog based on governments and their use of PR without a section on Tony Blair!

It is safe to say that no other Prime Minister in Britain has been associated with presentation and media management like Tony Blair has. He has written regular newspaper columns, done webcasts, participated in regular radio broadcasts and has even been on Match of the Day!

During what has been called the reign of Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell,Kevin Moloney (Rethinking Public Relations, pg 18) points out that New Labour was seen by its critics as " a hollow creation of image makers with no spine or substance."

In an article written by CNN's Douglas Herbert the view is more rounded. It isn't that it is a full blown media manipulation circus, but more that Tony Blair uses every means possible to get in touch and be in the minds of his electorate.

So even though "the resources devoted to shaping political messages have increased dramatically in recent years, with more attention paid to questions of tactics, slogans and focus groups"... it is felt that it is a form of political survival. Therefore Tony Blair could be said to be using PR tools to stay ahead of the game.

He isn't the first politician to pay attention to image, presentation and media manipulation, but as Ivor Gaber notes in Herbert's article, Tony Blair has "developed this into a much finer art than its predecessor."

There maybe something in this as he has now entered his 3rd term and is the longest serving Labour Prime Minister to date.

And the beat goes on......

It has now been over two years since the United States led an invasion into Iraq. Unfortunately more soldiers and civillians have been killed since the beginning of the occupation than in the actual warfare carried out to gain control of the country. In Britain and very much so in the US there has been repeated calls for the troops to come back. Also in Iraq itself the Allied troops face unending hostility from Iraqis themselves. Once again the PR machine has been kicked into gear.

An article by the Los Angeles Times, shows that a Public Relations firm called the Lincoln Group has been contracted by the Pentagon to regularly pay for news stories to appear in the Iraqi press showing the US government in a positive light.

Fees for the articles range from $50 to $2000 per publication but in no way are the articles shown to be linked to the American government. As far as the VP of Lincoln Group is concerned "The information war requires us to counter lies, media manipulation, perceptions, rumor and misquotes. It requires us to support the media in Iraq; it requires us to counter the propaganda of terrorism; it requires us to educate fathers not to enlist their sons to be suicide bombers."

Be that as it may, this example further eradicates any respect that the Pentagon tries to hold on to, no matter how far officials have distanced themselves from this latest debacle.

A quick guide to effective PR. Part 2-Terminology and language

As many Public Relations textbooks will show, language is a key form of communicating the way a message is to be received. Simply by phrasing a comment a certain way can completly change the way it is meant to be perceived. This is seen everyday in the way consumer products are presented to the public. For example "high in calories" is turned into "high in energy".

The argument put foward here is that it is quite disconcerting if manipulative PR such as this is used by a democratically elected government to justify a form of action and make it sit right with the populace.Patrick Martin in his article calls this an "Orwellian Presentation." Below are some examples:-

"Regime Change" = Military Invasion
"Pre-emptive Defence" = Attacking a country that is not attacking you
"Axis of Evil" = Countries we want to attack
"The war on terror" = According to Brian Eno that's a hold all excuse for projecting American military force anywhere.

A quick guide to effective PR. Part 1- The Photo Opportunity

Remember this?

This picture and others like it were the main focus of newspapers and news channels both here in Britain and across the Atlantic on April 9th 2003. The caption from the New York Times was "Jubilant Iraqis Swarm the Streets of the Capital."

What we the public didn't know among other things was that, Firdos Square where this was taking place was across the street from the Palestine Hotel where most international journalists were staying. Also according to the BBC the crowd were actually roughly 2-3 dozen Iraqis and the rest journalists and soldiers.

It wasn't spontaneous celebrations but a controlled and monitored event. Small as the crowds were, even they started muttering when the soldiers put up the American flag (even I thought that was a bit cheeky) and luckily an Iraqi flag was found to replace it.

Even pointing out that this event was not what it was meant to be, doesn't mean that the Troops were never welcomed at all into Iraq. It is just that it is not the straight foward picture that several PR exercises would like the general public to think it is.

What came before.

Even though this blog is focusing on the sustained PR exercises that have been and are still being carried out to sway public opinion in relation to Iraq, a little time has to be spent on how that war got under way.

There is no denying that after September 11th an atmosphere of fear permeated the West. No attack had ever been carried out in the name of terrorism to that effect before. What the American government is being accused of is of using the attacks as a spring board for exploitation.

Academic reasons and theories aside, this is what I remember.....

1. Afghanistan being invaded to search for Bin Laden. Which made sense to me (even though he was never found), President Bush hailed it as a success because the Taliban regime was over thrown.

2. Then out of no where (it seemed to me) we were all talking about Iraq! That Saddam was an "international security threat". That there was concrete proof of weapons of mass destruction etc. I remember having the feeling that we were meant to believe that all he had to do was press a shiny button in his office and we would all be blown to smitherins!

In his article, "Lessons in how to lie about Iraq", Brian Eno questions why suddenly the only news of importance just seemed to be about Iraq and Saddam. He states, "...the only thing we talked about for a year was Iraq and Saddam Hussein. Was it really that big a problem? Or were we somehow manipulated into believing the Iraq issue was important and had to be fixed right now- even though a few month before few had mentioned it, and nothing had changed in the interim ?"

While the arguments were raging from both sides, protests marches and stop the war campaigns were also going on. At the time I was an undergradute student in the School of Oriental and African Studies from where many of the marches took off. Even then there was sense of futility in protesting. Congress backed Bush and Parliament backed Blair and Iraq was evaded.

Eventually no weapons were found, but once again the PR machine kicked into gear to justify keeping the troops there.

PR manipulation and propaganda?...Not us surely?!

Many people (myself included), upon hearing the word propaganda immediately have visions of World War II Germany and Russia. They were of course obvious and extreme examples but are not the whole picture of what it means to manipulate public opinion.

In countries like America and Britain, we tend to pat ourselves on the back in relation to our pluralstic and democratic environment. For example Britain is held up as a shining example of a country with wide and varying newspaper coverage and the famous impartiality of the BBC. Therefore, propaganda in the famous sense is thought not to be an issue.

During increased periods of political activity like election time, party political broadcasts and billboard messages are taken with a pinch of salt. The British public are also aware of terms like spin etc, and feel more media aware than ever before. That though doesnt mean that our guard isn't dropped and that the effects of sustained PR campaigns are not felt.

According to Brian Eno of The Observer, what makes the manipulation of public opinion so effective is that we would laugh at the notion that it actually exists. He points out that we think "because we have free media, it would be hard for the Government to get away with anything very devious without someone calling them on it."

What will we be talking about?

This weblog will review the increased use of Public Relations and Propaganda by governments as an effective tool to aid what they want the public to be talking and thinking about.

It would be very naive to say that certain public relations tactics have never been employed by a government or political party to get their message across effectively through the mass media before, that is obviously not the case.

Yet since the events of September 11th 2001, the almost systematic effort by both the American and British government have never been so important in swaying public opinion in the run up to the war in Iraq. In the past four years the use of such tools of communication seem to have increased, hand in hand with the people spotting and exposing them, therby not only rendering them ineffective but also adding to PR's negative image.