Putting the PR into propaganda

Time and time again the question of public relations being propaganda is raised, in all matter of contexts from pub debates to academic teachings, yet will the two ever be separate? This blog could go on and on, but I am hoping this extremely brief overview, primarily looking at the foundings of both of these practises will help put the matter to rest, for a short time at least.

Throughout the history of public relations many critics and practitioners alike have acknowledged to some level that there are visible connections between public relations and propaganda, do this connections, founded centuries ago, still hold consequences within modern society?

Public relations as a practise has many definitions one offered by Cutlip regards public relations as: ‘The management function that establishes and maintains mutually beneficial relationships, between an organisation and publics.’ However this is not the only definition, others are also available.

The history of public relations is culturally specific; however three main countries offer prevalent histories to the development of public relations as it is known it today, these countries are: United States, U.K and Germany. I think for this part however I will exclusively asses the development within the UK.

It is impossible to examine the history of public relations without mentioning Edward Bernays, Bernays’ career in public relations lies in the arts; he was the nephew of Sigmund Freud and often used tools associated with social psychology and persuasion, to explore how the human mind could be controlled.

Public relations in the United Kingdom was much slower in it’s original development than public relations in the United States, yet much like the United States, U.K public relations focused on the importance of practice as a form of communication. Differences arrive in the driving forces behind public relations in these two countries, where U.S public relations focused heavily on commercial interests U.K public relations in the 1920s and 1930s was public sector and local government driven. In U.K public relations with regards to local governments, press divisions were used to promote their importance in society; this proved very successful, and, in 1922 NALGO (The National Association of Local Government Officials) encouraged all local governments in Britain to adopted press divisions.

The history of U.K public relations also shares links to both World Wars, where public relation practices were used to encourage unity amongst the population in times of uncertainty, most notably in the Second World War, with documentary film making. It is with particular empathises on war time public relations in the U.K that the line separating public relations and propaganda becomes blurred.

As with public relations, propaganda is a form of communication defined as, ‘the deliberate and systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions and direct behaviour towards a certain response’ (Jowlett and O’Donnell). Propaganda has roots in the seventeenth century Catholic Church, in which it was employed simply to mean ‘propagating the faith’, propaganda within its original use, was a tool of neutral connotations.

Negative connotations surrounding propaganda arose through its use in the Second World War to by Nazi’s to promote anti Semitism messages, this removed propaganda from its neutral origins into one with extremely negative connotations.

For public relations to be an effective channel of communication the industry relies heavily on reputation, but reputation is a trait that cannot be brought by practitioners, it has to be earned.

…..The differences arise when we look at how these objectives are achieved.

With regards to engineering public consent propaganda offers no negotiation or dialogue with its audience or publics. Public relations however operates with an element of free will available to its publics, or, 2 way asymmetrical communication

Public relations also differs from propaganda in the type of opinions it attempts to engineer. Public relations is primarily concerned with central opinions, of high regard to the addressee, Propaganda is concerned with peripheral or surface views, of much less importance to the addressee and so, are much easy to alter or change.

With this is mind it becomes apparent that differing techniques and skills are deployed by the two practices in achieving their objectives of engineering public opinion.

When examining public relations, before a public to even considers changing their opinions, there are certain items that must be addressed, first by publics, regarding the addresser and then in the message being delivered. Often this underpins a referral to ethics, a factor that dissociates public relations from propaganda, propaganda is not concerned with following ethical guidelines; instead it aims to disseminate its message to as large an audience as possible.

Public relations practitioners however do, or rather should, follow ethical practises of persuasion.

The importance of language.

In public relations emotive language is carefully chosen by practitioners to communicate more effectively with their publics, this language tool is further effective if public relations practitioners also employ audience segmentation, using rhetoric language most identifiable to certain publics, - yet although differing rhetoric is used it is important to note that the same message is delivered.

Ultimately it would be hard to ever dissociate public relations completely from propaganda; in fact many practitioners and critics alike acknowledge that to some degree public relations is n ‘ethical’ propaganda. The question is how deep these ethics run; as many of them are subjective

In recent years corporate social responsibility has tried to tackle some of these issues, yet this is just a small drop in an ocean of solutions

The key to all this I feel lies within the intelligence of our audience, society is heavily criticised as being a fast food culture, with everything being readily available and highly disposable- yet this very same society, can pick and choose messages as it pleases; negotiating, declining or accepting the reading offered. Our culture of readily available media sources, I feel is making us a more refined society, we don’t have to accept the first reading offered, we are more than capable (and will!) go to the next source, and the one after should we need too.

This newly found educated audience is more intelligent, and more so than ever practitioners are having to up there game.

Although propagandas founding within society lies amongst its war time use, critics of public relations have linked propaganda to corporate modern day public relations practices, in order for public relations to not become propaganda, regulatory bodies ensure, practitioners today are monitored (in its loosest possible term). This is just another measure that has been adopted in recent years.

Public relations will never be fully dissociated from propaganda, due to shared historical connections between the two. Ultimately maybe the best action to take here would relate to ‘good’ PR practise, we should acknowledge and be forth-right in our links with propaganda.

We will never totally be free of our propaganda ties, and maybe this is not a bad thing, as long as we can recognise and act on our differences, building on the downfalls of propaganda as our predecessor, maybe we will achieve the wholly trusted status we desire?

….Who am I kidding…..as much as the above would be would benefit public relations within an ideal world, I somehow think, for now at least, public relations and its practitioners will continue to bear the cross of propaganda.