The classic association of the country of The United States of America is the word “Freedom.” The United States is synonymous with “the land of the free.” It is core to the values of the US where in American democracy freedoms is considered essential to citizen’s way of life. The definition of democracy is an organization of government in which people have a say in policies, and are educated enough to make informed decisions. A “good” democracy then requires a way for them to determine what is going on in their government in country in order to make choices, which will affect the outcome of government decisions. This is why media is considered essential for a true democracy. Government is never perfect and a democracy allows for things to be corrected. The truest form of democracy is direct democracy, a form in which every decision, large and small, determined by the vote of the people. This is not practical because 300 million people in the United States, so we need a representative democracy and that representative democracy needs a reliable media that accurately reports on the issues. Since the rise of the public relations industry in the 1920s, the question of the accuracy and reliability, and unbiased reporting of journalist is questionable. Three recent documentaries/series cover different aspects of this issue: Century of the Self, Toxic Sludge is Good For You, and The Persuaders. Each of the works reports on a different aspect of the current state of affairs between government, media, and it’s affect on democratic freedoms.
Toxic Sludge is Good For You covers the how marketers, companies, and politicians agendas are being pawned of on citizens as news. It begins with the following thesis: “In societies like ours here in the United States where we believe we have a democracy and free press and there can be no propaganda, in fact we are the most propagandized people in history because the type of propaganda that is waged in western democracy is waged by commercial advertising, marketing and especially public relations (Toxic Sludge Is Good For You, 1995). The filmmakers point out that large corporations are spending most of the money in PR, some voices will e louder than others, and big business has the connections and time and money. (Toxic Sludge Is Good For You, 1995).
The premise of the documentary is not that all public relations and marketing is bad, simply that it is being misused. Indeed, Ivey Lee, who was one of the founders of the industry, came up with the idea for news releases and news conferences which are used to inform the public of safety measures, charities, hospitals and a variety of other ways (Toxic Sludge Is Good For You, 1995). The way the film sees it, Public Relations is not being presented to lead citizens to making positive decisions to affect the current state of affairs within their lotus in control. Rather, people and institutions—well funded ones—with political and economic motives are trying not to present facts, but to lead them to a certain set of prepackaged beliefs.
Phenomenon and events as large in scale and wars are being sold to citizens in place of facts that let citizens draw their own conclusions. Before the first US troops were sent to battle in the First World War, there was a war to sell it to the American citizens in a propaganda campaign that involved the person considered to be the father of propaganda, Edward Bernays.
Part of the problem is the current economic climate of local news agencies, and the ascendancy of corporate news houses in which a few economically privileged individuals control a large amount of media. Small news stations with decreasing budgets and smaller staffs are often temped to pick up prepackaged advertising masking as news. The problem with this is that the consumer of this media mistakes it for news, when it actually is a prepaid advertisement.
The documentary features former PR Professional Diane Samples, who concludes the program by saying, “The important thing to do [in the current media climate] is to have a variety of sources.” Unfortunately, that is a normative prescription that many citizens are no following.
PBS’s Frontline program’s series The Persuaders tells the story what lies behind those producing such prepackaged programing and masking it as advertisers. When people are ware that someone has a strong ideological agenda, they are going to be more likely o take any claims they make with a grain of salt. But when the source of the information is hidden, the information, often presenting in ways that preach strong to the emotional, irrational side of the brain, and will be effective in affecting a consumer’s behavior.
When one thinks about it, the real differences between products like Coke and Pepsi are reliable. But the reason both companies spend Billions of dollars each year is to connect their products with an emotional level of a consumer who will be drawn to choose one over the other because of that deeply implanted feeling the producers of the soda have succeeding in implanting into a person from their influence (The Persuaders, 2004).
That advertisers and public relations rose to prominence around the same time that modern psychology was gaining ground in academic spheres is not coincidence. Century of the Self is a series that shows how Freudian ideas were seen by politicians and marketers as ways to exploit public opinion.
These current media trends are very alarming, in which they could lead to an Orwellian 1984 scenario in which freedom is a work employed by propaganda campaigns but is not a human right actually enjoyed by citizens of the United States. As all three documentaries show, propaganda campaigns have been employed by the US government in order to cause citizens to think the way a particular regime thinks. This is a dangerous short stepping to letting citizens use their own discretion.
Indeed very recent events seem to show that the United States is headed towards a governmental system that reflects George Orwell’s book 1984. Due to the recent controversy of Edward Snowden over oversteps at the NSA, the discussion of freedom and the media’s influence over citizen’s discretion is more relevant than ever. Many believe we have already progressed to a political world that mirrors the fictional world of Orwell’s creation. The saving grace is that documentaries exist in a place of free speech. Citizens, at the end of the day, are responsible to not only be informed, but to realize where they are getting their information. If the citizens allow themselves to be influenced, then the country they live in will be of their own communal making.
Works Cited
Curtis, A. (Director). (2009). The century of the self [Documentary]. USA: BigD Productions.
Goodman, B. (Director). (2004). The persuaders [Documentary]. USA: PBS Home Video.
Robb, M. (Director). (2003). Toxic sludge is good for you [Documentary]. USA: Media Education Foundation.
