A Critical Review of Moloney’s Chapter Five
Public Relations vs. Propaganda: A Critical Review of Moloney’s Chapter Five
Introduction and Summary of Chapter Five
In chapter five of the course textbook, Kevin Moloney provides a thorough discussion of the history and nature of public relations, particularly as it has been practiced in the UK. He covers the ideas of several of the most recognised PR scholars, including Sir Stephen Tallents, who used public relations as a way to promote business within the British Empire. Tallents framed what he was doing as “national projection” (p. 61). Others have called PR various names, such as “public diplomacy,” “public affairs,” and “media relations.” Some practitioners, notably Edward Bernays in the US, just flat out called it “propaganda” (L’Etang, 2008, p. 65).
Some of the examples given in the chapter are quite obviously propaganda, such as when the UK government strove to generate support for its participation in the First World War by referring to Germans as bloodthirsty “huns.” This appears to have been an attempt to dehumanize the Germans. It is much easier for the populace to feel that killing is acceptable if the enemy is less human than they are, especially if people understand the opposition as dangerous and hateful (Patrick, 2011, pp. 23-32) . This can be seen today in some of the ways that Muslims are depicted as terrorists (Lean, 2012, p. 10). Moloney also cites Michie’s influential PR book, whose title, Invisible Persuaders, clearly frames public relations as manipulative (p. 65).
While Moloney offers various views about the definition and role of PR in society, he does so in a way that gives the impression he agrees with the view that public relations is simply propaganda by another, euphemistic name. He states that the majority of thinkers, both lay practitioners and scholars, have conflated PR with propaganda (p. 68.)
Public Health Communication
Granted that a good deal of communication from governments is propaganda (Chomsky and Barsamian, 2015, p. 153). Take, for instance, anything from HMRC, which is going to be biased by nature, since the job of that department is to collect taxes with as little effort as possible. The government is taking one’s money, plain and simple, and it will spend a good deal of time and trouble to tell us why we should feel OK about that. There are no opposing views presented, and besides, opposing views are less useful, as they are likely to encourage illegal activity.
On the other hand, the government also produces thousands of brochures, broadcast announcements, Web documents and other materials that are designed to provide information to the citizenry about matters that affect the health of individuals and communities. An example is found in the recent announcements and news releases that Public Health England (PHE) put out about the Zika virus. The PHE also put together a special Web page on the virus, complete with advice on travel, blood donations, and other pertinent topics to help people avoid exposure or, if exposed, to get help.
If nothing else, content marketing provides a wide range of views and opinions on a topic, and the resulting diversity in point of view is antithetical to the idea of propaganda, where a single opinion is offered as fact. Because a given business wants to generate good feelings among its current customer base, as well as cultivate new customers, it directly identifies itself as the source of the messages. Consumers then have the option to look around for other opinions and approaches. This is a characteristic of information, not propaganda, even though the goal of the information is to affect the consumer's emotions and, ultimately, behavior. Furthermore, whether consumers do or do not accept the content as factual, they know from the start that it is presented by a business, whose commercial motivations are obvious. There is not much room here for manipulation.
In comparing content marketing to Tallents’ use of PR to promote the Empire Marketing Board (EMB), it’s clear that Tallents' work was less transparent, even though his materials presumably carried the logo and name of the EMB. The reason for this is that Tallents’ materials were consumed in real time and physical space, where the surrounding environment did not allow for differing views to be easily obtained. On the modern internet, alternative ideas, views, and even facts, are just a click away. Moreover, the nature of the internet is that people who seek to confuse or manipulate are identified rather quickly as spammers, and shunned thereafter. This is because there are millions of individuals ready to call out offenders, not to mention the search engine algorithms of Google and others, which are highly unlikely to guide users toward spam in the first place.
The Moloney chapter cites Williams as saying “information is a weapon of democracy,” and this rings true (p. 63). An informed citizenry exposed to a diversity of views is the best deterrent to dictatorship. The question is, at what point does information become propaganda? Patrick says that a hallmark of propaganda is when the source baffles a consumer with information that appears to be factual and scientific. The issue is not whether the information is accurate, but whether it is presented in context (p. 32). In propaganda, it is not.
This brings to mind McLuhan’s oft-quoted phrase, “The medium is the message” (1964, n.p.). If a particular article appears in a newspaper as editorial copy, it is more likely to be perceived as accurate than if the same information is presented in an advertisement. This is because a consumer recognizes an advert as coming from an interested source, while a presumptive news article seems unbiased. So it is not simply the content that is, or is not, propaganda, but its surrounding context, whether it appears in the office of a functionary of the British Empire, or on the internet, or as an advert in a printed newspaper.
The point here is that the line between propaganda and public relations is blurred, and circumstances such as the intent of the source and the place of consumption can greatly affect the way a piece of copy is consumed. We cannot look at the message without considering the messenger and the consumer. Thus, the Moloney chapter, while good on specific examples, misses the mark when it comes to providing reliable, universal criteria for what does, or does not, constitute legitimate public relations.
References
Anon. (2016) ‘Health Protection—Guidance: Zika Virus’. Retrieved from <https://www.gov.uk/ guidance/zika-virus> [Accessed 29 February 2016].
Chomsky, N. and Barsamian, D. (2015). Propaganda and the Public Mind. Chicago: Haymarket.
Lean, N. (2012). The Islamophobia Industry. London: Pluto Press.
L’Etang, J. (2008) Public Relations Concepts, Practice and Critique. London: Sage.
McLuhan, M. (1964) Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. Toronto: McGraw-Hill.
Moloney, K. (2006). Rethinking Public Relations: PR, Propaganda, and Democracy. London: Routledge.
Patrick, B.A. (2011) The Ten Commandments of Propaganda. Palmyra, MI: Goatpower.
Scott, D.M. (2015) The New Rules of Marketing & PR, 5th Edition. New York: Wiley.
