Comments on: Democracy’s Dirty Little Secret

By: Corporate Control Over the Public Mind? « Practical Communication: The art of communication in the real world

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 03:22:00 +0000

[...] Corporate Control Over the Public Mind? By ophelia69 A new book, “A Century of Spin: How Public Relations Became the Cutting Edge of Corporate Power” claims to uncover the secret history of the PR industry and relate our current, sanitized corporate PR environment to the dirty world of war propaganda. Although it seems a little far-fetched at first, upon further reflection it sounds about right. If you think about it, the goals of public relations align pretty closely with the goals of propagandists: Sway people to think positively about your message. Whether the message is “Apple products are swell,” or “Communism is the best system for the people,” the methods are the same. Authors William Dinan and David Miller make a good point when they say: The field of Public Relations research, the discipline of marketing, some aspects of Human Resource Management and Management and Business Studies more generally all bear the mark of propaganda victories… They verbalize what I have so often thought, not just about the fields of PR, marketing and communication, but about society in general: That there is something sinister going on here. Something to do with power and influence and the dynamics of how the powerful interact with the powerless. My optimistic conclusion? It’s not just people in positions of power — CEOs and presidents — that need to be careful of the corruption that can come so easily with that power. It might be more important for people near the powerful or in a position to sway the public to guard against the abuse of power. For another take on the book, see the great sociology blog, The SocJournal. [...]

By: Sarah

Sarah — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 02:20:20 +0000

As a PR and marketing professional, I can attest to the fact that this is basically all true. Living with the cognitive dissonance of knowing that all PR and marketing is essentially formalized, authorized lying and that millions of people have been brainwashed because of the field in which I work is somewhat disturbing. My only recourse is to a) switch industries (which wouldn’t really help) or b) sustain light brain damage.

By: monkov

monkov — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 12:33:51 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acVqHjMQFq4&feature=related
This video says a lot about the topic.

By: monkov

monkov — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 19:33:50 +0000

It is nice to know that people have looked into this topic. Indeed there is something strange to democracy as they serve it in western societies. They make it seem all possible, in the sense that you really have freedom, right and power to change things. The truth is when you run to the battlefield something hits you suddenly. An invisible wall I would call bureaucracy. Kind of unequal distribution of power that only becomes evident when you try to get something changed. Then you feel that from somewhere high, a paper called Constitution has a big mouth widely open, laughing at you, saying: “I am beautiful, but I am not for you.”.