Further Reading...

This week has included a further investigation into the roles of PR, spin-teams, spin doctors and their relationships with the Media to create a manipulation and control of public opinion.

McCombs, M et al (2011) The News and Public Opinion: Media Effects in Civic life.

I began this week's theoretical investigation by looking into the phrase- public opinion. What does public opinion mean? How does public opinion situate itself? Who controls or steers public opinion? Public opinion is an opinion of a collective group that ultimately share the same knowledge and understanding of the world around them in order to assert opinions within the so called public sphere (Habermas). [public opinion within a political context and influenced by the news media].

McCombs et al describe public opinion as:- 'public opinion often is narrowly regarded as the responses that people make to pollster's questions about public affairs. The realities of public opinion are much more complex, involving a swirling, ever-changing mix of thoughts, feelings and occasional behaviour. The influences shaping this mix range from our childhood experiences to our most recent conversations. Especially prominent, however, is the steady succession of messages that we receive from the daily news' (2011: 1). This relates back to the research I conducted on Mind and Behaviour in November as McCombs et all go on to iterate: 'the consistent impact over time that the mass media, whatever the medium, have on the thoughts, feelings, and behaviours that shape public opinion' (2011:5).

I also looked at the work of Louw, E (2010) The Media & Political Process (2nd edition). 

I found Louw's work extremely interesting and useful , especially in defining a public relations democracy, the role of spin-doctoring, media-ization of the political process and the spin industry:

Public Relations Democracy

'Refers to the idea that the politics of Western democracies have become so enmeshed with professionalized communication and a spin industry that democracy itself has become PR-ized' (Louw 2010)

Spin-Doctoring

'Spin-doctor is a term first used with reference to Ronald Reagan's media team in a New York Times editorial of 21 October 1984. Spin-doctors are professional Impression Managers who have become the interface between politicians and journalists. Spin-doctors are experts in 'hype' and the   arts of tele-visualized politics, i.e. they craft the 'faces' of politicians and script, stage and mange their political performances. To be successful requires that spin-doctors know how to use the media to their own advantage. This involves being familiar with journalistic practices and discourses. Ultimately spin-doctors are involved in trying to a) get journalists to see the world from an angle that suits the spin-doctor's  agenda; b) deflect attention away from issues and stories they want to 'bury'; and c) plant and leak stories. Spin-doctors are experts in using the media to 'steer' public opinion'. (2010:216)

Media-ization of the Political Process

'The media-ization has been seen as: the intrusion of public relations, spin-doctoring and hype into the political process. Media-ization is associated with the need that policy elites have to 'manufacture consent' and communicatively 'steer' the masses'. (2010:194)

Spin Industry

'Refers to the way in which spin-doctoring has been routinized in comtemporary Western politics through the widespread employment of a range of specialists who are expert in crafting televisual performances with a view to steering both mass and niche publics. These specialists include spin-doctors, public relations, consultants, minders, advertising consultants, public opinion pollsters, make up artists and speech writers' (Louw 2010).

From reading select chapters within this book it made me consider the role that the media have played in constructing my own knowledge and understanding of the world around me and the political issues and political process within it. 

This book by Dinan and Miller (2007) was extremely useful for understanding the term Public Relations. As they go on to argue: 'Public relations was created to thwart and subvert democratic decision making. It was a means for 'taking the risk' out of democracy. The risk was to the rested interests of those who owned and controlled society before the introduction of voting rights for all adults. Modern PR was founded for this purpose and continues to be at the cutting edge of campaigns to ensure that liberal democratic societies do not respond to the will of the people and that vested interests prevail. PR functions, in other words, as a key element of propaganda managed democracy'. (2007:11)

Going back to the likes of Edward L. Bernays (1928) Propaganda cited in Thinker, Faker, Spinner, Spy, Bernays shared the same view as the other PR pioneers- that public opinion must be manipulated by 'the relatively small numbers of persons' who understand the masses (2007:12).

Summing up Public Relations

The main charges that can be made against public relations as a discipline are:

1. It is overwhelmingly carried out for vested powerful interests, mainly corporation.
2. It is not open and transparent about its means or even about its clients and the interests it is working for.
3. It characteristically involves deception and manipulation.
4. It does not engage in democratic debate, but rather seeks to subvert it in the interests of its clients.
5. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) and other 'ethical' activities are all subordinated to corporate strategy.
6. PR has played a crucial role at the cutting edge of corporate power in the neoliberal revolution.  

(Dinan and Miller 2007:12)

'Living in a society which nearly every moment of human attention is exposed to the game plans of spin-doctors, image managers, pitchmen, communications consultant, public information officers and public relations specialists'. (2007:19)

So despite a small amount of theoretical research I've uncovered that under the umbrella phrase and role of spin-doctor, the following titles are suiting:

• Speech writer
• Policy maker
• Communications Officer [Director of Communications]
• Image Managers (this is my favourite)
• Communications consultant
• Public information officers
• Communication Strategist 

and so on... 

My next step is to watch these guys or 'special advisers' in action [interviews etc]:

• Alastair Campbell
• Peter Mandelson
• Charlie Whelan
• Andy Coulson [although resigned]
• Craig Oliver