Political Communication, PR & Propaganda

Lewis, J., Inthorn, S. and Wahl-Jorgensen, K. (2005).   Citizens or Consumers? What the Media Tell Us About Citizen Participation .   Maidenhead: Open University Press [Ch 8] This week we will examine the role of the public or citizens in political debate in the mediated public sphere.   Drawing on this week’s key reading, we will consider whether the public are represented and addressed as active and engaged citizens with opinions on policy choices, or as political consumers making passive choices between leaders and their agendas. Claims about public opinion in the news “While the news makes frequent references to citizens and public opinion, it does so with very little reference to any identifiable source of evidence […] only 3% of references to citizens or publics on television news in the USA or Britain make any reference to polling data.   “If polls are the only systematic form of evidence available to journalists about what citizens think ...

Miller, David, and William Dinan (2007) ‘Public Relations and the Subversion of Democracy’ in Miller and Dinan (eds.) Thinker, Faker, Spinner, Spy: Corporate PR and the Assault on Democracy . London: Pluto Press Miller and Dinan outline Grunrig’s four-part model of PR, which acknowledges undemocratic practices, but suggests that PR has moved on to more legitimate approaches: “It distinguishes ‘press agentry’ , which is most commonly identified with promotional media work; ‘public information’ , which uses one-way communication to promote a given message, perhaps in the public interest; the two-way asymmetrical model , in which feedback and perhaps market research and public opinion polling are used to manipulate audiences more effectively; and a two-way symmetrical model which is alleged to help ‘create mutual understanding’ between an organisation and its publics.” (Miller and Dinan 2007: 16) Which of the above categories would you place the followin...

Here is an interesting article Rubin brought to my attention from The Guardian newspaper's series The Long Read.  If the 'long' bit puts you off, it's also available as a podcast audio version