This is an essay I wrote for my Chartered Institute of Public Relations Diploma.
To decide whether or not all public relations communication is organisational propaganda would first require cast-iron definitions of each term and defining both has always been a problem. The origins of the term propaganda seems to stem from the word propagate which came in the 18th century, from the Latin “propagare” (to propagate). The word relates to “propages” (a slip, a cutting of a vine) and refers to how gardeners produce new plants by planting shoots. So you could say propaganda is a form of communication aimed at “planting shoots” of ideas, or sowing seeds of ideas, with the goal of trying to influence attitudes toward a cause, a position, or a policy.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines propaganda as “any association, systematic scheme, or concerted movement for the propagation of a particular doctrine or practice”. It adds that the propagation of information is carried out “by an interested party, especially in a tendentious way in order to encourage or instil a particular attitude or response”.
Jowett and O’Donnell (2006) define propaganda as the “deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions, and direct behaviour to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist”. With much of what is thought about propaganda as negative, this definition could give us a good starting point to consider whether all public relations is organisational propaganda. However, there are far too many negative connotations with propaganda to assume anyone can consider ‘propaganda’ as a neutral term.
The first time the term propaganda was used in the sense we understand it now was in the 17th century Roman Catholic Church, which established the ‘de Propaganda Fide’ to “mobilise talented intellectuals of every sort into a vast social apparatus to persuade men and women all across the globe to believe in Christian doctrine or, if perchance they had fallen astray, to rekindle their faith” (Jackall, 1995). If the Roman Catholic Church was to do this now it may simply be described as public relations.
With the advent of mass media, war rape was used as propaganda to justify colonisation of places and the most notable example was perhaps during the Indian Rebellion of 1857 (Beckman, 2003). Here, Indian soldiers rebelled againstBritain’s attempted rule. While rape incidents committed by Indian rebels against British women or girls were uncommon, examples were exaggerated to great effect by the media to justify continued British colonialism in the Indian subcontinent. Stories were printed with little evidence to support them. This media management (or propaganda) was an attempt at changing public opinion much like public relations does today.
The most well known about propaganda in history is arguably that done by the Nazis in the leading up to and during Adolf Hitler’s leadership ofGermany1933-1945. This propaganda was an instrument for power, for the implementation of policies and the extermination of millions of people in the Holocaust. This use of propaganda is partly responsible for the word ‘propaganda’ acquiring its negative connotations (Welch, 1993). To say that Nazi propaganda is public relations would sit very uncomfortably with most people in communications roles today. Hitler later explained his ‘big lie’ theory.
When considering propaganda today, publics may still consider war communication or political party public relations to be propaganda. They may also consider that controversial companies or those that deal with sensitive subjects use propaganda.
Publics may, for example, see public relations undertaken by a power company to be propaganda. For example, as written about in PR Week, 11 December 2009, EDF Energy launched Green Britain Day, an initiative to “help people make long-term, low-carbon lifestyle changes”. However the adverts were criticised and called ‘greenwashing’, given EDF Energy’s heavy involvement in the global coal industry. (Sudhaman, 2009). This example fits well with the dictionary definition of propaganda in that EDF Energy are trying to encourage a particular response about their company. Using Jowett and O’Donnell’s definition you could describe this as propaganda. But are today’s publics too aware to not see the bigger picture, in this case that the company has questionable involvement with the coal industry? After all, media scrutiny of such companies is great and the media can highlight any discrepancies in an organisation’s business.
Hilton (2009) comments how after the World Trade Center terrorist attack in 2001, everything President George Bush wanted to do – from tax cuts for the rich to lifting the ban on oil drilling in the Arctic lands – was wrapped in the flag of defense and homeland security. He says:
“Any critic of tax policy or defender of the environment was branded as unpatriotic. Their credibility was undermined and the merits of what they said got lost… It is a bit of a stretch to say the same thing is happening here (in theUK) but… Governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, for example, has emerged as a notable critic of Government fiscal policy. One way of dealing with this would be to engage with King’s arguments on their merits. Instead he has been smeared by those mysterious people “close to the Prime Minister”, who so often appear as a source for stories, as being little more than a stooge for the Tories. Bizarrely, a similar thing happened last weekend to Lord Myners, the former fund manager who is now the minister for the City, in which position he has been a robust critic of what the City does. The smear in his case was a story in last week’s Sunday papers that he is going to study theology – the logic being that is he is drawing his inspiration from God, then one ignore his views on Mammon.”
What Hilton talks about echoes (albeit this are far less severe examples) the war rape stories from the 19th century. This media management is so done to provoke a negative reaction and to shape a view, regardless of the fact it is negative, in order to achieve (what the perpetrator believes to be) a greater good. What is clear in these examples of propaganda is that there are blatant lies. The organisation in question would argue that their media management is simply public relations. Bearing in mind publics opinion of what propaganda is, these examples of public relations could be viewed as propaganda.
There are examples of where a ‘big lie’ can be used to great effect and the expression was coined by Adolf Hitler in his 1925 autobiography Mein Kampf. He described a ‘big lie’ as a lie so “colossal” that no one would believe that someone “could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously”. Some 16 years after Hitler’s first use of the phrase ‘big lie’, Joseph Goebbels put together a theory which has come to be more commonly associated with the expression. He wrote the following in an article, “Aus Churchills Lugenfabrik” (translated “From Churchill’s Lie Factory”:
“The essential English leadership secret does not depend on particular intelligence. Rather, it depends on a remarkably stupid thick-headedness. The English follow the principle that when one lies, one should lie big, and stick to it. They keep up their lies, even at the risk of looking ridiculous.”
It can be argued that these big lies Hitler and Goebbels refer to are propaganda: they are forms of communication aimed at ‘planting shoots’ of ideas, with the goal of trying to influence attitudes toward a cause, a position, or a policy.
So can modern propaganda be described as lying and public relations as truth telling? Even now, public relations professionals question their role and whether it is one of lying and deception. This is highlighted by vows to not lie, which assumes that they admit they sometimes do not tell the truth. As detailed in PR Week, 23 October 2009, one public relations professional attempted to go a whole year without lying. Former journalist Cathal Morrow who has worked at agencies Pielle Consulting and JBA PR, wanted to go 12 months without lying to test German philosopher Immanuel Kant’s belief that lying was always morally wrong. He said:
“We spin our own lives the whole time. And in the long run it harms us in precisely the same way it destroys the reputation of companies, individuals and of course, political parties. I lied all the time in business. Or I manipulated what was partially true for my own advantage. Public relations is an industry with a pretty awful reputation, but the purpose of public relations should be to communicate information, not to manipulate what is true to create a temporarily convenient truth.”
If we assume that there are lies, or ‘big lies’, in propaganda and we accept what Morrow says – “the purpose of public relations should be to communicate information, not to manipulate what is true to create a temporarily convenient truth” – then we can assume that propaganda and public relations are not the same. Propaganda can involve lies and all public relations is truth-telling. Except it is not that simple. Without the cast-iron definitions there still appears to be some crossover because both, in one form or another, seek to manage messages. What Morrow says does not make it clear whether all public relations is organisational propaganda.
Kruckeberg and Vujnovic ask, “Propaganda was central to U.S public diplomacy in earlier times, and it remains central today, but does this centrality serve today’s public diplomacy needs?” They go on to explain that theUnited Statesmust now practice true public diplomacy, which should rely, not only on political theory and the theories of international relations, but also on theories and models of public relations that are based on two-way symmetrical communication and community-building. From this, we can assume that Kruckeberg and Vujnovic think propaganda is one-way communication, whatever the definition. But what about public relations?
Further on, the article talks about an article published in 2001 by former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Richard Holbrooke where he underscored what he believed to be the close link between public diplomacy (or relations) and propaganda. He said:
“Call it public diplomacy, or public affairs, or psychological warefare or – if you really want to be blunt – propaganda. But whatever it is called, defining what this war (on terrorism) is really about in the minds of the one billion Muslims in the world will be of decisive and historic importance.”
The article says Holbrooke talks about the “close link” between public relations and propaganda but reading his quote, it does not appear to me that he cares what the correct definition is. By saying, “whatever it is called”, we can assume it is not the definition that is important to him, but the message. A message is a message, whatever you refer to it as. Looking at whether or not the definitions matter and Holbrooke’s saying, “whatever it is called,” does it matter whether all public relations communication is organisational propaganda? After all, it is the message that matters. Will publics read a message sent from an organisation and consider whether it is public relations or propaganda?
It seems to matter to public relations professionals though as much time is devoted to defining the profession and the terms public relations and propaganda. The early public relations pioneer Bernays recognised the importance of communicating with publics but the difficulty in using the term propaganda. He said: “I decided that if you could use propaganda for war you could certainly use it for peace… Propaganda got to be a bad word because of the Germans using it so what I did was try to find some other word… Public relations.” However, Weaver, Motion and Roper (2006) outline why it matters that public relations should be considered separate from propaganda. They say that while public relations is popularly described as propaganda and spin, the ‘looseness’ of these critical descriptions of public relations are not helpful to the development of a sophisticated understanding and evaluation of public relations as a particular form of communicative practice which purportedly advocates for not only organisational interests but the public interests. The argument can be made that by dismissing public relations as propaganda, labeling it so fails to accurately reflect how it actually comprises part of the legitimate information management machinery of democratic societies. This is especially important when media and publics simply dismiss all government and political communications ‘propaganda’ when they try to communicate important information. Also, a related problem is the fact that the dismissal of public relations as ‘propaganda’ and therefore ‘bad’ reflects particularly pejorative view of the term ‘propaganda’ itself. As L’Etag (1997) noted, this simplistically defines propaganda as lying which by implication, places it in opposition to the truth. As all of the above suggests, the practice of public relations and propaganda are much more complex than is implied by these black-and-white oppositional terms.
The suggestion that all propaganda is lies and all public relations should be truth telling causes another problem. What is truth? Michel Foucalt (1980) argued: “Each society has its regime of truth, its ‘general politics’ of truth: that is, the types of discourse that is accepts and makes function as true.” So what is truth to one person, or an organisation, may not be to another. However trust is both a precondition and outcome of communication. So whoever is receiving the message must hold some trust with whoever is communicating with them to believe what they are saying and trust will be built with following communication. This can work in favour of organisations as well as publics though if we look at the theory of the ‘big lie’, which is tied closely to propaganda.
I believe that in organisations today, propaganda is so similar to advertising and public relations, which aim to promote a product or service or to shape public perception or image of a product or brand, or of a person, or of the company or organisation itself, that it is impossible to look at them separately. However, this does not mean that they are the same things. Grunig, says that a modern example of propaganda could be a static website. He explains that a website with one-way communication may be able to implement the propaganda model of communication (blogs one-way asymmetrical model and open sites such as Twitter two-way symmetrical models). So companies that are perhaps more cautious about using social media because of negative comment may still subscribe to use what Grunig considers a propaganda model. This ties in with Kruckeberg and Vujnovic who think propaganda is a one-way communication model.
The modern view of propaganda is fairly one-sided and an organisation would be foolish to say, or admit, they use propaganda. However, many organisations use public relations methods and tools and would have no qualms in admitting so. However, there are extremes in public relations. Some can manipulate, some companies use it in place of advertising as they think it is more genuine and better value. Some organisations use public relations for truth seeking. Having said all this, organisations that use one-way communication, or as Grunig calls it, the propaganda model, are using what they would consider to be public relations, but not very well. So not all public relations communication is organisational propaganda but it would be impossible to prove it and publics could be forgiven for thinking it is.
Written December 2009.
References
Beckman, K, Vanishing Women: Magic, Film, and Feminism, Duke University Press, 2003
Bernays, interview in ‘The staff of thought’, by Steven Pinker. Viewed at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0OrT-8gXMs
Goebbels, J, Die Zeit ohne Beispiel, Zentralverlag der NSDAP, 1941
Grunig, J, ‘Paradigms of global public relations in an age of digitalization’, Prism, vol. 6, no. 2, pp1-19, 2009
Hiltson, A, “If all else fails the mud starts flying’, PR Week, Haymarket, 24 July 2009
Holbrooke, R, ‘Get the message out’, The Washington Post, 21 October 2001.
Jackall, R, Propaganda,New York City Press, 1995
Jowett, G & O’Donnell, V, Propaganda and Persuasion, 4th edition, Sage Publications, 2006
Kruckeberg, D & Vujnovic, M, ‘Public relations, not propaganda, for USpublic diplomacy in post-9/11 world: Challenges and opportunities’, Journal of Communication Management, vol. 9, no. 4, pp296-304, 2005
Sudhaman, A, ‘EDF seeks consumer shop’, PR Week,Haymarket,UK, 11 December 2009
Weaver, C.K & Motion, J & Roper, J, ‘From Propaganda to discourse (and back again)’, The Public Relations Digest, Pearson, 2006
Welch, D, The Third Reich: Politics and Propaganda, Routledge, 1993
PR Week, ‘Agency promises to tell the whole truth’, PR Week, Haymarket, 23 October 2009
