It’s Not Just PR

Mixing Policy, Social, and Private Changes: Direct-to-Consumer Advertising and Big Pharm

About the Authors

W. Timothy Coombs is Professor in the Nicholson School of Communication at the University of Central Florida. His books include the award-winning Ongoing Crisis Communication (2007) and Code Red in the Boardroom (2006). With Sherry J. Holladay, he is co-author of Managing Corporate Social Responsibility (Wiley Blackwell, 2011) and PR Strategy and Application (Wiley Blackwell, 2009) and co-editor of The Handbook of Crisis Communication (Wiley Blackwell, 2010). He has worked with consulting firms in the U.S. and Europe on ways to improve crisis communication efforts for their clients.

Sherry J. Holladay is Professor in the Nicholson School of Communication at the University of Central Florida. She teaches courses in public relations and corporate communication and her research interests include corporate social responsibility, crisis communication, reputation management, activism, and stakeholder relations. Her work appears in the Journal of Public Relations Research, Public Relations Review, Management Communication Quarterly, Journal of Communication Management, and International Journal of Strategic Communication.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Elizabeth Swayze and Wiley Blackwell for their support of this book over the years. The book was a bit of a risk given its topic and format but it seems to have worked for all involved, including its readers. We also would like to thank Allison Kostka and Julia Kirk for their patience and help with the revisions, and to thank those reviewers who provided feedback to the revision plan. It takes a team to publish a book, and we are happy to be part of such a great team.

Introduction to the Second Edition

When we had the opportunity to write the first edition of this book, our task of developing a title was challenging due to the book’s unconventional approach and topic coverage. But the title, It’s Not Just PR: Public Relations in Society, seemed to capture our ideas quite well. The title was designed to reflect the frustration of many academics and practitioners who feel the term “public relations” is trivialized, misunderstood, and misused. Its colloquial use tends to be tainted with negative connotations as critics lament the substitution of “public relations” for facts, substance, or the “real story.”

We welcome our opportunity to broaden readers’ understanding of public relations by offering a perspective designed to “complicate” public relations by addressing corporate uses and limitations of a corporate-centric view of public relations but also presenting alternative views and analyses to expand our thinking about “what counts” as public relations.

Public relations activities continue to be equated with distortion, manipulation, and stonewalling, and depicted in negative ways. The public’s dependence on the media, coupled with the media’s misuse of the term, translates into a lack of understanding of the practice. Unfortunately, there are far too many incidents where corporations have used public relations in unethical ways to pursue economic self-interests at the expense of the public interest, thereby reinforcing its tainted image. In spite of reports of activist actions that positively impact on society, such as those of Greenpeace, Labour Behind the Label, UK Uncut, and PETA, the public is unlikely to identify these as examples of public relations. Negative connotations of public relations may lead people to wonder if society would be better off without public relations.

Consistent with the vision of the first edition, the second edition of It’s Not Just PR invites readers to develop a more complex and complete understanding of the practice of public relations. Societal developments, including the increasing effects of globalization and communication technologies on business and activist practices, as well as events that spotlight both ethical and unethical uses of public relations, are well represented in this new edition. New extended examples that illustrate the use and growing importance of social media as a communication tool are included.

This second edition of It’s Not Just PR should help readers understand why society benefits from the practice of public relations. The new edition expands our examination of the role of power in public relations and the use of public relations by non-corporate entities. At the time the first edition was written, the concern with power along with critical and postmodern approaches to public relations were underdeveloped, especially within the United States. We are proud to have helped introduce readers to these perspectives and are gratified with the positive responses we receive to our presentation of these ideas. In many ways we were well ahead of the curve in exploring these ideas, which is not always the most comfortable position for publishers. We hope that the increasing interest in power and activism, along with greater acceptance of more “radical” ideas in the published academic literature, confirms the value of our vision that guided the development of the first edition.

This edition examines both the microlevel and macrolevel (societal, global) processes and outcomes of the practice of public relations. The microlevel examines what defines and constitutes public relations. We focus on the relationship between organizations and their stakeholders, people who are affected by and can affect the organizations. The issue of power is central to our exploration of the relationship dynamic. People often think of corporations, especially multinational corporations, as very powerful compared to average citizens. Sources of power for stakeholders and organizations are discussed with an eye to demonstrating stakeholders’ potential for influence on corporations and society. As suggested by stakeholder theory, stakeholders can develop power resources to participate in the marketplace of ideas. However, in most cases the power advantage lies with the corporation. The interdependence between organizations and stakeholders is central to our appreciation of power dynamics and ethical practices in the web of relationships.

The macrolevel focuses on how public relations can impact society by influencing laws, behaviors, and values. A macrolevel examination exposes limitations of a purely corporate-centric approach to public relations. We address how the practice of public relations extends well beyond corporations and national borders and must be considered within the global context. Global public relations as a form of transnational activism and public diplomacy has been growing. Its expansion and effectiveness has been aided by the Internet. Case studies illuminate how activists, including PVOs, use the Internet and public relations practices to influence corporate and governmental practices around the world.

We are not so naive as to believe that public relations is not used to pursue or to obscure courses of action that harm stakeholders and society. Public relations is not all-powerful, exclusively corporate, or always harmful to stakeholders and society. Nor is it only used by activists and non-profits to benefit stakeholders and society. The reality is that public relations is a complex mix of all these factors and more. Our goal is to complicate your thinking about public relations by peering behind the misuses of the term to examine its role in society. In the end, we hope this book demonstrates how public relations does have a place in and can be beneficial to society.

Does Society Need Public Relations?

Conceptualizations of what constitutes public relations cast a wide net and demonstrate a lack of consistency. And when something is labeled by the media as a “public relations” action, it seems to be with a negative, disparaging tone (e.g., “mere public relations,” “PR spin,” “PR hype,” “PR rhetoric,” or “a public relations stunt”). As described in the media, virtually anything that a corporation or its representatives does may be labeled as “public relations” and treated with suspicion. Activities as diverse as attempts to explain a negative financial report, launch a new product, encourage employees to volunteer in the community, and donate money to a charity, have all been identified as “public relations.” What, then, is not public relations?

Critics of public relations tend to focus attention on what they call public relations efforts involved in defending the most obvious and egregious violations of the public trust: cover-ups (such as Enron, Tyco, and HealthSouth), CEO/CFO scandals, the spokesperson who deceives the public in order to defend the actions of the organization, and illegal dumping of toxic chemicals. Attempts to minimize or conceal these scandalous actions often are cast as “PR ploys” designed to deflect the negative impacts of questionable corporate actions including suspicious financial reports, management misbehavior, dubious environmental records, or human rights violations. Public relations becomes equated with stonewalling. Stonewalling is the attempt to hide information or delay its release. The public relations practitioner becomes a barrier to the truth, not the bringer of truth.

Scandals attract attention. Good deeds and the mundane are less likely to generate media exposure. What go unrecognized are the more commonplace and typical PR efforts that characterize the daily existence of organizations (e.g., employee communication, community relations, etc.). Examples include announcements about promotions, recognition of awards won by an organization, or efforts to support local charities or community groups. These more accurately characterize the PR efforts of most organizations. Very few PR practitioners are ever in the position of managing major scandals like those generated by News Corporation, Lance Armstrong, and Olympus. Public relations is the subject of heavy criticism in a number of cultures. Upon learning of these criticisms, people are often left to ponder if society needs public relations. Without it, would society be better or worse off? Both professionals and academics have tried to defend the practice. Often the defense attributes to public relations very lofty pursuits, which seem rather unrealistic. By reviewing the good and bad of public relations we can better appreciate its place in society.

The first half of the chapter examines the negative effects of public relations. We start by reviewing media portrayals. Most people learn about the practice of public relations through media coverage of the field and use of the term. Hence, the media help to construct people’s perceptions. Public relations has some individual vocal critics as well. We examine the main critics and the reasons for their disdain. As a corollary, some of the popular press books on public relations are surveyed. Public relations can be its own worst enemy by emphasizing the aspects most despised by its critics.

The second half of the chapter considers the utility of public relations in a democratic society. Practitioner and academic defenses of public relations are presented. The chapter ends by offering our conceptualization of public relations. We provide a definition of public relations that highlights the role of communication, relationship management, and mutual influence between organizations and stakeholders. This provides the basis for understanding where public relations fits into the needs of society.

Media Use and the Term “PR”

In late 2012, Internet reports began to appear that Instagram, an application for sharing digital images, intended to sell any photos flowing through the application to advertisers. In other words, Instagram could sell any of your pictures that you posted through Instagram without your consent or compensation. The CEO of Instagram, Keven Systrom, quickly began blogging and backtracking on the idea as people began canceling or threatening to cancel their accounts. One media outlet characterized the CEO’s response as “more spin than anything else” (Adhikari 2012). In December of 2012, the Armed Forces of the Philippines released a statement saying the organization would celebrate National Human Rights Consciousness Week with a variety of events designed to show their commitment to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. A news story, critical of the Armed Forces, said the statement “is pure and simple PR spin” (Legaspi 2012, para. 10). These examples illustrate how the media often report on public relations as actions that are style with no substance or even a type of deception.

Although we frequently hear people refer to public relations, the practice of public relations is not well understood. The media may be at least in part to blame for the public’s lack of understanding because they tend to use the term “public relations” inaccurately and to focus on some types of PR practice while ignoring others. It is important to consider seriously these portrayals of the uses of public relations and its professionals because they shape people’s perceptions of what PR is, when it might be used, and what PR professionals do. The unfortunate part is that, as is shown by systematic research into media portrayals of public relations, comparing them with the reality, these portrayals are negative (for instance, they equate PR with deception) as well as quite limited. They fail to capture the full range of PR activities and focus mainly on publicity functions. Additionally, the media often label communications and actions as “mere PR” when they really are not what PR professionals would consider public relations. Overall, the media’s use of the term “PR” seems fraught with negative connotations. Empirical research has established the extent of distortion in these portrayals. In 1988, Bishop discovered PR was equated with “publicity” in the newspaper coverage in a sample of three newspapers. Keenan (1996) found nearly half of the references to public relations in major network media coverage reflected the press agency model. Public relations was portrayed as nothing more than trying to generate media coverage. Julie Henderson (1998) examined the use of the term “public relations” in 100 popular press media articles. In about 5 percent of them the term PR was used accurately, in ways that would be acceptable to the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), the professional association. This is problematic because the media are a key source of cues for building reputations when people have little interaction with an entity (Dowling 2002). Most people learn about public relations from the media, not from practitioners.

The problem of limited or inaccurate conceptions of public relations is compounded by the negative use of the term itself, as in the Instagram example, and by negative comments about PR. Henderson’s (1998) research found that in only about 7 percent of the articles could the references to PR be considered “positive.” Spicer (1993) found the majority (83 percent) of references to public relations in print media were negative.

Scrimger and Richards (2003) explored Canadian journalists’ uses of metaphors of violent conflict to describe communication between organizations and the public. They examined articles where journalists used the term “public relations battle” or “public relations war.” They found these phrases were invoked even though the reality of the situation often did not justify the use of inflammatory metaphors. In more than one-half of the cases (55 percent), the terms were used in the first paragraph of the story. In all cases the choice of word was the journalists’; no sources were directly quoted as using either of the two phrases. Thus, their research demonstrates that journalists are prone to frame situations as “violent confrontations” (PR wars or battles) in spite of the fact that the participants do not describe their situations in this way. The media coverage offered a conflict frame even though there could be areas of consensus or agreement between the parties. These types of portrayals could lead the public to misperceive typical PR practices as involving disputes rather than collaboration. Research consistently demonstrates a negative portrayal of public relations and/or use of the term in the media. Media treatment of public relations is an indirect form of criticism. Others have been more direct in their disdain for public relations.

Criticisms of Public Relations

It is not difficult to locate critiques of the practice of public relations. Critics of public relations are numerous, vocal, and profess allegiance to a variety of disciplines. Critiques can be found in popular press books and in journalistic discussions of public relations. These sources are now reviewed to understand why public relations is considered by some to be a pariah in society.

Popular press attacks on public relations

Two popular press books stand out for casting a critical eye on the practice of public relations: PR! A Social History of Spin (1996) and Toxic Sludge is Good for You! (1995). Popular press books, in contrast to more academically oriented books, are aimed at a wide, general audience. It is noteworthy that there is little agreement in them on what constitutes public relations. These popular press books reflect an attitude that seemed particularly prevalent in the 1990s, a time that corresponds to the growth of corporate power. An underlying theme in both books mentioned above is that large corporations are dangerous and that public relations is one of the tentacles on this dangerous octopus.

Often popular press books present examples from the history of public relations, select dramatic illustrations to reveal its “unethical nature,” and focus on how contemporary businesses (or governments) use PR to pursue economic objectives at the expense of the public interest. The examples serve to represent the whole. Synecdoche is used as an argument. If part of what public relations does is bad, then everything public relations does is bad. A part comes to represent the whole.

Stuart Ewen’s PR! A Social History of Spin, recounts the development of the practice of public relations by focusing on the commonly recognized pioneers of public relations, Edward Bernays (the “father of public relations”) and Ivy Lee, and identifies scholars who influenced their thinking (e.g., Walter Lippmann, Gustave Le Bon). He also contextualized various public relations efforts conducted by private industry and government within various historical, economic, social, and corporate periods. Ewen writes that his book focuses on “the social and historical roots that would explain the boundless role of public relations in our world” (1996: 3). Interestingly, Ewen does not define a key word in his book’s title, “spin” (nor does it appear in the index), perhaps because he assumes the savvy reader will assume that PR and spin are synonymous. (From the title alone, how is the prospective reader supposed to know that this is a book about public relations?)

Near the end of the book Ewen writes that public relations is designed to “circumvent critical thinking” and is “rarely intended to inform the population about the intricacies of an issue” (p. 412). He expresses concern over the fact that the techniques used have become increasingly “sophisticated” and “pervasive” (p. 409). A theme of this work is that PR poses a real threat to democracy because it undermines open, public discourse. Powerful corporations can hire skilled PR professionals and gain access to the media in order to advocate their policies and points of view; they thus exercise enormous influence, which the average person cannot match. He suggests that the general public is untrained and ill-informed in sophisticated PR methods, and not equipped to assess PR output.

In the final section of his book he advocates education in media literacy in order to equip citizens with the analytical tools needed to critically analyze media messages and images; this education should begin in primary grades. We believe that media literacy is a laudable goal, and people should be discriminating consumers of mediated messages. However, public relations is not the sole force responsible for its need. Ewen’s book reflects a distrust of corporations: people must be wary of the deceptions enacted by corporations. And, as he says, public relations is a perfect mechanism for corporate deception.

John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton’s Toxic Sludge is Good for You! Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry, offers a highly critical view of PR which focuses on how it is used to deceive the public. Their goal is to enlighten the masses: “We want the public at large to recognize the skilled propagandists of industry and government who are affecting public opinion and determining public policies, while remaining (they hope) out of public view” (p. 16). They argue that the democratic process has been railroaded through the use of PR techniques. When we think corporations are doing something that is socially responsible or for the good of the public, we had better look more closely because we are merely being fooled. We should remain suspicious and scrutinize their PR actions to unmask what corporations gain from seemingly noble acts.

The book is comprised of interesting, lively-written case studies designed to reveal PR’s role in influencing public opinion and policy. Examples range from the tobacco industry’s attempt to get women to smoke to phony grassroots movements (astroturf) to McDonald’s partnering with the Environmental Defense Fund, from the Environmental Protection Agency’s involvement in getting communities to accept sludge farming to Hill and Knowlton’s role in securing US citizens’ support for the Persian Gulf War, and to Burson-Marsteller’s part in securing support for NAFTA. Again, PR is presented as an all-powerful tool used by powerful interests (corporations, governments) to gain and maintain their power.

A recurring criticism in Toxic Sludge is Good for You! is that PR efforts are not easily recognized as such, which makes PR even more insidious and powerful. Advertising (usually) can be recognized as advertising and is commonly understood to represent something that a corporation has paid for and therefore invites critical examination. However, they argue, PR practices commonly include the coopting of journalists who, owing to financial and personnel cuts in their news organizations, have become dependent on PR practitioners for pitches for news stories, use of video news releases, and basic access to information in order to meet deadlines. This results in journalists producing news stories that actually benefit corporations rather than the public (meeting the public’s “need to know”). What we think is “news” (because it appears in a newspaper or other media outlet) is really a pitch for corporate interests.

Stauber and Rampton also question the motives of organizations that partner with activist groups in efforts to appear socially responsible. While we might think that working with such groups is a sign of concern for the activists’ issues, the corporations are the ones that actually benefit from the alliances. The authors claim that these alliances are used to benefit corporate interests and prevent the groups from interfering with business operations. By “coopting” the activists, corporations are able to gather information from the groups and “know the enemy.” These alliances are designed to improve the image of the corporation and allow them to continue business as usual without truly addressing the contentious issues.

At times the authors seem ambivalent about the specific techniques and uses of public relations:

The PR professionals who work to manage our opinions and emotions are not doing this because they are evil, but because PR is a financially rewarding business. From their viewpoint they are simply providing a service to their paying customers. If PR poses a threat to democratic values, it is ultimately a manifestation of the deeper contradiction in corporate America – the gap between our dream of a governance “by the people, for the people” and the reality of a society deeply divided by unequal access to wealth and power (p. 203).

Many PR practitioners are engaged in promotional and publicity campaigns for clinics, schools and deserving charities that benefit the public. The techniques of public relations are not all inherently bad. Everyone at some time uses their skills of persuasion to communicate ideas, to sell products, promote a point of view, or “schmooze” socially. But positive uses of PR do not in any way mitigate the undemocratic power of the multi-billion dollar PR industry to manipulate and propagandize on behalf of wealthy special interests, dominating debate, discussion and decision (p. 205).

Citizens and individual PR practitioners can use ethical public relations techniques to right social wrongs, clean up the environment, promote minority rights, protect working people and make their communities better. But we consider it an illusion to imagine that PR is a “neutral” technology that can simply be adopted uncritically to achieve socially responsible ends (pp. 205–6).

This last sentence seems to endorse the idea that the practice of PR is inherently corrupt.

While Stauber and Rampton admit they do not offer a “magic solution” to the problem posed by PR in society, they hope that their book will help people to “first, learn to recognize the influence of PR in your life; second, seek out alternative sources of information; third, become personally involved in local efforts to directly address important issues at the community level” (p. 204).

A film version of the book is available: Toxic Sludge is Good for You: The Public Relations Industry Unspun. Here is the creator’s description of the film:

While advertising is the visible component of the corporate system, perhaps even more important and pervasive is its invisible partner, the public relations industry. This video illuminates this hidden sphere of our culture and examines the way in which the management of “the public mind” has become central to how our democracy is controlled by political and economic elites. Toxic Sludge Is Good For You illustrates how much of what we think of as independent, unbiased news and information has its origins in the boardrooms of the public relations companies.

Using interviews, the film repeats the primary points of the book. There also are interviews with former public relations professionals. These repentant individuals reveal the manipulative secrets of their trade. The focus remains on people’s ignorance of public relations’ role in creating the news through publicity efforts and how willing media representatives can be co-opted. Once more there is an underlying theme of the dangerous corporation. When non-corporate entities use public relations it is acceptable, but those corporations are sinister.

Stauber and Rampton are active in PR Watch, a quarterly publication from the Center for Media and Democracy that focuses on revealing the “dark side” of public relations. It bills itself as specializing in “blowing the lid off of the multi-billion dollar propaganda-for-hire industry” (PR Watch, 2005). The idea is that the newsletter, available free of charge online, reveals to people how public relations manipulates the news. By understanding the process, people will have a better chance of resisting it.

But perhaps the most vociferous critics can be found among the ranks of journalists. It is somewhat ironic that many historians trace the roots of modern public relations back to the actions of (former) journalists whose skills were purchased to benefit the interests of corporations. These journalists are described as leaving their positions with newspapers to assist corporations in appeasing the public. Corporations perceived that journalists possessed the skills needed to promote their organizations. Journalists’ technical competence in writing news releases was coveted by corporations keen to defend themselves against public criticism of their business practices. Robber barons, the early US industrialists, were among the first to “corrupt” journalists. This was a major shift from the “Public be damned” attitude expressed by railroad tycoon William Vanderbilt and seemingly embraced by his brethren. The practice of “working for” a particular client and representing partisan interests may not sit well with journalists who embrace the journalistic ideal of the objective crusader and protector of the public trust. The image of the “hired gun” of the corporation contrasts starkly with the idealized image of the unbiased journalist.

Criticism of public relations is nothing new. In fact, criticism erupted as soon as modern public relations began to be practiced by corporations in the late 1800s and early 1900s. It is noteworthy that the early criticisms sound remarkably similar to current criticisms. There has always been a fear that public relations could be used to hide unwelcome information and might subvert the accurate reporting of news.

Of course, critics note it is rather ironic that PR should be so frequently misunderstood and accused of having an “image problem” when one component of their role is to manage information, public opinion, and corporate images. Critics seem to delight in pointing out the inability of PR to manage its own reputation. The implication is that if the “image masters” cannot successfully manage PR’s reputation, the critics must be right! The practice of public relations must be so truly reprehensible that even the “spinmeisters” cannot salvage it. Critics interpret the inability of PR to elevate its reputation as further evidence of its inherent evil.

So what, exactly, drives the disparagement of the practice of PR? The following section outlines common themes expressed in critiques of public relations. This is followed by a few specific examples of what critical, popular press books have said about public relations practices.

Common themes in critiques of public relations

1. Public relations has kept the public ignorant about what “really” goes on in public relations.

The critical books are written and promoted as “exposés” on the PR industry. They promise to reveal behind-the-scenes machinations that will shock and sicken us and expose PR practitioners as the snake oil sales-people of our time. The public is portrayed as “duped” through the maneuvers of PR professionals who use sophisticated techniques to “spin” the truth. The public does not recognize PR efforts as being sponsored by and serving the interests of corporations or governments. The public is unaware of the nature and extent of PR and would be outraged “if only they knew.” PR efforts are assumed to present lies, or at least distortions, of the truth.

Social media has amplified rather than eliminated concerns over public ignorance of public relations practices. Supposedly social media and the Internet create transparency by exposing what organizations and individuals are doing (Gower 2006). In theory, organizations are more transparent because social media and the Internet will reveal if anything is being hidden (Coombs and Holladay 2010). (See Box 1.1: Overview of Transparency for more on the topic.) Social media is fraught with efforts to mask the identity of the communicator and to mislead stakeholders through the use of front groups, astroturfing, sockpuppeting, editing Wikipedia content, and buying social media.

Front groups purposefully obscure the source of a message to hide the self-interests of the source. People hearing the message think the front group is neutral rather than knowing the front group has direct stake in the issue (Fitzpatrick and Palenchar 2006). Front groups, such the Center for Consumer Freedom that fronts for restaurants and alcohol, are active online. Social media also is used for astroturfing, efforts to artificially generate grassroots support for an issue. Various social media channels are used to create the illusion there is strong support or opposition to an issue. SourceWatch actively tries to expose front groups and astroturfing through its website (Coombs and Holladay 2010).