M92MC
Week Four
Non-corporate PR
John Keenan
John.keenan@coventry.ac.uk
Week Four
So far…
• what is PR?
• Cultural framework
• Corporate PR
http://www.classtools.net/educationgames-php/fruit_machine
Today – non-corporate PR
Essay and practical
Media as Consciousness Industry
As social groups and classes live […] increasingly
fragmented and sectionally different lives, the mass media
are more and more responsible (a) for providing the basis
on which groups and classes construct an ‘image’ of the
lives, meanings, practices and values of other groups and
classes; (b) for providing the images, representations and
ideas around which the social totality, composed of all
these separate and fragmented pieces can be coherently
grasped as a whole. This is the first and great cultural
functions of the modern media: the provision and the
selective construction of social knowledge.
(Hall, S. 1977: 340-1)
Campaign Time
Groups of no more than 6.
https://m92mc.wordpress.com/module-guide/
PR Company name
Think of cause to control and promote the
interests of.
Who needs PR?
1. Activists
2. Charities
3. Us
4. Celebrities
Places
Politicians
Why?
1. Activists
1. How will you get into the news?
2. How will you control the news?
You have a church fete in aid of the new
steeple and you want The Coventry Evening
Telegraph to cover it
Your child needs an operation in America
and you need to get public donations
You are an animal rights activist group and
you want to publicise the plight of battery
chicken farms in Turkey
You are on strike against the car firm Nissan
and you want to get national support for
your cause
You are the Green Party and are
standing for election so need to publicise
your manifesto
Fathers for Justice Case Study
http://www.fathers-4-justice.org
Gitlin, the Whole World is Watching p.291:
•An Opposition movement is caught in a fundamental, an inescapable
dilemma.
BE RADICAL
If it stands outside the dominant realm of discourse, it is liable to be
consigned to marginality and political irrelevance, its deeper challenge to
the social order sealed off, trivialized, and contained.
PLAY THE SYSTEM
If, on the other hand, it plays by conventional political rules in order to
acquire an image of credibility; if, that is, its leaders are well-mannered, its
actions are well-ordered, and its slogans specific and "reasonable," it is
liable to be assimilated into the hegemonic political world view; it comes to
be identified with narrow reform issues, and its oppositional edge is
blunted.’
Cited in Ryan 1991: 1
Case Study 2: Lyme Bay
http://www.routledge.com/cw/theaker/s1/case-studies/
http://lymebayreserve.co.uk
2.7 million children died from starvation in Africa in 2014
In 2014 2.5 million people got AIDS mainly in India and
Africa and 1.7 million died from the disease
Every minute, 20 football pitches of rainforest are cut
down
Prince Harry was photographed naked in Las Vegas
Golding and Elliot from Making the News (1979)
Studied TV news in Nigeria, Ireland and Sweden finding the same news values
Drama -
news stories ‘are stories as well as news’ p.115
Visual Attractiveness - visually arresting
Entertainment -
humorous, amusing, diverting
Importance -
significant to a large number of people
Size -
number of people, scale of event
Proximity -
cultural and geographical
Brevity -
happens quickly
Negativity -
‘Bad news is good news’ p.120
Recency -
up-to-date
Elites -
includes famous people
Personalities ‘make stories comprehensible by reducing
complex processes and institutions to the actions of individuals’122
Accessibility-
is it accessible to the media for pictures and quotes?
2.5 MILLION DIE OF STARVATION IN AFRICA
Drama - X NOT A STORY
Visual Attractiveness - X
Entertainment - X
Importance - TO UK X
Size - Y
Proximity - TO UK X
Brevity - X
Negativity - Y
Recency - Y
Elites - X
Personalities - Y
Accessible - N
RESULT - 4/12
1.7 MILLION PEOPLE DIED FROM AIDS LAST YEAR IN INDIA AND AFRICA
Drama - X
Visual Attractiveness - X
Entertainment - X
Importance - TO UK X
Size - Y
Proximity - TO UK X
Brevity - X
Negativity - Y
Recency - N
Elites - N
Personalities - Y
Accessible - N
RESULT - 3/12
EVERY MINUTE 20 FOOTBALL PITCHES OF FOREST ARE CUT DOWN IN BRAZIL
Drama - X
Visual Attractiveness - X
Entertainment - X
Importance - TO UK ?
Size - X
Proximity - X
Brevity - X
Negativity - Y
Recency - Y
Elites - X
Personalities - X
Accessible - N
RESULT - 2/12
Dumbing down-isation
Drama – Y
Visual Attractiveness – Y
PRINCE HARRY WAS NAKED
Entertainment - Y
Importance – X
Size – X
Proximity – Y
Brevity – Y
Negativity – X
Recency – Y
Elites – Y
Personalities – Y
Accessible - Y
RESULT - 9/12
Using news values, how
will you get into the
news?
2. Charities
The voluntary sector
• Over 162,000 active voluntary organisations in the UK in
2010/1
• Brings in £11.7 billion to the UK economy
• An estimated 765,000 people work in voluntary sector
organisations. This is 2.7% of
UK National Council of Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) 2014
• Increasing mistrust
‘when asked if they agreed with the statement ‘I trust charities’,
only one third of non-donors agreed and just 26% agreed that
‘charities use donations wisely’
(Fundraising Standards Board (FRSB) 2012).
Case Study Macmillan
http://www.macmillan.org.uk/Home.aspx
http://www.suebradburypr.com/case-studies/miller-and-son/news/making-a-splash-formacmillan-cancer-support
http://www.behindthespin.com/news/macmillan-cancer-support-launch-comfort-blanketcampaign
http://www.behindthespin.com/careers/working-in-house-at-macmillan
http://enterprise.gre.ac.uk/news/articles/2012/a2324-worlds-biggest-coffee-morning
http://www.charitycomms.org.uk/articles/macmillan-s-brand-journey\
http://www.theguardian.com/voluntary-sector-network/2012/sep/25/how-to-get-aheadcancer-care-macmillan
http://static3.thedrum.com/news/2014/08/25/macmillan-cancer-defends-itself-afterallegations-it-has-attempted-hijack-als-ice
http://www.beattiegroup.com/prclients/pr-press-releases/2009/february/marks-spencerdonates-10000-to-macmillan-palliative-care-unit.aspx
http://www.72point.com
Motion and Leitch 2007: 266
3. The Self
Foucault 1980 cited in Motion and Leitch 2007: 267
Motion and Leitch 2007: 267
You and I as PR Projects
How do we create and maintain a
sense of who we are?
Why do we do this?
Bourdieu’s Capital
Economic Capital
money, goods
Cultural Capital
- Embodied
attentive family, habits
- Objectified
books, paintings
- Institutionalised
university degree
Social Capital
Professional bodies
Symbolic Capital
honour, prestige, recognition
Post-industrial Society
•Casualisation
•Individulisation
•Flexibilization
•Delayering
•Freelancing
•Self-employment
•Subcontracting
‘with the results that the insecure, temporary and flexible worker dominates in a society no
longer rooted in the rhythms of paid, full-time work’
McFall p.13
Every employee becomes an entrepeneur
…. of the self
New Public Management
1. Empowerment
2. Outcomes not input
3. Missions
4. Clients not customers
5. Decentralized authority
6. Market responsiveness
du gay p.164
Taylor – constant supervision; dispirited workforce – unions
Hawthorne – groups motivate each other..sometimes
Today – as above and we motivate ouselves
Individualization
Chomsky
Work is a means to an end
The end - gain an identity
“consumption ..now becomes the primary motivation
for work” McFall, p.14
‘Each individual is...engaged in a project to shape his or her life as an
autonomous, choosing individual driven by the desire to optimize the
worth of its own existence’
Paul DuGay 1996 Consumption and Identity at Work. London: Sage
p.157
Campaign time
and comfort
break….20
minutes
4. Celebrity
Early celebrity industry: Hollywood PR
1910: Florence Lawrence’s producer plants a false
story reporting the star had been killed in a trolley-car
accident. Story denied, public appearance staged:
triumph
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/31/celebritiespolitics-endorsements-history_n_2051173.html
https://www.looktothestars.org
‘The celebrity is also
a commodity:
produced, traded
and marketed by the
media and publicity
industries. In this
context, the
celebrity’s …
function is
commercial and
promotional.’
(Turner 2004: 12)
Celebrity Politics
“celebrities have
become `integrally
involved' in political
activities … it
contributes to their
overall professional
strategy of marketing
their own celebrity-ascommodity and it also
gives them political
influence”
Turner 2004: 125)
“Photography always involves an observer (even if that observer is the self) but, like
fiction itself, it does have the power to offer us kinds of truth which can be represented
only through artifice.”(120)
‘The camera does nothing but lie’
John Fiske, 1987: 56
Television Culture, London: Routledge
Dead-batted questions she did not want
Revealed through her terms
Body Language - puppy-look
Dress – black
Order of questions – depression, enemies, Camilla, adultery
Were you unfaithful?
Yes, I adored him; yes I was in love with him
37mins
Propp
Character roles
Princess - something that needs rescuing
Villain -
takes the princess
Hero -
rescues the princess
Helper -
helps the hero
Dispatcher -
send the hero on his/her way
Donor - someone with the magic properties or secret
that helps the hero rescue the princess
“For the Cinderella figure with whom Diana has been most insistently compared, it was that
very process which, paradoxically, became her only real means of exercising autonomy over
her own identity. Marilyn Monroe was not merely fictionalized by the studio bosses and by
her admirers; in a very real sense her Marilyn persona was a piece of brilliantly sustained
performance art. The photographer Eve Arnold, who worked with her over a ten year period,
observing and recording that performance, writes movingly about the problems of identity
which such a masquerade involved”
Woolf, J. (2006) “Not the girl but the legend: mythology, photography and the posthumous
cult of Diana” Life Writing 3 (1): 103-123.
Technology of power
Technology of self
“The emotions generated by [Diana’s] death forced the
relationship to break free of its management: to become, as it
were, an unequivocally `real' event… the potential of the
modern audience's relationship with a person they know
solely through their media representations, but who
nevertheless plays a part in their lives', was made [vividly
manifest]”
(Turner 2004: 84)
Discourse of Activism
Context:
- traditional politics seen as irrelevant
Mouffe 2000
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=5rwu0FA9aO4C&lpg=PR9&ots=RFEn5xmHoz&dq=mouffe%202000%20politi
cs&lr&pg=PA18#v=onepage&q=mouffe%202000%20politics&f=false
- Public sphere
- consensual discourse neglecting
oppositional and counter-hegemonic
tendencies
-
Madonna in Malawi
Transnational Celebrity Activism in Global Politics: Changing the World?
By Liza Tsaliki, Christos A. Frangonikolopoulos, Asteris Huliaras p.195
“Ambassador Mom”: Angelina
Jolie, celebrity activism, and
institutional power
Source: Conference Papers -International Communication
Association January 1, 2007
Transnational Celebrity Activism in Global Politics: Changing the World?
By Liza Tsaliki, Christos A. Frangonikolopoulos, Asteris Huliaras p.205
Lady Gaga on Twitter
“Gaga’s fans] were requested to call their
senators, asking them to vote against the [Don’t
Ask Don’t Tell] policy then post videos of
themselves on YouTube undertaking the act…
Gaga's call for action functioned as an instigator,
relying on fans to draw upon their own networks to
spread the message further to create a larger
collective.”
(Bennett 2012)
Bennett, Lucy. 2012. "Fan Activism for Social Mobilization: A Critical Review of the
Literature." In "Transformative Works and Fan Activism," edited by Henry Jenkins and Sangita
Shresthova, special issue, Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 10.
Troy Carter, Gaga's manager since 2007, described their dynamic as "95-5."
"The only thing I do is manage
the vision”
Dyana Kass, who heads pop-music marketing for Universal, has teamed with
marketing firms like Flylife for Gaga's outreach to the gay community and
ThinkTank to supplement her online efforts
"You can't buy that kind of authenticity, and as a result the demand for her
involvement in projects is staggering.“
http://vandymkting.typepad.com/files/2010-2-22-adage-gaga-oooh-la-la---why-the-lady-is-the-ultimate-social-climber.pdf
Simulacra
Can the real real stand up please?
‘public relations practice in which celebrities … are
experimenting with a particular genre of personal
disclosure’
(Tolson 2001: 444)
Dyer 1987 - “real self” behind a public face or mask.
‘our culture has become fascinated by a type of public
performance in which signs of ‘real emotion’ can be
detected’
(Tolson 2001: 446)
‘for not only does the humanitarian
cause appear to transcend narrow
political and cultural interests; it also
takes the form of a popular mediated
response to a mediated public
concern’
(Tolson 2001: 456)
It’s not that I am
being dishonest, it’s
that I loathe reality”
“
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cggNqDAtJYU
Lady Gaga's a Fake & You aren't great - By K.S.Zacharias
Listen up all you monsters. You know who you are — Lady Gaga
is a fake. There is nothing, I repeat, nothing authentic about her,
not even her ability to bamboozle you… Lady Gaga needs you
to pay attention to her in the worst way…
What Lady Gaga is good at — really good at — is not her music
as much as it is her marketing. She says it best herself: ”I’m telling
you a lie in a vicious effort that you will repeat my lie over and
over until it becomes true.”
To be sure, Lady Gaga wasn’t born that way. She has a multimillion dollar marketing machine that works full-time creating the
image that she was born this way.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/karenspearszacharias/2011/06/06/lady-gagas-a-fake-you-arentgreat/ June 6, 2011
5. Place
6. Politics
Read the blog!