War spin & propaganda

Hello!

I would like to share with you some of the ideas that came to me after having watched a War spin video in class on Wednesday.

I began to question myself whether PR profession is ethical enough. Unfortunately what I've seen in this video was that all those war stories, journalists' reports, news etc. are half fake! It is really shocking how much false information people can hear, watch on TV and believe in it and trust it.

From this perspective PR can be accused of being an immoral profession. Nonetheless ethical issues depend on PR practitioners' moral values. The latter are individual qualities that differ from one person to another but can define the character of actions that people undertake. This suggests that not every PR professional acts unethically. Consequently we cannot blame PR in general of immorality and cannot judge it by results of some group's depraved activities.

However PR can be identified as a really powerful tool to manipulate people, their mind and behavior. It is worrying how easy people are being mislead... Still it is their choice what to believe in, though it is PR's duty to create a wrapping, not forcibly an artificial one, but a story to present an idea in the best possible light.

The two books that I've read recently and that are very relevant to this topic are:

Moloney, K. (2006). Rethinking Public Relations: PR Propaganda and Democracy (2^nd edition) (London and NY: Routledge) and
Stauber, John S. and Rampton, S. (1995). Toxic Sludge Is Good For You: Lies, Damn Lies and Public Relations Industry (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press).

These books are interesting to read and raise very serious issues such as War time PR, Democracy and propaganda. So if you are interested in the question you should have a look at these books.