May 11 Propaganda, Public Relations and Advertising: Lies, Lies and More Lies?
Introduction to the Political Econnomy of Media
Monika Metykova
m.metykova@sussex.ac.uk
32153@mail.muni.cz

What is journalism?
lhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88Midc38AUU


Examples from authoritarian media systems
Ukraine RT coverage
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ztFrXbhrYA4
China train accident
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9Ap0aRUx8E

Herman and Chomsky's Propaganda Model
lRadical critique of how the media operate, how in democratic societies what gets into the media is
regularly limited
lFilters: ownership, advertising, sources, flak, anti-communism

What is PR?
Edward Bernays, otherwise known as ‘The Godfather of Public Relations’, was a pioneer in the field
of propaganda and PR.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Q-3qwEDyPM
With propaganda, especially around the World Wars, came negative connotations of ‘brainwashing’ and
‘manipulation’ techniques, hence the need for an alternative. That alternative being public
relations.
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/powers_of_persuasion/powers_of_persuasion_intro.html
PR influences behaviour in an attempt to achieve certain objectives.

 Habermas distinguishes two models of communication:
Communicative
&
Strategic
Jürgen Habermas
The theory of communicative action

>

Communicative
The communicative model strives towards achieving the mutual understanding of actors involved in
the process of communication.
Relies heavily on:
§Sincerity
§Mutual trust
§Honesty
One may relate this to ‘good’ or ‘honest’ journalism.
Strategic
The strategic mode is one in which the actor intends to gain an advantage in the situation without
the other becoming aware of the said intentions
These gains could include:
Financial gain
Influence (political etc)
Image or reputation integrity
This could possibly be related to public relations (PR)

Zvi Reich (2010) MEASURING THE IMPACT OF PR ON PUBLISHED NEWS IN INCREASINGLY FRAGMENTED NEWS
ENVIRONMENTS , Journalism Studies, 11:6, 799-816.
The extent to which the news media rely on public relations materials has attracted considerable
research attention (cf. Curtin and Rhodenbaugh, 2001; Lewis et al., 2008; Reich, 2009). Studies
have attempted to establish a bottom line for PR-originated input, ranging between 25 and 80
percent of news content according to the literature (Cameron et al., 1997). These theoretically and
practically worthwhile research efforts proceed in fourprincipal directions, to be discussed in
detail below: (1) exposing PR use of the media to access and impact public opinion; (2) delineating
the borderline between two ‘‘converging’’ and interdependent occupations, journalism and PR, that
collaborate and compete over the social role of public news supplier; (3) redefining news
believability, as different sources may be ascribed different levels of perceived credibility; and
(4) raising questions of political equality, as PR’s advantageous position indirectly blocks access
to nonprofessional sources.

Nick Davies on PR and journalism:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93615UWeXac


Advertising as a Funding Model
lAdvertising – an important source of income for media; other sources also exist: subscriptions,
paywalls, sponsoring etc.
lFor print media the decline in advertising revenue has been very significant, two main factors:
emergence of online media and ecnomic crisis
lbiggest growth in advertising can be traced back to 19th century United States and historical
explorations suggest that it was actually severely resisted

Advertising – cont.
lAdvertisers are interested in buying particular audiences and require data not only about the size
of an audience but also about its composition and consumption habits. Advertising and marketing
agencies have used a range of methods for measuring audiences – including diaries, audimeters (for
radio and television), people meters (developed for television), surveys, focus groups, interviews
– and companies are seeking improved methods for measuring audiences particularly online.

Advertising – cont.
limpact of advertising on the diversity of contents produced, it reduces the supply of minority
interest programmes = if an audience is not sizeable enough to be sold to an advertiser, it is
unlikely to have media contents produced for it. In the case of ethnic minority media this funding
model fails due to small audience size. Or even if the audience is sizeable enough, it may not be
the most desirable one for advertisers (i.e. an audience with lower incomes).

Advertising – cont.
The quality of journalism that is funded from advertising income has also been questioned. Some
argue that the pressures on media to make increasingly more profits result in a  shift to market
journalism. “Advertisers do not pay for high-level quality journalism, but for the requested
‘quality’ of the sector of society to be reached. Market journalism, however, provides for a
different construction of reality in the media and for a substantially different media reality. Its
first and foremost objective is not to inform but to satisfy the targeted sector of society.”
(Meier and Trappel 1998: 57, original emphasis)