Pr!: A Social History of Spin: A Social History of Hype [Englisch] [Gebundene Ausgabe]

As "spin" assumes an omnipresent role in contemporary discourse, chasing out frank or direct speech with buzzwords and carefully weighted terminology, the time is ripe for a study of the industry that started it all. Stuart Ewen has written an exhaustive study of public relations that traces the evolution of PR throughout the 20th century, from the history of early advertising to its role in politics and "corporate communications." PR! is a book not just for industry types or communications majors, it contains thoughtful reflections on the impact of manufactured media on our culture and democracy, topics relevant to all.

Vance Packard told us. Marshall McLuhan told us. And we all know it in varying degrees of consciousness and intuition: public-relations specialists, in today's terms, "spin doctors," are working constantly and with considerable success to mold our attitudes, opinions, and behavior. Ewen, a communications professor at Hunter College, puts it all in this engaging, heavily researched social history. Beginning with the infancy of PR in the early years of the twentieth century, when the "fear of an empowered public ignited the thinking of the early practitioners," and continuing through the presidency of Ronald Reagan, Ewen chronicles a craft that has molded perceptions and bent democracy. He ranges far and wide, as his insights into the 1939 World's Fair demonstrate. But the most compelling section is a beguiling portrait of the late Edward Bernays, the father of modern PR. Nearly 100 years old when Ewen interviewed him, Bernays left the author wondering if there was any reality other than that handed to us by the spin doctors. Thomas Gaughan

This lengthy history of spin and public relations tends to get stuck in some very narrow grooves. One of the Industrial Revolution's many machine-inflected ideas, public relations was an attempt to apply the principles of engineering and mechanics to popular opinion. While Edward Bernays, one of PR's great founding fathers, and other practitioners understood the practical limitations to their craft, they felt they were developing a real science: ``We can effect some changes in public opinion with a fair degree of accuracy by operating a certain mechanism, just as the motorist can manipulate the speed of his car by manipulating the flow of gasoline.'' The Industrial Revolution had created a vast newspaper-reading public and, thus, the ability to widely disseminate information and ideas. The power of the medium was brought home to big business at the turn of the century when the muckrakers began their extraordinarily successful series of attacks against monopolies. An effective counter was needed, and so public relations was born. Ewen (Communications/Hunter Coll.; All Consuming Images, 1988, etc.) does an able job of chronicling the evolution of this slippery trade. Drawing on seldom-seen corporate archives from such giants as AT&T and Standard Oil, he paints an alarming picture of corporate America eagerly trying to mold our perceptions to serve their purposes. Ewen believes these subtle manipulations are a terrible threat to democracy, but he tends to overstate his case, ignoring the numerous PR disasters that show the real limits of coercion. His account is labored, narrowly focused (he sticks too closely to his sources), and too America-centered, scanting such masters of PR as Joseph Goebbels and completely ignoring PR as practiced in the rest of the world. Any overview of such an important and surreptitious subject is welcome, even when it is so prosaically presented, but this is a far cry from a definitive history. (b&w illustrations, not seen) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

A social critic and historian concerned with images and the power they have on society, Ewen (Channels of Desire, Univ. of Minnesota, 1992) presents here a social history of public relations in the United States. Modern PR rose as an attempt to explain the turmoil and confusion that occurred in the country from the end of the Civil War to the first decade of the 20th century. Public reaction to the excesses of industrialization and the growing immigrant classes caused many in power to fear that the "American way of life" was being destroyed. Ewen reviews the ongoing conflict in public relations between those who think the public is rational and want to present the facts and let people make up their minds, and those who think that opinion can be shaped by appeals to unconscious urges. Ewen gives fascinating examples of the communication similarities between FDR and Reagan, and why AT&T was loved by the public and Standard Oil hated. This provocative book should be purchased by all public and academic libraries.?William W. Sannwald, San Diego P. L.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This history of public relations shows how the art of PR has moulded the "public mind" and warped the contours of American democracy. The story began during World War I when Ivy Lee, one of America's first corporate men, sounded the dawn of an era in which public relations and corporate image management would become paramount features of society. The study chronicles the birth pangs and coming of age of a PR culture that is now taken for granted. It explores the ideas that inspired the stategies of public relations specialists, the ubiquitous use of images as tools of persuasion, the promiscuous advent of image consultants, pollsters, "astro-turf" organizers and other PR experts.

This history of public relations shows how the art of PR has moulded the "public mind" and warped the contours of American democracy. The story began during World War I when Ivy Lee, one of America's first corporate men, sounded the dawn of an era in which public relations and corporate image management would become paramount features of society. The study chronicles the birth pangs and coming of age of a PR culture that is now taken for granted. It explores the ideas that inspired the stategies of public relations specialists, the ubiquitous use of images as tools of persuasion, the promiscuous advent of image consultants, pollsters, "astro-turf" organizers and other PR experts.