When is propaganda most used?

Propaganda is most used during wartimes because politicians usually need to shape perceptions of people to get their endorsement of a critical issue like wars as well as they need to defeat their enemy using different tactics, one of which is the psychological war.

The current unjustifiable Israeli war on Gaza is a recent example of how propaganda can support arms and weapons. Regardless of the fact that the Israelis seem not to be successful in their campaign to persuade the world about the legitimacy of launching the war, which is obvious in the demonstrations taking place in most countries, they managed at least to convince many people that they need to defend themselves. To do so, the Israelis tended to use some propaganda techniques such as:

Pinpointing the Enemy http://library.thinkquest.org/C0111500/proptech.htm

Israel used this technique to show that they are fighting terrorism represented by Hamas. They managed to simplify a complex situation by presenting one specific group as the enemy. However, the situation is more complex than that because Hamas is not a group of individuals coming from the middle of nowhere. Whether we agree with it or not, Hamas is a legitimate authority elected democratically by the Palestinian people in 2006 during an election process supported by many countries one of which was the United States.
Although presented as a fight between Israel and Hamas, it is very difficult to convince the International Community, when Palestinian civilians are being killed every day that the current Israeli war aims at fighting terrorism.

Glittering generalities http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_for_Propaganda_Analysis

This technique has been practiced by Israel when using emotionally appealing words associated with highly-valued concepts and beliefs without presenting supporting information or reason. Israel is using this technique to stimulate emotions of the world such as love of living in peace and security, and desire for self-defense and protection. These concepts usually get approval without examination of the reason.

Card stacking http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_for_Propaganda_Analysis

Card stacking, or selective omission, is one of the seven techniques of Propaganda identified by the Institute for Propaganda Analysis. It involves only presenting information that is positive to an idea and omitting information contrary to it.
In this context, it is true what Israel is mentioning about the fact that Hamas is firing rockets to Israel. However, what has been deliberately ignored is that Hamas is doing so because Israel has been putting Gaza under a complete siege for the last few months. People in Gaza could not anymore access food, water, medicines and get electricity. Moreover, the fact that Israel did not allow journalists and reporters to enter Gaza and cover or broadcast news http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/07/world/middleeast/07media.html?hp  is an indicator that the information about the war is exclusively originating from one source which is Israel.

Stereotyping http://library.thinkquest.org/C0111500/proptech.htm

This technique is often useful in convincing uninformed audiences. The fact that some terrorist attacks around the world were caused by Islamic extremists, made any Islamic movements look aggressive and terrorist. The case of Hamas resisting Israel is completely different because 1.Israel occupies the territories in violation of international law, 2. Israel has never recognized the right of Palestinians to any part of their homeland 3. Israel’s violence, including attacks on civilians has been out of all proportion to that of the Palestinians. http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2008/05/zionist-ideology-and-propaganda-in-israel-america-and-germany/

Lesser of Two Evils http://library.thinkquest.org/C0111500/proptech.htm

Israel has used this technique to justify difficult decisions. This technique is often accompanied by putting blame on an enemy country. Although Israelis have had other peaceful options than launching a war, they presented this option as the most effective one available on the table and accordingly managed to persuade the majority of their people about the necessity of taking this action.

In conclusion, during wartimes, propaganda seems to find a flourishing environment where the mass, especially the less informed people, tend to become less rational, more emotional and ready to believe news coming from different directions.

Should PR be regulated to avoid spin and manipulation?

Unlike most other professions, PR does not have regulations. In fact, most PR professional organizations such as the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR), the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC), the Canadian Public Relations Society (CPRS), and the Public Relations Institute of Australia (PRIA) have codes of conduct/ethics of which their members are fully aware. However, this seems not enough to ensure an ethical practice of PR as long as these codes do not have control over PR practitioners behaving unethically or unprofessionally. The maximum penalty that an organization can impose on one of its members violating these codes is being dismissed from the organization but not from the PR industry as a whole, (Dennis L. Wilcox, Glen T. Cameron, (2006), Public Relations: Strategies and Tactics, Eighth Edition, USA: Pearson Education, Inc).

Regulating PR protects qualified practitioners from the unfair competition with the unethical and unqualified ones, (Dennis L. Wilcox, Glen T. Cameron, (2006), Public Relations: Strategies and Tactics, Eighth Edition, USA: Pearson Education, Inc.). If PR were to be treated like other professions, this would help keep out some practitioners who tend to give a bad image about PR, and would also help defeat those who claim that PR practitioners only obey what their directors ask them to say or to do, regardless of how ethical the query is.

Moreover, regulating PR is essential to avoid its transformation into a harmful tool, given that some people might exceed boundaries and use PR techniques to spread rumors and untrue stories to ruin the image of others or manipulate the public.

It is true that in most countries, people can complain and protest to court when a person/organization is exposed to an invasion of privacy, libel and slander, disrespect of copywrite and contractual confidentiality, and other abuses of PR practices. However, why not to regulate PR to boost its apparently non-appealing image that Jaquie L’Etang talked about when explaining about the social legitimacy of PR being unrecognized, and the standards constituting ethical practices being unacknowledged.

Practically and realistically speaking, regulations cannot be imposed on people without paving the way first to the regulatory action. To do so, a clear definition of PR should be first set, as well as licensing the PR industry.

Rex Harlow, a pioneer public relations educator who founded what eventually became the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), once compiled more than 500 definitions of PR from almost as many sources, (Dennis L. Wilcox, Glen T. Cameron, (2006), Public Relations: Strategies and Tactics, Eighth Edition, USA: Pearson Education, Inc.). This reflects the variety of concepts and perceptions that even PR professionals have about Public Relations.
What makes the definition even harder is that Public Relations covers so many specialist areas. Its variety in terms of smoothing over, engaging in persuasion, solving conflicts, polishing organizational image, and building strong ties with partners and stakeholders, is the reason behind the difficulty in identifying exactly what PR is about. The easiest way to start defining PR might be to identify what PR is not about.

Once PR is defined and a common understanding is created about it, PR should be licensed exactly as many other professions such as medicine, engineering, and others. In this case, only people with a PR certificate, either by a specified government-approved professional association or a government agency, are authorized to practice PR in the legal sense. Licenses should not be granted automatically to all people who study PR. Thus under the licensing approach, only those individuals who pass examinations and tests of personal integrity could call themselves ‘public relations’ counselors. Those not licensed would have to call themselves ‘publicists’ or adopt some other designation, (Dennis L. Wilcox, Glen T. Cameron, (2006), Public Relations: Strategies and Tactics, Eighth Edition, USA: Pearson Education, Inc.).

In sum, regulating the PR industry is needed to reduce its manipulative and propagandistic outputs, (Kevin Moloney, (2000), Rethinking Public Relations: the spin and the substance, USA & Canada: Routledge). This would help PR become more respectable and professionally recognised, less misused and abused, and ethically more reinforced.

When PR turns into manipulation

Powell delivering his speech in the UN Security Council

Public Relations is most used in private or government communication when a certain idea, product, service, or decision should be communicated and sometimes promoted.  However, this might imply deceptive or manipulative tactics of which politicians specifically, but not exclusively, are often accused when preparing for elections, announcing a government decision, or producing an argument to serve or to justify a major step taken.

The war on Iraq in 2003 is a living example of an expensive propaganda for a fake cause that has cost the USA billions of dollars and more than 4,000 souls not to mention tens of thousands of Iraqi civilian casualties. http://usliberals.about.com/od/homelandsecurit1/a/IraqNumbers.htm

The US Government succeeded to a certain extent, before the war on Iraq and even a couple of years after not only in getting supporters and allies such as the UK, Australia, Denmark, Poland, and many other nations to get involved in an unjustifiable war, but also in trying to convince the public opinion, whether people agree with the military action or not, about Iraq owning weapons of mass destruction.

The speech of the US Secretary of State, Mr. Colin Powell on the 5th of February 2003 in the UN Security Council was part of the US Public Relations campaign to persuade the International Community that the Iraqi regime constitutes a threat to peace and to the security of  its neighboring states.
“My [second] purpose today is to provide you with additional information, to share with you what the United States knows about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction as well as Iraq’s involvement in terrorism…”, said Colin Powell on 5 February 2003, http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/02/20030205-1.html#15

The display of audio-visual communication material such as the conversation between two senior Iraqi officers, a colonel and a brigadier general, as well as the satellite photos of weapons munition facility and a cargos truck preparing to move ballistic missile components, was enough, although not proven to be authentic, to persuade most people as to what the US and its allies had been claiming for several months.

Manipulation varies in degrees from feeding stories without revealing the nature of the information, to promoting certain issues without attributing sources that might be questionable with the intention of creating a public opinion (Anup Shah, (2006), Media Manipulation, Global issues, http://www.globalissues.org/article/532/media-manipulation, 31 Dec 2008).
“The material I will present to you comes from a variety of sources. Some are US sources, and some are those of other countries. Other sources are people who have risked their lives to let the world know what Saddam Hussein is really up to. I cannot tell you everything that we know. But what I can share with you, when combined with what all of us have learned over the years, is deeply troubling.“, Colin Powell, 5 February 2003, http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/02/20030205-1.html#15

Manipulation usually exists in countries where state-run media is powerful and therefore it is common to read or hear news stories that are favorable to the government while censoring anything that could be considered sensitive or critical. In these countries, propaganda is used to indoctrinate or actively influence citizens’ opinions. Privately run media also uses the same techniques of ‘issue’ versus ‘non-issue’ to spin its particular political viewpoints . However, in democratic countries where freedom of expression and accountancy are claimed to be vital, it is surprising to find out that there is still a room for manipulation.

Blame is usually put on politicians for spinning especially when it comes to help sell a war for instance.  However,  journalists should also share the responsibility for practicing propaganda and manipulation as they do not always tend to question sources or stop news aiming at pushing political agendas.  Being most of the time struggling in a world where news are flooding every single minute,  journalists are becoming more and more busy to investigate and get their own coverage of news.  Therefore, they tend to depend more on stories generated by PR sources.

In the USA, most news stories are copied straight from news releases with few changes which are the basis for 40 to 50 per cent of the news content of national newspapers. By being the primary source of a journalist’s information on a particular story, PR people can influence the way the story is told and who tells it ( Sharon Beder, (2004), Moulding and Manipulating the News, in Controversies in Environmental Sociology, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne http://homepage.mac.com/herinst/sbeder/mediachap.html, 30 Dec 2008).  Accordingly, the public, which usually tends to receive news as facts, is manipulated because of the endorsement of the third party, which is the media.

This is an example of how Public Relations turns sometimes into spin or manipulation of the public opinion, stressing what Edward Bernays used to mention about public relations personnel being the invisible government in a democratic society, which manipulates the mass mind.