Understanding Public Relations

“For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.” – Richard Feynman, Nobel Prize Winner, Physicist

When the PR side of our office decided to do a lunch and learn for the rest of us creatives a couple of days ago, I was excited to learn about what public relations meant to them. As a designer and artist, I had only a marginal understanding of the PR industry, and what I did know could be summed up from Aaron Eckhart’s character in Thank You for Smoking. Interesting character, but kind of a punk. So I wanted to capitalize on the chance to get some better insight into the PR world.

Basically, the lunch and learn in this case was an opportunity for the creative side of the office to avoid ever having to say, “I know I work down the hall from you, but I have no idea what you do.” And I’d have to say that this lunch and learn was a positive experience for me.

I learned that we really have great leadership in place on the PR side and I am thrilled to say that our team seems to know what they are doing. But the PR industry in general still seems to have quite a stigma to overcome when it comes to certain methods and practices it has partaken in. Just reading the Wikipedia entry alone can tend to put a frown on ones face. Spin doctors, front groups, lobby groups, propaganda. These terms don’t portray the epitome of integrity. And as I observed from the BBC documentary, The Century of the Self, by Adam Curtis, the father of PR, Edward Bernays, had quite a few hot sports opinions about democracy.

Bernays is quoted, “The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. …We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. …In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons…who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.”

And one of his cohorts, Walter Lippmann, essentially believed it was necessary to rethink democracy. He believed that a new elite could emerge to manage the bewildered herd.

Sheesh, would you like fries with your mind controlled manipulation?

However, that is not all PR is about today. As I listened and learned (and lunched), I found that our staff of PR experts operates with great integrity and focuses on how to serve our clients without using unethical tactics. Well, I guess I kind of assumed as much, but it was comforting to hear. Their goal is to just help our clients get noticed. Or help them understand how to maximize their potential as a business and to pound the phones for them and deal with overwhelmed media gatekeepers. And I hope our clients appreciate that.

But in the big bad world, I’m not sure the same can be said for all PR firms. I know that not all firms operate as ethically as they should in a naive society. Richard Feynman was right when he said nature cannot be fooled. But he was referring to NASA’s management and mistakes that led up to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster of 1986. He thought their reliability estimate was fantastically unrealistic and that there was a disconnect between the engineers and the executives. I guess sometimes people of influence like to claim that they can do anything. And if you just believe, reality can be left behind.

The realities of physics can’t be so easily manipulated, however, and the Challenger shuttle met it’s demise. But it’s a different story when it comes to the nature of man. We can be fooled. Quite easily too. And that’s where responsibility and integrity comes into play. Those who have the resources and means of manipulation in their grasp should operate with great responsibility and respect. Unfortunately, for our sake, that is not always the case.