1. Ideology, Advertising & Public Relations Ideology of Race, Gender & Sexuality Organized Mind, Behaviour Management, Marketing Communication PR 203 - Intro to Communication Dr. P.M.G. Verstraete WEEK 13

2. Today Look again at ideology/hegemony: concepts & application for analysis: race, gender & sexuality as social constructs Advertising & PR: Managing the Mind and Behaviour Discussion: -Limits of communication in digital age (personal communication media and networked information in ‘communicative capitalism’) -Problems with power of Google

3. Last Week: How to Do Ideology/hegemony analysis Use Stuart Hall: Dominant or preferred reading/reader Negotiated reading/reader Oppositional reading/reader Use semiotic analysis: signifiers of ideology Use Barthes’s theory of the second order of signification (connotations & myths with binary oppositions) as the ‘rhetoric of ideology’ Use Marxist concepts: hegemony, interpellation/hailing, incorporation, displacement, commodity/commodification, resistance

4. We still need semiotic analysis: read signifiers of ideology

5. Ideology as struggle (Gramsci) Winning the consent of the addressee (by ‘hailing’) = not just an ideological/social practice but an ideological struggle + the signs of resistance that it has to overcome can never be wiped out So there is the possibility to challenge and perhaps to modify the dominant meanings! We need ANALYSYS!

6. LET’S LOOK CLOSER: Incorporation Displacement Commodification Resistance Contradiction

7. Incorporation The process by which the dominant classes take elements of resistance from the subordinate and use them to maintain the status quo, rather than to challenge it.

8. displacement When a topic or anxiety is repressed, either psychologically or ideologically, the concern for it can only be expressed by being displaced on to a legitimate, socially acceptable topic. Black Pete discussion is actually about the racial underpinning of social inequality, which has its roots in colonial history

9. Commodity Capitalism is the system that, above all others, produces commodities, so making commodities seem natural is at the heart of much ideological practice. We learn to understand our desires in terms of the commodities produced to meet them; we learn to think of our problems in terms of the commodities by which to solve them. Connected with myth: Naturalizing the existing order makes it appear universal and therefore unchangeable (like nature); the problem is not how to change the social system, but how to insert oneself into it (with the aid of the right commodities) and thus how to maintain it.

11. Resistance Hegemony is the means by which their consent to the system that disadvantages them is won, but its victories are never complete or stable: because of the contradictory experiences of everyday life the struggle is never over. Resistances against the dominant ideology, capitalism, patriarchy, commodification are always still available to promote oppositional readings of the mass media messages and representations.

12. contradiction Interesting contradiction in a mass media message: If it is to be popular, if it is to hail its intended readers accurately, it must contain some signs of their oppositional social position as well as the voice of the dominant ideology So: it must contradict itself!

14. Advertising and PR Managing the Mind and Behaviour A technologically mediated mind management system

15. Advertisement (‘marketing communications’) and Public Relations (communication between individual/public and organization) are applied forms of communication: They do not necessarily make conscious use of Communication Theory; yet we can analyze them according to our knowledge of Communication.

16. -We need ‘media literacy’ to read and understand the connotations (second-order meanings) of advertisement, which we can analyze according to the dominant, negotiated and oppositional meanings it produces (in relation to the dominant ideology); the consent that it seeks to win; the myths it propagates etc. -We need knowledge of ‘communication models’ to understand the workings of PR in order to make it better, manage the communication or to solve communication problems.

17. ANALYZING ADVERTISEMENT Use everything you know!

23. PUBLIC RELATIONS An all-embracing, unregulated profession

24. Public Relations The earliest definitions emphasized press agentry and publicity, while more recent definitions incorporate the concepts of “engagement” and “relationship building”. It is a tool for public interest: -It talks to insensitive organizations for public. -It talks to the public for organizations. Hence, it aims to establish mutually beneficial connection between public and organizations.

25. Public Relations In 1988, the PRSA (Public Relations Society of America) came up with the definition: “Public Relations helps an organization and its publics adapt mutually to each other”. -> It helps management (publicity, promotion, internal motivation/communication, managing criticism/change) -> It helps the society (“double bottom line” = relation with organization and social responsibility; a safety valve for freedom, information to the public, social conscience of an organization)

26. Public Relations In 2011/12, PRSA led an international effort to modernize the definition of public relations: “Public relations is a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics.” 4 models of PR (according to James E. Grunig): http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/fall99/westbrook/models.htm

27. Press agentry (publicity model): describes the activities of people who would do anything to get attention for their organisations, event or product. Public information model: describes public relations becoming more sophisticated and evolving into accurate one-way information on behalf of organisations (cf. press releases, press bulletins, public speeches).

28. One-way asymmetrical model: describes two-way public relations work which is biased to propagating the organization’s views, rather than responding to messages from publics. Two-way symmetrical: is Grunig and Hunt’s ideal model for public relations. In this model, the publics’ views are respected and are given the same importance as the views of the organisation sponsoring the public relations work (Johnson & Zawawi 2004: 63).

29. PR serve both the public’s and private interests (businesses, associations, non-profit, non- governmental, government) “let the public be fooled” Circus promoter Phineas Taylor Barnum Ivy Lea (ca.1906): ‘Declaration of Principles’ PR Ethics…? http://work.colum.edu/~amiller/overview.htm

30. PR are planned activites to manage minds and behaviors in order to reach certain objectives

31. versus PR Help society to reach decisions; help society to work effectively. Help private and public policies in harmony.

32. DISCUSSION On this week’s readings

33. Limitations of communication Limitations of attention / productivity = expropriated Networked information & personal media participate in neoliberalism’s acceleration of capitalism = ‘communicative capitalism’ Berardi: ‘supersaturation attention’ Overproduction and overaccumulation of the ‘common’ = disproportionate balance between supply of information and demand of attention = about value & productivity defined by the capacity to circulate Inner contradiction: “The contradiction is particular to communicative capitalism in that communication cannot be exponentially expanded as a form of capitalist production. It comes up against limits inherent to communication as such” (6).

34. How Google Came to Rule the Web Underlying idea = libertarian: Web is free, open, ungoverned and ungovernable = naïve We have given consent to Google to exert control over its domain in favour of a “much calmer, friendlier, less controversial and frightening medium” About value: keep worthy of user’s trust and time But the ‘architecture’ of Google is also constraining + following advertisement mechanisms according to their ‘standards’.

35. Next Week Read: “The Limits of Communication”http://www.guernicamag.com/features/th e-limits-of-communication/http://www.guernicamag.com/features/th e-limits-of-communication/ Read: “Googlization of Everything and Why We Should Worry about It” http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520258822# read-chapter-1 http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520258822# read-chapter-1

36. Next Week Read: “‘Role Model’ Turkey’s Bankrupt News Media” http://polecom.org/index.php/polecom/article/view/25/19 4 http://polecom.org/index.php/polecom/article/view/25/19 4 Read: “The Gezi Protests have Shown the Rampant Institutional Bias in Turkey’s Media which Now Leaves Little Room for Facts” http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2013/07/10/gezi- protest-media/ http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2013/07/10/gezi- protest-media/

37. Next Week Optional: Find an example of ideology in advertisement, soap opera, TV show or any other mass media message and bring it on a flash stick or print-out to class.