[ecrea] Public Relations Capitalism: Promotional Culture, Publics & Commercial Democracy

*Some colleagues may be interested in my new book:*

**

*Cronin, Anne M. (2018) /Public Relations Capitalism: Promotional 
Culture, Publics and Commercial Democracy/. Basingstoke: Palgrave 
Macmillan.***

https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-319-72637-3

This book argues that we are witnessing the emergence of ‘commercial 
democracy’ in which public relations, promotional culture and the media 
play a new, central role. As the conventional democratic promise of 
political representation loses traction with the public in many 
countries, commercial culture steps into this vacuum by offering mirror 
forms of democracy. Commercial democracy promises representation, voice 
and agency to the public and in doing so creates new forms of social 
contract. Based on empirical material, this book examines PR produced by 
corporations and communications produced by charities in an intensely 
mediatized society. It presents a novel analysis of the shifting 
significance of brand and reputation. It analyses the ascendancy of 
commercial speech, PR’s relationship to post-truth politics, and the 
transformation of cultural intermediaries into ‘social brokers’. As PR 
and promotional culture come to inhabit the realm of the social contract 
and new forms of politics, ‘the public’ and the very idea of ‘publicity’ 
are transformed.

**

*Chapter 1 introduction*

In this chapter Cronin outlines the key argument of the book – today we 
are witnessing a profound shift in the public’s engagement with the 
social contract as the basis of democracy and public relations, 
alongside other forms of promotional culture, plays a central role in 
this new development. New forms of ‘the public’ and ‘publicity’ are 
being created and significant changes in social values are being forged 
in the context of neoliberal capitalism. Cronin argues that a new 
‘commercial democracy’ is emerging which transforms politics and 
political engagement, politicising promotional culture in new ways.

*Chapter 2 Public relations, publics, publicity: neoliberal capitalism’s 
media and mediation*

This chapter outlines today’s media landscape and sets it in the context 
of democracy in neoliberal capitalism. Drawing on empirical data, the 
chapter discusses the profound changes that are occurring in journalism 
and the new opportunities such changes offer public relations to speak 
to publics. Cronin outlines how Hannah Arendt’s account of the social 
contract as ‘promise’ between government and people is a useful tool for 
understanding today’s ‘democratic deficit’ or ‘crisis in democracy’ and 
can offer important ways of analysing the new social and political role 
that public relations plays.

**

*Chapter 3 * *Commercial democracy and a new social contract: Brands and 
corporate reputation as ‘commercial promises’*

This chapter argues that we are witnessing the emergence of a 
‘commercial democracy’ in which public relations and promotional culture 
play a far more central mediating role. Drawing on empirical material 
about PR produced by corporations, Cronin argues that as the 
conventional social contract between government and people erodes in 
forms of ‘democratic deficit’, new forms of contracts (or promises) as 
being established between the commercial world of corporations and 
brands and the public. In mediating between a corporation and the 
public, PR promises a mirror-form of democracy with significance 
consequences. Cronin offers a novel account of the significance of 
brands and of corporations’ reputation in the context of major shifts 
towards ‘commercial democracy’.

**

*Chapter 4 Charity PR and the production of social values*

Cronin uses empirical material to argue that charity PR or 
communications create a particular form of bond with the public which 
reworks social values in a shifting neoliberal context. The chapter 
outlines how charity fund-raising and the publics that are addressed by 
charity PR have become a newly intensified site of controversy and 
struggle. Charities compete more intensively with each other for funding 
while charities’ targeting of publics has become highly contentious. 
Cronin argues that charities now offer forms of social contract or 
‘promise’ as the conventional social contract between government and the 
people is becoming debased and distrusted. This reframes the 
significance of emotion in charity campaigns as it references the broken 
promises of neoliberal capitalism and democracy.**

*Chapter 5 Conclusion: Promotional culture, PR as commercial speech, and 
the politics of lying*

This chapter argues that the social and political significance of 
‘commercial speech’ (PR, advertising, marketing) is intensifying due to 
its enhanced role in forging promises or contracts. The chapter explores 
the relationship of commercial speech to practices of lying, practices 
of the imagination, and a ‘post-truth’ politics. Cronin argues that 
these developments shift PR practitioners’ role from that of cultural 
intermediaries to that of ‘social brokers’ of promises or contracts. 
PR’s capacities to both /manage truths/ and to /broker new forms of 
promise/ place PR in a privileged position in today’s new 
socio-political context. This represents a reconfiguration of 
promotional culture, according it a heightened social, political and 
economic significance as it comes to inhabit more centrally the realm of 
the promise or the social contract.

/“This book offers important insights about the role and significance of 
public relations in neoliberal societies.  Theoretically rich and 
empirically grounded, it examines PR in both the commercial and charity 
sectors, developing a challenging, if rather unsettling, set of 
arguments about the displacement of political engagement and the 
emergence of ‘commercial democracy’.”/

Maureen McNeil, Emeritus Professor.


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