Archive for 2018

[Previous message][Next message][Back to index]

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

Thu Jan 25 21:58:10 GMT 2018



*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.


---------------
The COMMLIST
---------------
This mailing list is a free service offered by Nico Carpentier. Please
use it responsibly and wisely.
--
To subscribe or unsubscribe, please visit http://commlist.org/
--
Before sending a posting request, please always read the guidelines at
http://commlist.org/
--
To contact the mailing list manager:
Email: (nico.carpentier /at/ vub.ac.be)
URL: http://nicocarpentier.net
---------------


[Previous message][Next message][Back to index]