The Spin

In the class, I have learnt that in public relations, spin is a form of propaganda, achieved through providing an interpretation of an event or campaign to persuade public opinion in favour or against a certain organization or public figure. There have been many debates that PR should be more transparent exactly due to this bad reputation. 

It is well known that politicians are often accused by their opponents of claiming to be honest and seek the truth while using spin tactics to manipulate public opinion and their actions. Historically Public Relations in Slovakia has been perceived as propaganda produced by government, businesses and other dominant interests to maintain communist ideology in the country.  Personally i would be really interested whether an experience of being propagandised produced a culture of suspicion and mistrust in PR, hence a generated low reputation.

Edward Bernays has been called the "Father of Spin". In his book he describes situations where tobacco and alcohol companies used techniques to make certain behaviours more socially acceptable. Bernays was proud of his work as a propagandist although many PR professionals disapprove his tactics due to breaking the so called code of conduct/ethics. So the million dollar question remains, serve the client or the public??? I think this is for every individual to decide.

Stuart Ewen said that "The history of PR is… a history of a battle for what is reality and how people will see and understand reality." This exactly gives a true picture of Slovakia being under communist regime. Just imagine that just after the Chernobyl disaster, my in that time 1 year old brother was still playing outside and was exposed to nuclear waste simply because government didn’t want to weaken the ideology that anything coming from Russia our communist ‘brothers’ is in any way less than perfect! Here it is a crystal clear example of how spin and propaganda can work really well for over a 30 years without people realising that they are being simply manipulated by spin and pure propaganda.