PR! - A Social History of Spin

I first bought/read this book over a dozen years ago. It was an enlightening read providing a lot of insight into the world of public relations and advertising. I've recommended this book to friends as a great primer and most agree this is a great read. I've read several works since on the subject matter and while this was my "first" it's hard to compare them as this one did such a great job.

Just what I was looking for. Full of information. Great depth and understanding of the field which is represents. I highly recommend for anyone looking to understanding the public marketing of items.

I have not read the entire book yet...have just gone through parts I was looking for answers to. So no long review now. However I would recommend Ewen as a significant writer and an informative and enjoyable to read book.

Thanks! I received my book quickly. The book is in great condition, perfect for school, and saved me money.

Was received quicker than expected in great shape. Too bad the book isn't as good as the service -- it is required reading for school.

It took to me nearly one month to sit down and write about this book. It has valuable strenghts and some weaknesses.As a whole, "PR!" makes no easy reading.It is sold as a "Social History of Spin" and consists of five parts.Part one tells us about the interest of the author - his attempt to discover the social and historical roots that would explain the boundless role of public relations in our world.This is the best part of the book, it's fresh, it's written full of enthusiasm, and it feels; Stuart Ewen tells us of his visit with Edward Bernays, one of the most influential pioneers of American public relations.Ewen describes how he started teaching his course, the "CULT(ure) of Publicity"; how he and his students made the class "look good", "look interesting" in the presence of an unaware journalist, so to meet the reporter's standard of "intriguing".If you are interested in how spin works, this first part is a must!Parts two and three really are a social history of spin.Page after page, Ewen writes a "grim meditation on the human price of industrialization".Mmmh.I think this book is very smart. Why? The author brings us examples from the past, and extensively quotes other's sources. Here's an excerpt (as Upton Sinclair summarized it in 1908):"See, we are just like Rome. Our legislatures are corrupt; our politicians are unprincipled; our rich men are ambitious and unscrupulous. Our newspapers have been purchased and gagged; our colleges have been bribed; our churches have been cowed. Our masses are sinking into degradation and misery; our ruling classes are becoming wanton and cynical".The big picture is an account of the "business as usual", but, since the examples come from the past and there's no relation with today's firms and people, it's possible to avoid any costly lawsuit.Eh, eh! Excerpt:(...) AT&T, in 1903, engaged the services of a recently founded enterprise known as the Publicity Bureau, located in Boston. The Publicity Bureau, a partnership of experienced former newspaper men, was already achieving a reputation for being able to place prepackaged news items in papers around the country, and Frederick P. Fish, president of AT&T, believed that this know-how might be serviceable in the defense of the Bell System's corporate game plan.James T. Ellsworth, a seasoned journalist with the Bureau, was given the job of steering the AT&T account.(...) Developing a strategy out of his firsthand experience, Ellsworth took a firts step, which was based on his understanding of newspaper economics. By 1900, advertising - not circulation - was already the prime source of income for most newspapers, and Ellsworth fully comprehended the unspoken power that advertisers could exert over editorial policy and content.(...) With the lubricant of advertising dollars, Ellsworth was soon providing suddenly compliant editors with a diverse range of packaged articles, already typeset and ready to be placed".Pity, the extensive use of quotations tends to slow down the reading speed.Part four looks like an hagiography of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, I just it think is out of the "Social History of Spin" topic.Part five is a sum-up of the whole book.Here is a quotation I appreciate a lot:"The relationship between publicity and democracy is not essentially corrupt. The free circulation of ideas and debate is critical to the maintenance of an aware public. (...) Publicity becomes and impediment to democracy, however, when the circulation of ideas is governed by enormous concentrations of wealth that have, as their underlying purpose, the perpetuation of their own power. When this is the case - as is too often true today - the ideal of civic participation gives way to a continual sideshow, a masquerade of democracy calculated to pique the public's emotions. In regard to a more democratic future, then, ways of enhancing the circulation of ideas - regardless of economic circumstance - need to be developed.What is the summing up of this review?We have here a book worth reading, a smart book that uses history as a tool to understand how spin works right now.It provides much food for thought - maybe try not to read it when you're tired, but when you are vigilant and with your sense of criticism well aware.""

There are good and valid things in this book, like Ewen's remarkable enterprise in interviewing the pioneer in modern public relations theory and techniques, Edward Bernays, at age 100. But Ewen, a historian, skilled researcher and writer, seems to me to provide an example of tendencies in American society that I feel are at the root of problems that trouble us today. This includes uncritical focus on given sets of ideas or perspectives, without trying to get a balanced picture.Along with positive special qualities he found in America, the French observer of American society, Alexis De Tocqueville, already noted this kind of attitude in his classic book: Democracy in America (two volumes, 1835 and 1840). He reported that Americans tended to show unjustified belief in the validity of their opinions. De Tocqueville was shocked at the lack of vision he found in writers and leaders. Only at times of crisis, he said, were Americans willing to look more deeply at issues and seek leaders of substance.A confirmation of De Tocqueville’s observations is the horrific slaughter of the American Civil War whose 600,000 deaths would be equivalent to 5.4 million in today’s population. Half the nation fought to maintain slavery that had already been banned by other advanced nations in the world. This ghastly conflict continues to be “celebrated” mindlessly in recreated battles in parts of the U.S.How does this apply to Ewen? His main focus is on the efforts and techniques by which American businesses and economic interests sought to win customers and profits. He provides many illustrations of crass and selfish, sometimes heartless motives of corporate leaders.In reviewing the use of PR techniques by politicians Ewen contrasts human and enlightened motives of writers and photographers associated with the New Deal, like George Soule, Rexford Tugwell and Roy Stryker, in contrast with Ronald Reagan’s identification with commercial interests. Ewen does cite enlightened attitudes of a few business leaders like Robert Wood Johnson.But Ewen completely ignores the degree to which idealistic motives and ideologies blinded articulate and influential New Deal activists like Rexford Tugwell. For example, in a book following a trip to Moscow in 1927 Tugwell and fellow activists naively accepted the artful PR of Communist leaders. In a book based on their travel they extolled the central planning of agriculture in the Soviet Union (Stuart Chase, Robert Dunn, and R. G. Tugwell, eds. Soviet Russia in the second decade: a joint survey by the technical staff of the first American Trade Union Delegation. The John Day Company, 1928). Tugwell later wrote, “The future is becoming visible in Russia” (Peter G. Filene, “Americans and the Soviet Experiment, 1917-1933, Harvard University Press, 1967).Upon inauguration of the Roosevelt administration in 1933. Tugwell was appointed Assistant Secretary of Agriculture (later Undersecretary). Given the terrible famines in the Soviet Union in 1932 – suppression of information on which was aided by other gullible American journalists, it seems doubtful that Tugwell’s background was helpful in resolving the crisis of American farmers during his service in the Roosevelt administration.My main point is that clouded, uncritical thinking, whether like Tugwell's or that of the American tobacco industry, has been and remains widespread in U.S. society. I suggest we address this fateful national tendency whenever we see it.

I came across this work when doing some research for my own planned book on applied public relations in the workplace. In the first instance, I was drawn in and subsequently captivated by a stand alone extract featuring Ewen's account of his extraordinary meeting with Edward Bernays and this led me to order the book and work my way through it more systematically. It is profoundly interesting and very accomplished, full of information, insights and interest bound together by immaculate scholarship and a strong narrative sense. It presents an unmissable account of the origins, development and deployment of modern public relations and Ewen manages to strike a fine balance between doing such a big subject both academic and narrative justice.

If you only buy one book on pr,make it this one.It reminded me of the shock doctrine the way it covers all the essential points while reading like a gripping novel.In my top ten of factual books.

Presents a very distorted view of what public relations actually is. A cynical author who should not have been teaching the course he taught - lacks ethical approach.

It is a good book that covers a lot interesting issues connected with PR. It is very useful for those studying PR at university.