Theories of the Information Society, Third Edition - Cryptome

INFORMATION AND DEMOCRACY
such growth has come about a new professionalism among practitioners and a
notable increase in the precision of their ‘campaigns’ (from careful market
research, to computerised analyses, to ‘targeted’ audiences).
Further evidence of the growing trend towards managing opinion, and something
which reaches deep into the political realm, is the dramatic rise of lobbying
concerns that penetrate Whitehall to extend the influence of their paymasters. I
do not refer here to the press lobby, which gets its name from the place where
journalists stand to catch MPs leaving the Commons chamber, but rather to those
groups – usually corporate – whose aim is to influence the political process itself.
A key element of this strategy is the hiring of parliamentarians by interested
parties (Raphael, 1990).
I shall return to political affairs, but here I want to draw attention to the
contribution of business interests to the information environment. Two features
are of particular note. The first parallels the recognition by political scientists
of the need to manage the democratic process by careful information handling.
In the burgeoning corporate sector, during the same inter-war period, there came
about recognition that public opinion could and would increasingly impinge upon
business affairs. In the United States especially, ‘[a]s firms grew larger, they came
to realise the importance of controlling the news which they could not avoid
generating’ (Tedlow, 1979, p. 15). The upshot was the establishment of publicity
departments briefed to ensure that corporate perspectives on labour relations,
economic affairs and even international politics were heard. And we cannot be
surprised to find that Edward Bernays identified and encouraged the corporate
world’s recognition ‘that in addition to selling its products . . . it needed also and
above all to sell itself to the public, to explain its contributions to the entire
economic system’ (Bernays, 1952, p. 101).
From acknowledgement that any business organisation ‘depends ultimately
on public approval and is therefore faced with the problem of engineering the
public’s consent to a program or goal’ (Bernays, 1952, p. 159) follows a panoply
of corporate communications. In the modern business corporation the management
of public opinion is an integral element of the overall marketing strategy.
To this end the likes of Roger B. Smith, the General Motors chief executive, are
clear about the function of their public relations staff: their instructions are
nothing less than ‘to see that public perceptions reflect corporate policies’ (Smith,
1989, p. 19). These are the premises which underlie corporate involvement in
myriad informational activities: sponsorship, logo design, corporate image projection,
advertorials, public relations, courting of political (and other) interests, even
involvement with educational programmes (an area where corporations reach
young people and may be associated with concerned and caring activities). The
foundational concerns of the corporate sector are also manifest in joint enterprises,
in Britain most prominently in the Confederation of British Industry (CBI),
founded in 1965 and now routinely regarded as the authoritative voice of the
business community, with acknowledged representation at any public forum to
do with the state of ‘industry’.
An associated phenomenon is the increasing practice of training leading
corporate personnel how best to work with and appear on the media. Speaker
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