MASS CULTURE –

MASS COMMUNICATION

1
 MASSES OR ELITES?

Any community is parted in several small groups of people constituting the elites of the
political, social and cultural life, on one hand, and the crowd, the mass of people of an
average level. Along the ages, there has always been a tension between such small
exclusive groups of educated and informed men and the rest of the population. In certain
periods, the elites tried to govern the people either in a tyrannical way or with the
intention of illuminating them. The communist regimes in Eastern European countries
pretended to use the reversed method, that of imposing the power of the masses over the
elites. But Marxist theories are not isolated in the attempt of breaking the walls between
small educated groups and large uneducated crowds, the whole wave of 20th century
ideologies including globalisation and post-industrialisation have this purpose. Can we
conceive a separation into masses and elites nowadays? Why? Can you define the
concepts of culture for the elites and mass-culture?

***

The distinctive feature of modern times is the change of culture (the field in which the
spiritual and creative activity of men is developed) in “my culture” (the spirit of place
and time imposing itself over the most elevated thought as well as over the simplest
ordinary action). For the 20th century people, there isn’t any general principle to be
applied in the spiritual universe, and there isn’t any possibility to isolate oneself from
communities and masses, because human being is not only an individual but also a social
being. Industrialisation and democracy levelled people in the developed countries, so
there is no major difference in what concerns social class, living standards, and
mentalities. Most of the population can have access to culture in its various forms and is
allowed to keep informed about the topics of interest. Of course there are voices which
raise against this kind of “dictatorship of the masses” and which try to preserve culture in
a pure elitist form, of course there are intellectuals who do not like democracy although

2
they enjoy its benefits, but the process is irreversible. “Mass culture has won, there is
nothing else”, sociologists assume.

We have to start from the pyramid of needs, built by Abraham Maslow in 1954, which
places, at the lowest level, physiological necessities (food, sex, rest etc.), then security
(safety, lack of danger), acceptance and love (the desire to be part of a group, social
category, agreed by the others), appreciation (after achieving a goal and making it known
in the community), knowledge (the wish to understand and explore), the aesthetic
component (symmetry, order, beauty), and, at the top, self-esteem. The form is that of a
pyramid, the scholar explains, because the number of persons with certain needs
decreases from the first to the last step, but also because the parts determine each other.
We will easily recognise that at the beginning (from stage one to stage four) people cover
material usage of things or practical actions with specific purposes. This is what normal
men of average intelligence and standard of living usually act upon, do, think. The last
three steps are very high, they manifest at individuals acknowledging the fact that there
are also superior possibilities for human beings only.

Nowadays, the society of Western capitalist countries tends to focus on mass-audience

culture, commercial culture, “popular” culture, the culture industry, defined as opposing
to elitism. This conception developed according to the evolution of the world affairs in
the latest century: mankind have striven to imagine and accomplish systems of
government, economy, human relations, based on pluralism, equal opportunities for
everybody, wide participation. These notions, together with the quick spread of new
technologies and means of communication, which make people be able to keep in touch
with each other at long distances and preserve stocks of information, have strengthened
the middle class and have maintained market, customer-oriented economy, general
elections in policy, democratic ruling. Accordingly, management and marketing,
persuasion, propaganda, manipulation or image building are capital for going on.

What is mass culture? Which are its main components? The phenomenon represents the
attempt of persons who have passed through four parts of Maslow’s scheme to go upper,

3
without being prepared or trained for it. The result is that they take safety as knowledge,
for example, or agreement of a certain community as personal fulfilment and reason for
self-esteem, or appreciation as order. The theory of reification explains how, under
capitalism, world is instrumentally organised and “taylorised” according to various
rational models of efficiency, which means that ideas aren’t important for themselves
anymore, but through consequences. Commodity and consumption become key words,
instead of the traditional triad truth-beauty-good, and everything is measured in money
and social position (power).

The story, the narrative has changed: it doesn’t tend to be situated at the top of the
pyramid, establishing ideals and trying to explain exterior and interior forces; it is at the
bottom of the structure, without any other hope or ambition but to make a spectator be
content and happy with what he gets. But, in the same time, such a tale imitates, in a
rough copy, the superior part of the stairs: after all, advertisement is nothing else but a
rudiment of mythology.

In an American magazine there appeared, in a pro/con advertising debate, the interview

of a copy chief at an advertising agency, and his words seemed to me the most we can
say about Western capitalist commercial city civilisation: “The consumer is a great big
gapping jaw we’re all trying to fill up with whatever we can cram down there, and the
great hope is that the jaw will keep getting wider and wider”.
One of the most important reasons for transforming culture from a privilege of the elites
into a field for everyone was the development of the means of transmission and
circulation of its products. In the Middle Ages people were copying the books by hand
and manuscripts were too rare and expensive for being read by large groups. In the 15 th
century, Guttenberg’s invention (printing with movable letters) revolutionised the
possibilities to spread culture. The idea of mass-circulated newspapers followed the
invention of printing. The early printed matter consisted of books and religious tracts, but
soon literacy grew and the periodicals containing exciting stories for the middle class
taste appeared. In Holland, printers began turning out corantos, or currents of news,
around 1620. In the centuries to follow, printed materials constituted an important means

4
of news quickly reaching the public, as for example the manifests issued by the
intellectuals for the masses during the French Revolution, weapons for the communards
and linkage between the elites and the people.

In the 20th century, the appearance of faster means of communication, such as the
telegraph, the telephone, radio and television, reduced more and more the distance
between elites and average people. In contemporary world education is not so expensive
as in the past so it is not the privilege of small wealthy groups anymore.

Culture for the elites, conceived in a written form, by known authors, to a cultivated
audience; popular culture, transmitted orally from generation to generation, composed
through the accumulation of anonymous wisdom through the ages; mass culture, specific
for the modern age, representing the fast spreading of perishable information – these are
the three facets of culture. There is a huge difference between the types, as the
mentalities, behaviour, information sources and art forms differ very much. While
reading the following table, we should think of the mass culture as of the culture of those
who watch soap operas and read the tabloids, of those who are manipulated during the
elections and who adhere to the opinions of the others rather than let themselves think.
This does not mean that they are not a force, as they are not the opinion leaders, but they
constitute the public opinion.

Point of comparison High culture Mass culture Folk culture

Degree and type of Recognised, Left to media and Originally neglected.

institutionalisation protected and market Now often officially
promoted by protected
formal social
bodies.
High social value
Type of organisation Not organised, one- Mass produced for Reproduced
of production off mass markets, using according to

5
 and unique for technologies in standard, traditional
specialised markets certain planned designs by hand.
ways Market not essential,
artificially exhibited
Content and meaning Ambiguous, Superficial, Unselfconscious in
disturbing and pleasing, meaning and
timeless unambiguous, purpose,
almost universal, It is clear or obscure,
but in the same time decorative or rustic.
perishable Not universal but
persists in time
Audience and effect Relatively small, Everyone in All members of the
being trained or principle, same culture, though
educated, heterogeneous. also limited.
connoisseurs. Consumption- Continuity, custom,
Intellectual oriented. solidarity,
satisfaction Immediate and integration
Prestige. direct gratification.
Enlarging Diversion
experience

Apart from the good effects of culture globalisation, there are also some by-effects of this
process: the standardisation of human knowledge, which has led to the creation of certain
stereotypes and patterns of mind from which people are not generally accustomed to
escape; the danger of vulgarising noble causes and ideas; the uniformisation and levelling
of persons with different capacities and levels of information.

Maybe the solution to a problem prompted because of masses and communities is,
paradoxically, an individual one: each of us should carefully choose his own sources of
information and should try to build up a personality and a system of thought in spite of
uniformisation and globalisation.

6
THE BASIC TOOLS OF MASS CULTURE

7
In the post-modern world we cannot notice the sweat of work, the failures and successes
that lead to an item, the real people who do things; we can only see on TV, hear on radio,
read in newspapers about exciting boys and girls, presenting foods, drinks or clothes,
made of plastic, without taste, smell, touch.

There isn’t any depth, any inner side, there are only surfaces, no content. We change into
ghosts or characters, our universe turns into a dream or movie, we play roles, we don’t
live. So, we have to find out why we have got here, why we have reached this point.
Mass communication, propaganda, mass-media, public relations, image building,
management, marketing, advertising, publicity are rules of the game.

***

In the contemporary world, the necessities of life include not only basic supplies, like
food or water, but also the deep human need for communication and information. We all
communicate or inform ourselves or each other, but few of us try to define the terms or
describe the stages of communication or even seriously think about the results of their
gestures or sentences. We need to understand what communication is and how the
process of communication functions, as it is a highly important part of mass culture.

At a general level, communication events involve the following: a source, a process of

encoding, a message, a channel, a process of decoding, a receiver, the potential for
feedback and the noise.

To begin with, the source initiates the process by having a thought or an idea that he or
she wishes to transmit to some other entity. Naturally, sources differ in their
communication skills. The source may or may not have knowledge about the receiver of
the message. Sources can be single individuals, groups, or even organisations.

8
The encoding process refers to the activities that a source goes through to translate
thoughts and ideas into a form that may be perceived by the senses. When you have
something to say, your brain and your tongue work together to form words and spoken
sentences. When you write a letter, your brain and your fingers co-operate to produce
patterns of ink or some other substance on paper that can be seen. Encoding in a
communication setting can take place once or more times.

The message is the actual physical product that the source encodes. When we talk, our
speech is the message. Human beings usually have a large number of messages at their
disposal, from which they choose to send simple or very complex ones. Messages can be
cheap to produce or very expensive. Some messages are more under the control of the
receiver than others.

Channels refer to the ways in which the message travels to the receiver. Sound waves
carry spoken words; light waves carry visual messages. There are natural and artificial
channels. Some messages use more than one channel to travel to the receiver.

The decoding process is the opposite of the encoding process. It consists of activities that
translate or interpret physical messages into a form that has eventual meaning for a
receiver. Both humans and machines can be thought of as decoders. Like encoding,
decoding can also happen more than once. And, in the same way, some people are better
encoders than others.
The receiver is the target of the message, its ultimate goal. The receiver can be a single
person, a group, an institution or even a large, anonymous collection of people. The
receivers of the message can be determined by a source or can self-select themselves into
the audience. The sender and the receiver can be in each other’s immediate presence or
can be separated by space or time.

Feedback takes into account the responses of the receiver that shape and alter the
subsequent messages of the source. Feedback represents the reversal of the flow of
communication.The original source becomes the receiver and the original receiver

9
becomes the new source. There is the positive feedback from the receiver, which
encourages the communication behaviour in progress, and there is the negative one,
which attempts to change the communication or even to terminate it. Feedback can be
immediate or delayed.

The last factor to be considered is noise, which is anything that interferes with the
delivery of the message. There are three different types of noise: semantic (occuring
when different people have different meanings for different words and phrases),
mechanical (the fault of the machine that is being used to assist communication) and
environmental (from sources of noise that are external to the communication process but
interfere with it). As noise increases, message fidelity (how closely the message that is
sent resembles the message that is received) goes down.

These are the components of the communication process in its simplest and clearest
definition. Of course there are other possible, more refined, more complex ways of
conceiving communication, as for example, it is difficult to make artistic communication
enter these terms.

***

In a time of global communication, information travels from one place to another with an
amazing speed and there is such a large quantity of data in each field that we could get
mad if we wanted to know all of them. That is why we have to keep ourselves correctly
informed, not through gathering all the pieces of the puzzle, but through knowing the
most sincere and open sources. Do we live in a society of manipulation? Is any piece of
information a form of propaganda? Can we escape being cheated? These are some of the
questions each contemporary conscious man asks himself without being certain about the
answer.

10
Communication has been defined as a convergence process in which sender and receiver,
either through mediated or non-mediated means, create and share information. When the
information is used to accomplish a purpose of sharing, explaining or instructing, it is
considered informative communication. People seek information when they need to
understand their world and once gained it tends to reduce uncertainty. The informative
discourse is considered neutral, it is communication about a subject matter that has
attained the privileged status of being beyond dispute. The informative communicator has
the purpose of creating mutual understanding of data that are considered to be accurate,
based on facts.

Persuasion is a subset of communication usually defined as a communicative process

aimed to influence others. A persuasive message has a point of view or a desired
behaviour for the receiver to adopt in a voluntary fashion. It is a complex, continuing,
interactive process in which a sender and a receiver are linked by symbols, verbal and
non-verbal, through which the persuader tries to influence the persuadee to adopt a
change in a given attitude or behaviour. Persuasion is transactional, it promises to help
people by satisfying their wants or needs. Both parties, persuader and persuadee, will
perceive the change as mutually beneficial in the end. The best example is that of a
teacher convincing his students about a certain theory.

Propaganda utilises informative communication in a similar fashion, with the difference

that the purpose exceeds the notion of mutual understanding. The aim of propaganda is to
promote a partisan or competitive cause in the best interest of the propagandist, but not
necessarily in the best interest of the recipient. Propaganda is the basic tool of mass
communication.

The propagandist is a sender of messages who uses special talents and also scientific
work to influence the attitudes of an audience. To be effective, propaganda should be
adapted to the particular needs of the situation and the target audience. Defining
propaganda, we can say that it is the deliberate and systematic attempt to shape

11
perceptions, manipulate cognitions and direct behaviour to achieve a response that
furthers the desired intent of the propagandist. It is deliberate because it is wilful,
intentional and premeditated; the term systematic means precise and methodical, carrying
out something with organised regularity; it attempts to direct communication towards an
objective that has been established a priori. The shaping of perceptions usually focuses on
language and images, that is why slogans, symbols, posters are used. Manipulating
cognitions means changing and forming people’s trust, creating new positive attitudes.
The direction of a specific behaviour is the final behaviour of a propaganda effort, this
representing the achievement of a response or a reaction from the part of the audience.

Although propaganda takes many forms, it is almost always in some form of activated
ideology. Sometimes propaganda is agitative, attempting to arouse an audience to certain
ends with significant changes, some other times it is integrative, with the aim of
rendering an audience in a passive, accepting and non-challenging way. Propaganda is
also described as white, grey or black in relationship to an acknowledgement of its source
and its accuracy of information. White propaganda comes from a source that is identified
correctly, and the information in the message tends to be accurate, trying to build
credibility with the audience. For example, some newspapers are for certain political
parties openly and present the views of these formations. Black propaganda is credited to
a false source and it spreads lies, fabrications and deceptions. For example, Radio Free
Hungary attracted world attention and sympathy in Western countries for commenting
the events of 1956 when the Russians sent their tanks to Budapest, but it was in fact a
fake operated by the KGB with the intention to demonstrate that the United States could
not be relied upon to help a country in revolt. Grey propaganda is somewhere between
the two other forms, the source of the message is correctly identified but the information
is inaccurate. It is used in advertising and electoral campaigns most of the time.

***

Media represent, as I have previously mentioned, the set of channels through which mass
culture has evolved and developed, and through which it spreads nowadays. In the

12
broadest sense of the word, a medium is the channel through which a message travels
from the source to the receiver (“medium” is singular, “media” is plural). When we talk
about mass communication, we also need channels to carry the message. We will refer to
these channels as the mass media. Our definition of a mass medium will include not only
the mechanical devices that transmit and sometimes store the message (TV cameras,
radio microphones, printing presses), but also the institutions that use these machines to
transmit messages. When we talk about the mass media of television, radio, newspapers,
magazines, sound recording, and film, we will be referring to the people, the polices, the
organisations, and the technology that go into producing mass communication. There are
seven main and different mass media: radio, television, film, book publishing, sound
recording, newspapers, and magazines. Of course, these seven are not the only mass
media that exist. If we choose, we might also include billboards, comic books, posters,
direct mail, matchbooks, and buttons in our discussion. The important thing to settle here
is not the structure, but the functioning of the media institutions.

We have defined the term communication as the process of sending, receiving and
interpreting messages through which we relate to each other and to our larger world. It
means that, if for centuries speech has been considered entirely individual, at the moment
it represents social interaction, with established targets and expected feedback.
Contemporary theories of language prove our tendency to conceive utterance as
connection between people, rather than self-expression of personal ideas. For example,
anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski distinguished two functions of speech, link in
concerted human activity (as for people shifting furniture) and phatic communication (as
when people want to show that they recognise each other’s presence – greetings). In
conclusion, communication is a process involving groups of people, of words, of
gestures, of interests and of new realities (facts), so we can say that starting from this
point it is not difficult to reach organisational communication, mass communication or
issue management.

•  Organisational communication centres on the process of sending, receiving

and interpreting messages within and between organisations. Organisations consist of

13
 independent goal-oriented activities of people who work together within a system of
rules, norms and routines.

•  Mass communication involves large numbers of people and is mediated,

something coming between the sender and the receiver of message, putting a distance
between them.

•  Issue management investigates how organisations affect and are, in turn,

affected by aspects of the communicative environment (government regulatory
organisations, politicians, consumers, competitors and other organisations).

While there are important differences between the different media and between national
societies and types of social system, there are also some similarities on which to base a
generalisation. Any social institution comprises a set of activities, carried out by people
occupying certain roles, according to rules and shared understandings. In the case of mass
media, we are talking about the activities of cultural and informational production carried
out by ‘mass communicators’ of many kinds and directed to audiences within a
framework of regulation and custom.

Mass communicators have a set of common characteristics which distinguish them from
other groups and institutions. First of all, mass communication is produced by complex
and formal organisations characterised by specialisation, division of labour, focussed
areas of responsibility. This means that mass communication will be the product of a
bureaucracy. As in most bureaucracies, decision-making will take place at several
different levels of management and channels of communication within the organisation
will be formalised. Another important factor that characterises the mass communicator is
the presence of multiple gatekeepers. A gatekeeper is a person or group which has control
over what material eventually reaches the public. Gatekeepers exist in large numbers in
all mass communication organisations, some being more obvious than others. The third
rule is that mass communication organisations need a great deal of money to operate, so
that they have to have strong financial resources in order to penetrate the market. That is

14
the reason why small companies unite and form “mega-media concerns”. Another
characteristic of mass communicators is that these organisations exist to make profit. The
consumer is the ultimate source of this profit, but there are various secondary means of
financing. Last but not least, mass communication organisations are highly competitive.
Since the audience is the source of profit, mass communicators compete with each other
as they attempt to attract the public.

The special features of media institution, as it is widely constituted, are as follows:

- - It is concerned with producing and distributing ‘knowledge’ in the form of

information, ideas, culture. This is in response to collective social needs as well as
the demands of individuals.

- - It provides channels for relating certain people to other people: senders to

receivers, audience members to other audience members, everyone to their society
and its constituent institutions. These are not only the physical channels of the
communication network, but also the channels of custom and understanding which
define who should, or is likely to, listen to whom.

- - The media operate almost exclusively in the public sphere: they comprise an
open institution in which all can participate as receivers and, under certain conditions,
also as senders. The media institution also has a public character in that mass media
deal with matters on which public opinion exists or can properly be formed (i.e. not
with personal or private matters or those for expert or scientific judgement).

- - Participation in the institution as audience member is essentially voluntary,

without compulsion or social obligation, more so than is the case with other
institutions concerned with knowledge distribution, such as education, religion or
politics. Correlative is the association of media use with leisure and free time and its
disassociation from work and duty. Relate also is the formal powerlessness of the
media institution: it can claim no authority of its own in society nor has it any

15
 organisation linking ‘higher’ (message producers) with ‘lower’ participants
(audiences).

- - The institution is linked with industry and the market, through its dependence
on paid work, technology and the need for finance.

- - Although itself without power, the institution is invariably linked with state
power through some of its customary uses and through legal mechanisms and
legitimating ideas which vary from one state to another.

These features are not all unique to the media, but their existence in combination gives
the mass media their distinctive character and particular significance in a modern society.
We can find other characteristics, of course, but these ones are the necessary minimum
for a proper definition.

At the individual level, the functional approach to media is given the general name of the
uses-and-gratifications model. In its simplest form, this model posits that audience
members have certain needs that are satisfied by using non-media and media sources. The
actual needs satisfied by the media are called media gratifications. Our knowledge of
these gratifications typically comes from surveys that have asked people a large number
of questions about how they use media. Several researchers have classified the various
uses and gratifications into a fourfold category system: cognition, diversion, social utility,
withdrawal. Cognition means the act of coming to know something. When a person uses
a mass medium to obtain information about something, than he or she is using the
medium in a cognitive way. Diversion can take many forms, including: stimulation, or
seeking relief from boredom or the routine activities of everyday life; relaxation, or
escape from the pressures and problems of day-to-day existence; emotional release of
pent-up emotions and energy. Psychologists have also identified a set of social integrative
needs, including our need to strengthen our contact with family, friends and others in our
society. The media function that addresses this need is called social utility, and this usage
can take several forms: that of conversational currency (media provide a common ground

16
for social conversation) or that of parasocial relationship (the TV set represents a voice in
the house for people who might otherwise be alone). On the other hand, humans
occasionally need to escape from certain activities and they use media not only for
relaxation but also for purposes that are best described as withdrawal uses. At times,
people use the mass media to create a barrier between themselves and other people or
other activities. For example, the media help people avoid certain chores that must be
done.

Out of the millions of things that happen every day, print and electronic journalists decide
what few things are worth reporting. Deciding what is newsworthy is not an exact
science, but there are common elements that characterise it. The most important feature
of a newsworthy event is timeliness, because news is new and yesterday’s news is old
news. A consumer who picks up the evening paper or turns on the afternoon news
expects to be told what has happened earlier the same day. News is perishable and stale
news is not interesting. Another quality of news is proximity, because readers and
viewers want to learn about their neighbourhood, town, country. All other things being
equal, things from close to home are more newsworthy than news from a foreign country.
Psychological proximity is also important, for example subway riders from Bucharest
will be more interested in a material about the New York subway than the people in the
same town not travelling by this means of transport. Prominence is another feature, as the
more important a person, the more valuable he or she is as a news source. Political
leaders, sports and entertainment figures, but also dangerous criminals give media
coverage. Another golden rule is that people are interested in events with consequences
on their lives, with impact. A tax increase, drought, inflation, earthquakes, all these
events have consequence and are widely mediatised. The last quality we mention is
human interest, stories that arouse emotion in the audience by being ironic, bizarre,
tragic. Typically, these items concern ordinary people who find themselves in
circumstances with which the audience can identify. Thus, when the winner of the state
lottery gives half of his winnings to the elderly man who sold him the ticket, it becomes
newsworthy. Anyhow, it is not easy to establish what is news.

17
 ***

Another essential tool of mass communication in the contemporary society, which

represents a means of propaganda, of promotion of information, ideas, people,
companies, products, is public relations.

Humankind has at its disposal tools of communication so swift, so abundant, and so

pervasive that their potential has not been fully comprehended yet. Messages flash
around the world by satellite within seconds. Computers produce almost instantaneous
calculations and pour out information at the rate of thousand of words a minute. Immense
warehouses of information stored in electronic databases are available at the touch of a
keyboard. Yet in the midst of this information revolution, and in the general agreement
that we live in a “global information society”, misunderstanding, lack of comprehension
and antagonism abound. Time after time, a crisis or conflict is caused by the failure to
communicate effectively.

Research and analysis have also provided knowledge of the motivation behind individual
behaviour, highlighting the dynamics of group conduct and the sociological factors that
create conflict among different groups. Our tools and accumulated knowledge, however,
far surpass our ability to harness the concepts for effective conflict resolution, negotiation
and compromise among groups that take different sides on such varying issues as
economic development and preservation of the environment, abortion, cigarette smoking,
etc. More than ever, nowadays the world needs not more information but more sensitive
communicators who can explain the goals and methods of organisations, individuals and
governments to others, in a socially responsible manner. Equally, these experts in
communication and public opinion must provide their employers with knowledge of what
others are thinking, to guide them in setting their policies wisely for the common good.

Patrick Jackson, a former president of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA)
and publisher of PR Reporter, makes the case for this role of the public relations field:

18
“As soon as there was Eve and Adam, there were relationships, and in every society, no
matter how small or primitive, public communication occurs, needs and problems
inevitably emerge and must be solved. Public relations is devoted to the essential
function of building and improving human relationships.”

People often define public relations by some of its most visible techniques and tactics,
such as advertising in a newspaper, television interviews with the spokespersons of
certain organisations, or the appearance of a celebrity at a special event. What people fail
to understand is that public relations is a process involving many subtle and far reaching
aspects. It includes research and analysis, policy formation, programming,
communication towards and feedback from numerous publics. Its practitioners operate on
two distinct levels – advisors for their clients and technicians who produce and
disseminate messages in multiple media channels.

There have been formulated many definitions over the years, from the simple to the
complex:

•  PR stands for Performance and then Recognition;

•  Public relations is the deliberate, planned and sustained effort to establish

and maintain mutual understanding between an organisation and its publics.
(The British Institute of Public Opinion, whose definition has been adopted in a
number of Commonwealth nations);

•  Public relations is the conscious and legitimate effort to achieve

understanding and the establishment and maintenance of trust among the public on
the basis of systematic research (Deutsche Public Relations Gesellschaft of
Germany);

•  Public relations practice is the art and social science of analyzing trends,
predicting their consequences, counseling organisation leaders and implementing

19
 planned programmes of action which serve both the organisation’s and the public’s
interest”. (definition approved at “the World Assembly of Public Relations” in
Mexico City in 1978 and endorsed by 34 national public relations organisations).

The key words to remember in defining public relations follow:

Deliberate. Pubic relations activity is intentional. It is designed to influence, gain

understanding, provide information, and obtain feedback (reaction from those affected by
the activity).

Planned. Public relations activity is organised. Solutions to problems are discovered and
logistics are thought out, with the activity taking place over a period of time. It is
systematic, requiring research and analysis.

Performance. Effective public relations is based on actual policies and performance. No

amount of public relations will generate goodwill and support if the organisation is
unresponsive to community concerns. A Pacific Northwest timber company, despite an
advertising campaign with the theme “For Us, Everyday is Earth Day”, became known as
the villain of Washington State because of its insistence on logging old-growth forests
and bulldosing a logging road into a prime elk habitat.

Public Interest. The reason for any public relations activity is to serve the public interest,
and not simply to achieve benefits for the organisation. Ideally, the public relations
activity is mutually beneficial to the organisation and the public; it is the alignment of the
organisation’s self-interests with the public’s concerns and interests. For example, the
Mobil Corporation sponsors quality programming on public television because it
enhances the image of the company; by the same token, the public benefits from the
availability of such programming.

Two-Way Communication. Dictionary definitions often give the impression that public
relations consists only of the dissemination of informational materials. It is equally

20
important, however, that the definitions include feedback from audiences. The ability to
listen is an essential part of communication expertise.

Management Function. Public relations is most effective when it is part of the decision
making of top management. Public relations involves counseling and problem solving at
high levels, not just the releasing of information after a decision has been made. Public
relations is defined by Denny Griswold, founder and owner of PR News, as “ the
management function which evaluates public attitudes, identifies the policies and
procedures of an organisation with the public interest, and executes a programme of
action (and communication) to earn public understanding and acceptance.”

To aid in understanding the history of formal public relations as well as its practice today,
Professors James E. Grunig of the University of Maryland and Todd Hunt of Rutgers:
The State University of New Jersey have constructed four models of public relations. All
four models are practiced today, but the “ideal” one – that in increasing use – is the two-
way symmetric model. They explain their models in their 1984 book Managing Public
Relations:

Press Agentry/Publicity. Propaganda is the purpose, sought through one-way

communication that is often incomplete, distorted, or only partially true. The model is
source receiver. Communication is viewed as telling, not listening, and little if any
research is undertaken. P.T. Barnum was the leading historical figure during this
model s heyday from 1850 to 1900.

Public Information. Dissemination of information, not necessarily with a persuasive

intent, is the purpose. The model is sourcereceiver. Research, if any, is likely to be
confined to readability tests or leadership studies. Ivy Lee is the leading historical figure
during this models early development period from about 1900 into the 1920s.

Two-Way Assymetric. Scientific persuasion is the purpose and communication is two-

way, with balanced effects. The model is source  r eceiver with feedback (  to the

21
source. Research is both formative, helping to plan an activity and to choose objectives,
and evaluative, finding if the object has been met. Ivy Lee is the leading historical figure
during the model’s period beginning in the 1920s.

Two-Way Symmetric. Gaining mutual understanding is the purpose, and

communication is two-way with balanced effects. The model is groupgroup with
feedback (. Formative research is used mainly both to learn how the public perceives
the organisation and to determine what consequences the organisation has for the public.
Evaluative research is used to measure whether a public relations effort has improved
both the understanding publics have of the organisation and that which management has
of its publics.

One-Way Two-Way
Press Agentry/ Public Two-Way Two-Way
Publicity Information Asymmetrical Symmetrical
Purpose Propaganda Dissemination Scientific Mutual
of information persuasion understanding
Organisational Advocacy Dissemination Advocacy Mediation
contribution of information
Nature of One-way; One-way; truth Two-way; Two-way;
communication complete truth important balanced balanced
not essential effects effects
Communication SourceRec. SourceRec. SourceRec.
GroupGroup
model (Receiver)  feedback 
Nature of Little; Little; Formative;
Formative;
research counting readability, evaluative ofevaluative of
house readership attitudes
understanding

22
 ***

Nowadays, image has become a common nourishment for our sensitivity, intelligence
and ideologies, leading to the huge increase of the tendency to use certain means of
action in order to influence the representations of people; we live inside a “civilisation of
the image”, as modern sociologists say.

One should mention that the term “image” does not refer, restrictively, to the material
reproduction of a given reality, but to an attribute of the inner self – based on the capacity
of the human mind to build up mental representations – of utmost importance for the
communicational relationship. So, image can influence the decision-making ability of a
person or of a collectivity because, along the history of mankind, life has been related
equally to images and to concrete realities.

Lately, the image builder has become a character of huge importance, a well paid person,
as it is clear for everybody that it does not matter how good a product is, as long as it has
not been imposed over the public consciousness; for this purpose, it should be presented
in the most proper light; otherwise, it is lost in an immense mass of anonymous, similar
items. The essential idea, which motivates the appearance of this new job, is that a
“product” disappears, is not successful on the market, is not successful in the political life
not because it is not good but because it is not known.

Robert Wilson, a specialist in the field of public image, who has become vice-president
of the Pfitzer corporation, defines exactly this relationship between the image builder and
the product of his work: “Mr. President – why should I build an image that will make the
people love you? How much will this consume of the enterprise’s budget? Whom do you
want to address to? The large audience? The large audience does not exist. There exist
only clients.” Another specialist, Herb Schmertz, states: “we sell ideas, we are the
managers of an election campaign that never ends”.

23
In any case, it is not about the work of a clerk, neutral and machine-like, which transfers
data from the interior of a system towards its exterior. If things went on like this,
efficiency would be zero. The image built after a real creation process, with artistic and
scientific co-ordinates, must be vivid, in order to test the imagination of a possible
consumer, to provoke a certain reaction, to induce a series of strong beliefs.
For being effective, the image has to evoke something, has to tell something, has to
invite, in fact, to a possible and permanent dialogue. For this reason, the image itself will
be thought as an open creation, it will contain a great number of messages, bearing in
mind the basic principle stating that attention is hard to be retained for a long period of
time, and when you have gained it you have to transmit the maximum of information.

The image builder intervenes when the product does not exist yet and, in the public
consciousness, there has to be implemented the belief that people need it. The image
builder asks the following questions and will start the action if he is convinced that he can
generate a certain type of social reaction:

“Why will my product exist?” “Because it has to exist. It will appear because it is logical
to appear, you will benefit from it and it is not the result of some accident, but it exists
because our organisation (the firm, the party, the government, etc.) knows that you have
needed it.”

This is the moment when there comes the real necessity for a professional image builder.
Only this person can create a belief, in a time in which mass media harder and harder
succeeds to convince the large audience; the image builder proves to be socially
necessary exactly when advertising has become more than aggressive, has become
redundant, turning against its own purpose. Advertising does not attract anymore, it
creates, through overloading, a reaction of rejection.

The image builder will try to identify the right areas for inserting his message into the
widest informative spaces of the mass media. His arguments will be presented in
succession, in order to create an image of the social need that has provoked the

24
appearance of his product. So, it is not about a simple, conventional publicity, but about a
demonstration, the creation of a belief, of a state of benevolent expectation.

The more credible motivations are found, the easier the product will be accepted, the
easier its presence will be tolerated in a space that is already overcrowded – the
nowadays public consciousness.
Patrick Jackson, editor of PR Reporter and a public relations counselor, says
communicators should ask themselves a series of questions before preparing any
communication materials:

1. 1. Is it appropriate?
a. a. For the sender?
b. b. For the recipient?

2. 2. Is it meaningful?
a. a. Does it stick to the subject?
b. b. Is it geared to the recipient’s interests, not to the sender’s?

3. 3. Is it memorable?
a. a. In phraseology or metaphor?
b. b. Through the use of visual or aural devices?
4. 4. Is it understandable?
a. a. In both denotative and connotative language?
b. b. Graphically or orally?

5. 5. Is it believable?
a. a. Does the audience trust the spokesperson?
b. b. Does the communication exhibit expertise in the subject matter?

25
In addition to examining the proposed content, a communicator should determine exactly
what objective is sought through the communication. James Grunig, professor of public
relations at the University of Maryland, lists five possible objectives for a communicator:

1. Message exposure. Public relations personnel provide materials to the mass media and
disseminate other messages through controlled media such as newsletters and brochures.
Intended audiences are exposed to the message in various forms.

2. Accurate dissemination of the message. The intended audience acknowledges the

messages and retains all or part of it.

3. Acceptance of the message. Based on its view of reality, the audience not only retains
the message but accepts it as valid.

4. Attitude change. The audience not only believes the message but makes a verbal or
mental commitment to change behavior as a result of the message.

5. Change in overt behavior. Members of the audience actually change their current
behavior or begin a new behavior.

Grunig says that most public relations experts usually aim at the first two objectives,
exposure to the message and accurate dissemination. The last three objectives depend in
large part on a mix of variables – predisposition to the message, peer reinforcement,
feasibility of the suggested action, and environmental context, to name a few. The first
two objectives are easier to evaluate than attitude change.

Although the communicator cannot always control the outcome of a message, researchers
recognise that effective dissemination is the beginning of the process that leads to opinion
change and adoption of products or services. Therefore, it is important to review all
components of the communication process.

26
Philip Lesly, president of the Philip Lesly Company, outlined some guidelines for
effective communication:

•  Approach everything from the viewpoint of the audience’s interest – what is

on their minds, what is in it for them.

•  Give the audience a sense of involvement in the communication process and

in what is going on, so that you will get their interest.

•  Make the subject matter part of the atmosphere the audience lives with – what
they talk about, what they hear from others. That means getting the material adopted
in their channels of communication.
•  Communicate with people, not at them. Communication that approaches the
audience as a target makes people put their defenses up against it.

•  Localise – get the message conveyed as close to the individual’s own milieu
as possible.

•  Use a number of channels of communication, not just one or two. The impact
is far greater when it reaches people in a number of different forms.

•  Maintain consistency – so, what is said on the subject is the same, no matter
which audience it is directed to or what the context is. Still, tailor-make each message
for the specific audience as much as possible.

•  Dont propagandise but make sure that you make your point. When a
communicator draws conclusions, it is more effective than depending on the audience
to draw its own conclusions.
•  Maintain credibility – which is essential for all these points to be effective.

27
 ***

Mass culture, as I have said previously, is not destined for individuals to acknowledge in
their ivory tower, but for groups of people, even for target groups. Such crowds can be
classified and organised, according to their occupations, interests and expectations. Mass
communication function effectively within regular collectivities, organisations,
established after the rules of the game.

The simplest and most significant classification of the organisations takes into account
their degree of ordering. From this perspective, the organisations can be divided in two
main types: informal and formal ones. As it is hard to find pure forms, each organisation
comprising both informal and formal parts, it is more proper to analyze the informal level
and the formal level of an organisation.

The informal level of an organisation is constituted by the spontaneous, indefinite

relations between its members. The norms and regulations of the organisation are
spontaneously agreed upon and are not imposed, so that the degree of acceptance is high.
Similarly, the members of the organisation can adopt an informal leader, which is not the
formal and official one, who has moral authority through his or her ability to establish
stimulative relations.

The formal level of an organisation takes into account the official structure, clearly
defined through the description of the establishment and behavioural norms, of the roles
and relations between the members of the organisation (of power, authority and
responsibility), through the specification of the leaders, the hierarchy, the conditions of
access into and quitting the organisation.

Hughes identifies five different types of organisations occurring in contemporary

societies, according to their purpose:

28
•  voluntary associations (religious, scientific, etc.);

•  military organisations;

•  charities (social assistance organisations);

•  corporations (industrial and financial organisations);

•  family organisations (small enterprises, Mafia).

Blau and Scott propose a taxinomy in five types, according to the clients, the persons
who benefit from the specific organisation activity:

•  organisations of mutual benefit, which have as beneficiaries subscribers and

members (political parties, trade unions, clubs);

•  business organisations, which have as main beneficiaries owners and

managers (firms, banks, insurance companies, shops);

•  organisations providing services, which have as beneficiaries clients

(hospitals, schools, social security agencies, employment agencies);
•  public organisations with a large audience (state institutions, army, police,
firemen).

Amitai Etzioni classifies the organisations according to the behavior of the

organisation’s members, establishing a kind of conformist behavior, of adherence to the
purposes and the specific of the organisation. People having power over their
subordinates exercise it through punishment, reward or norms. Etzioni classifies the
organisations after the types of conformation, establishing three dual structures (between
the leaders and the people who are led):

29
•  punishing organisations (prisons, concentration camps);

•  utilitarian organisations (firms, research institutes, farms, military

organisations on peace time);
•  normative organisations (churches, hospitals, schools, professional
organisations).

The dual structures have as consequences the following combinations:

•  punishing-normative organisations (army);

•  utilitarian-normative organisations (almost all structures);

•  utilitarian-punishing organisations (traditional agricultural and industrial

corporations).

Decision-making ordinarily presumes an ordering of the confusions of life. The classic

ideas of order in organisations involve two closely related concepts. First, it is assumed
that events and activities can be ordered in chains of means and ends. We associate action
with its consequences, and participate in making decisions in order to produce intended
outcomes. Thus, consequential relevance arranges the relation between solutions and
problems and the participation of the decision makers, second, it is assumed that
organisations are hierarchies in which higher levels control lower levels and in which
policies control implementation. Observations of actual organisations suggest a more
confusing picture. Actions in one part of an organisation appear only loosely coupled to
actions in another. Solutions seem to have only a vague connection to problems. Policies
aren’t implemented. And decision makers seem to wander in and out of decision arenas.
The whole process has been described as a kind of funny soccer game:

Consider a round, sloped, multi-goal soccer field on which individuals play soccer.
Many different people (but not everyone) can join the game (or leave it) at different

30
times. Some people can throw balls into the game or remove them. Individuals, while
they are in the game, try to kick whatever ball comes near them in the direction of goals
they like and away from goals they wish to avoid.

Disorderliness in organisations has led some people to argue that there is very little order
to organisational decision making. A more conservative position, however, is that the
ways in which organisations bring order to disorder is less hierarchical and less a
collection of means-ends chains that is anticipated by conventional theories. There is
order, but it is not the conventional order. In particular, it is argued that any decision
process involves a collection of individuals and groups who are simultaneously involved
in other things. Understanding decisions in one arena requires an understanding of how
those decisions fit into the lives of participants. The logic of order is temporal. Problems,
solutions, and decision makers fit together because they are available at the same time.
Thus, decisions depend on attention, and important elements of the distribution of
attention are exogenous to any specific decision process.

***

Any new business starts with an idea; any change of business direction has the same
beginning: an idea. If an advertising agency creates a purely speculative campaign for
one of its clients, the cost is mainly time, a few materials and some share of total
overheads: not a vast sum. But it can save spending a fortune: imagine trying to build a
nuclear reactor hoping that someone might want to buy it! Even door hinges are
expensive to produce, if we take into consideration the cost of the iron or plastic, the cost
of the machine operators, the property and all the ancillary costs of book-keeping, selling
and so on. Marketing takes the guesswork out of hunch.

31
If someone has a hunch, whether about nuclear reactors or door hinges, it can be tested
through appropriate market research. This will not eliminate risk entirely but it may help
to reduce the risk by the information obtained about the needs and preferences of
potential customers. Also, market research can help to quantify the risk that will be taken
by a person and give him or her some ideas of the potential rewards, in order to see
whether it is worth to make the investment.

Professor Peter Drucker has reached the conclusion that “Marketing is the whole
business seen from the point of view of its final result, that is, from the customer’s point
of view”. Some people consider that “Marketing is the creative process of satisfying
customer needs profitably”.

The most widely accepted definition of marketing is provided by the Chartered Institute
of Marketing (CIM): “Marketing is the management process of identifying, anticipating
and satisfying customer requirements profitably”.

Marketing is a management skill; it is neither a science nor a technique. Marketing is a

matter of identifying opportunities and of deciding what risk to take when anticipating
how customers might act or be persuaded to act. Appropriate techniques can be used but,
in the end, it’s a matter of judgement. You seek to satisfy customer’s requirements for the
purpose of making a profit.

The CIM’s definition is sometimes criticised for dealing inadequately with social
marketing (that’s the applications of marketing philosophy and marketing techniques to
non-commercial activities). However, the concept of “welfare benefit” can easily be
include under the heading of “satisfying customer requirements profitably”.

So, what is marketing? Marketing is more than selling or advertising, it is wholly what
business is about, but it’s concerned with the essential matter of investigating the most
profitable direction for any business. It therefore:

32
1). Assesses markets. It measures existing and potential markets, defines market
segments, recommends which one is to be attacked, monitors progress.

2). Specifies products and services. Taking both market assessment and product
potential into account, it ensures that the end user’s views and opinions are adequately
represented in the goods and/or services offered. That is the way in which customers are
offered products or services emphasizing “benefits” rather than production “features”.

3). Evaluates pricing policy. Marketing recommends policies which will afford
maximum of profits at the minimum of risk. It will also consider possible competitive
reactions and devise responses to them.

4). Recommend channel policy, or how goods/services should reach the end user.
Marketing establishes the levels through which goods/services will pass. It asks whether
sales are to be entirely direct, only indirect or some combination of the two.

5). Evaluates sales and physical distribution policy, on the basis of the functional
consequences of channel decisions; the size and duties of the sales force; the number and
location of warehouses and departments; call and delivery rates and so on. In other
words, marketing examines the question of profit versus volume.

6). Makes recommendations regarding advertising and promotion – how much,

when, to whom? Such areas as packaging, service manuals and training need to be
analysed and researched.

7). Coordinates the work of the different areas of the business and ensures total
quality management. This is vital, if there is any single role that transcends all others in
distinguishing a marketing person from other managers.

The simplest definition of the marketing mix is “the four Ps”: product, price, place
and promotion.

33
It is sometimes thought that “selling” ought to be added to the ingredients that go to make
up the marketing mix. Proponents of the “four Ps” include “selling” under “promotion”
because the “four Ps” provide a simple and easily remembered definition.

However, a less memorable and more accurate definition of the marketing mix is: those
elements that are capable of manipulation and variation in order to improve the
effectiveness of marketing programmes, the way in which they are planned and
combined, their relative importance and the proportion of each used to produce a desired
effect. This definition can be explained as follows:

1). “Manipulations and variations” means that one can change the order of importance,
vary the money spent, make short term tactical changes or long term strategic ones.

2). “To improve effectiveness” explains the need for each company to discover its
optimum mixed, which might be defined, simply, as the least amount of money and effort
needed to achieve profit objectives.

3). “Planned and combined”. Few of the items in the mix are complete substitutes, so
the way in which they are used together is very important.

4). “Relative importance”. This element can change from time to time.

5). “Proportion of each used to produce a desired effect”. This is the area where the
differences between competing companies really show. Otherwise, the major differences
between marketing approaches are caused by the fact that certain elements of the
marketing mix are not available, appropriate or simply don’t work in that particular field
or with that particular product.

The way in which plans are drawn up differs from organisation to organisation, but there
are certain things that all plans have in common. In particular, senior managers want firm

34
recommendations – not a set of alternatives which leaves them with the hard work of
having to make a choice between them. They may not necessarily agree with the
recommendation presented to them, but it is still helpful to have a set of reasons why one
is preferred to another. In addition, they want to know how much profit will result from a
plan, over what period and with what degree of certainty or risk.

The key factors to ensure that you have the right planning process and therefore get the
right sorts of plans are:

•  the extent to which the past is examined;

•  how far plans are projected into the future;

•  how much detail is included;

•  what emphasis is placed on strategy, tactics and execution;

•  the number of alternatives to be considered;

•  the degree of flexibility permitted during the plans life.

Prices may have to be changed, different product lines may have to be pushed, new
service packages may have to replace planned ones and so on. All these should be given
first priority rather than reducing the target or changing the strategy.

Thus, achieving the ideal plan is a matter of: careful pre-planning; the right sequence;
reasonable chance of success; controlling performance during the plan’s life.

***

35
So, on such a ground, communication, marketing strategies, advertising are standardised,
attempts of firms to make money on selling myths, aprioric notions about things,
secularisation of certain habits. Going from one place to another, we should know that we
couldn’t stop being influenced by the market, but, being aware of it, we should make our
own choices, be conscious of our powers and limitations, depict and rebuild structure.
Maybe sharp consciousness of intelligent people and oriented criticism could be a way of
escaping these fake means of communication, in fact forms of manipulation. Maybe we
will be able to find new horizons.

THE CHARACTERS OF MASS COMMUNICATION

The characters we encounter in the area of mass culture are quite different from the ones
which are specific for the culture of the elites or in the popular culture. In high culture we
have individuals living their common or uncommon emotions and dramas, in popular
culture we have peasants in communion with nature and with their group Mass culture is

36
dominated public figures whose lives are not individual any more, as it is in the same
time chased by the audience and transformed according to the expectations of the public
– political and social leaders, businessmen, glamorous women, irreal figures, wearing
thick made-up in front of a camera. Another interesting thing related to mass culture is
the fact that it transforms into characters objects, products, firms, places, which are the
subject of advertising.

***

Among the characters of the modern world, the politician is admired and hated, made
responsible for all the bad parts of our social life and praised for the evolution and the
accomplishments of the state. Probably the most interesting male character of mass
culture is the politician.

It is a five-minute biographical film, one that many Americans viewed on their TVs early
in the 1980 presidential campaign. It opens with Ronald Reagan accepting his party’s
nomination. A flashback takes the viewer to pictures of the candidate’s youth in
“America’s heartland, small-town Illinois”, to Hollywood where Ronald Reagan attracted
audiences because he was “so clearly one of them”, to his World War II military record,
to Reagan’s work as “dedicated union man” and, then, to his success as California’s
governor after taking over “a state in crisis”. The overall message: “Governor Reagan
dealt with California’s problems. He will do as much for the nation”.

There was nothing particularly unusual about the Reagan TV ad. Candidates for public
office routinely employ a variety of spot advertising, mini-documentaries, lengthy
biographical sketches, televised town meetings, call-in radio shows, and other electronic
devices to campaign. Other propaganda pops up in brochures, newspaper advertising,
yard signs, lapel buttons, bumper stickers, even – would you believe? – on toilet paper.
Considerable time, money and artistic talent is expended on convincing voters that each
candidate is a man or woman for all seasons, capable of anything the times, situation and
constituents demand…

37
…Candidates, of course, are in a position to act out their fantasies. They dramatise their
fantasies by creating rhetorical visions. These visions appear over and over again in each
candidate’s propaganda. Each speech, brochure, position paper, slogan, TV or radio
advertisement and so on is a carefully crafted effort to portray the candidate’s rhetorical
vision. Such crafting is an artistic enterprise. Hence, campaign propaganda can be
regarded as an example of fantastic art, that is, the use of artistic devices to promote a
candidate’s rhetorical vision of his presidency. If successful, the candidate’s fantasy
chains out to become the news media’s and the voters’ fantasy as well.

Campaign propaganda aims at mediating two closely related, overlapping fantasies. First,
propaganda constructs fantasies about the candidate, his qualities, qualifications, program
and destiny. Second, propaganda mediates realities about the nature of the world, the
array of forces, dangers, threats and enemies that must be confronted and vanquished.
The linkage of the two fantasies is essential, that is, the destiny of the candidate becomes
the destiny of the political world.

An entire industry now exists to construct such fantasies, craft appropriate propagandistic
artifacts for them, and espouse each candidate’s rhetorical vision. This industry of
“propartists” consists of specialists with a variety of skills. There are, for instance,
organisers, fund raisers, pollsters, TV producers, filmmakers, advertisers, public relations
personnel, press secretaries, hairstylists and all manner of consultants. The industry has
developed an aesthetic style consistent with the artistry of modern advertising. Two
devices in that artistry are particularly key mechanisms, positioning the candidate and
fashioning the image.

In commercial advertising positioning places a product at a particular point or with a

particular stance as a means of distinguishing it from competing products that, in
substance, are strikingly similar to the product being huckstered. The attempt is to carve
out a share of the market. But it is not the unique traits or qualities inherent in the product
that are stressed. Rather, advertisers mold a picture of the product as distinct because of

38
the people who buy or consume it. Consider beers. Many are indistinguishable in taste,
but TV ads alert us that Miller Lite is favored by former athletes, Schlitz is the cool and
tough brew of macho James Coburn and Natural Lite is the favorite of discerning women.
Now consider candidates. In 1976, Jimmy Carter and his team conceived a successful
pre-campaign scenario of the news media: Jimmy Carter’s pollster, Pat Caddell, advised
against Carter’s positioning himself on the liberal/conservative continuum, Caddell noted
that his polls indicated a large portion of Americans were disenchanted with government
and with the failure of the politicians, liberal or conservative, to solve problems. He
advised Carter to position himself as the anti-Washington candidate. Carter did, carved
out a whole new market, and ended up with the nomination.

Positioning puts a candidate in a place to run from in a campaign. Image making is what
the candidate runs as. The progress is not one-way. Voters’ impressions on candidates’
qualities derive only in part from campaign propaganda; how voters contrast the
candidate’s fantasies with their own makes a difference. A household cleanser or trash
bag may position itself to carve out a market segment, but if “Big Wally” or the “man
from Glad” does not conform to what the pop song calls “dreams of the everyday
housewife”, the desired image may not follow. Fashioning image themes that strike
responsive chords requires skill, resources and luck. In 1980, with varying degrees of
success, the process gave us George Bush jogging while he waved and talked, to remind
voters that he was not like the older Reagan; John B. Anderson telling that he was a
“candidate with ideas”, to mark himself off from the republican pack; and Jimmy Carter
dramatising himself as “moral” and “a good family man”, to denote he was no Kennedy.

***

If we try to define a woman within the area of mass culture, we notice that it should be a
superwoman, a perfect being, described as a living wife and mother, devoted friend,
caring daughter, good housekeeper and competent worker. She is the extraordinary,
ordinary woman. Surely, she looks well, is well dressed and throws lovely dinners
parties, far-off urban ideal. The Superwoman is ordinary in that she is neither rich nor

39
famous. She is extraordinary in she tries to be everything to everyone - juggling family
life, social life, and commitments outside the home (career, education, volunteer work).
The Superwoman “has it all” by “doing it all” with superlative standards and ends up
felling overwhelmed overextended, overworked and under appreciated. She goes off to
work where she makes $10,000 a year as an executive of a law firm. She comes home
and reads to the children, then serves dinner by candlelight to her husband.

She is

the perfect mother

the model wife
the best housekeeper
the greatest cook
the most available daughter
the most effective worker
the most helpful friend.

She is wonderful at

juggling home and career

with a constant smile
and an event disposition.
She is everything
to everyone.

Women traditionally have been very available to their husbands for emotional support,
encouragement and help. Nowadays, they are presented as continuing to do so, but only
after having become self-conscious and independent. They accept the fact that men and
women are different and act accordingly.

40
 ***

The product is one of the main characters of mass communication, and the narrative in
which it appears is advertising. Businesses need to advertise. If they did not advertise no
one would ever learn of the existence of their wares. In part, advertising is aimed at
conveying information to potential customers and clients, but it is also used to persuade
the public to buy. This is the area in which advertising is often criticised. Advertisements
are sometimes misleading. Although it is illegal for advertisers to make untrue statements
about their goods, services or prizes, they still make their wares seem undully attractive.
They pander to our egos and our vanities. They create a demand which would not
otherwise exist.

Successful advertising is a challenge. The first few seconds are the key. Advertising is the
most visible and highly criticised element of the marketing mix and an important aspect
of promotion. Advertising is defined as any paid form of nonpersonal presentation of
goals, services or ideas by an identified sponsor. Two terms are highlighted: paid
distinguishes advertising from publicity and non-personal separates it from personal
selling.

It is easy to say “I’m not influenced by the adverts!”. Everyone is influenced to a certain
extent. There was recently some research on subliminal advertising. The word “coffee”
was flashed on the television screen. It happened so quickly that no one was aware it has
happened. For just a fraction of a second it registered on the viewers’ subconscious. The
result? A surprising number of people chose to make coffee at that precise moment. Of
course, it could have been a coincidence but it was highly unlikely.

Advertising is a way of communication and the purpose of communication is to inform

and influence people’s behaviour. The four elements of communication, the sender, the
message, the media and the receiver, are all found in advertising.

41
Advertising can be classified into two broad categories: informative and persuasive.
Typically an advert contains elements of both. When a product is first launch, sales are
low because very few customers are aware that it exists. The role of advertising here may
be to inform the public of the product’s existence and its particular uses. The same
applies when a product has been modified or improved. In other cases, for example new
cars and scientific calculators, the nature of the product can be such that large amount of
technical information has to be supplied, and advertising again may have to be
informative. Advertising that informs and educates consumers gives them greater choice
in their selection of goods and services. It can be seen as a form of competition between
firms and may encourage manufacturers to improve their products to the benefit of the
consumer. Persuasive advertising, as its name implies, is used to try to convince the
consumers to buy a particular product. It is subjective and contains many statements of
opinion rather than facts. Persuasive advertising is normally associated with consumption
products and is used heavily where the differences between the products are minor.
Persuasive advertising has been criticised because it emphasises the advantages of a
product and attempts to make those who do not use the product feel as if they are missing
something. It plays on jealousy, envy and “keeping up with the Joneses”.

Informative and persuasive contents can be combined in the form of an appeal to provide
a basic reason for the consumer to act. Although the marketer can use many different
types of appeals, common advertising appeals include fear appeals, sex appeals and
humorous appeals. Fear appeals suggest to the consumer that he or she can avoid some
negative experience through purchasing and using the product. Sex appeals suggest to the
audience that the product will increase the attractiveness of the user. Humorous appeals
imply either directly or more subtly that the product is more fun or excitement than the
competitors’ offers.

In relation to the life cycle of the product, advertisement can be pioneering, comparative
and reminder. Used in the introductory stage of the life cycle, pioneering advertising tells
people what a product is, what it can do and where it can be found. The key objective of a
pioneering ad is to inform the target market. Informative ads have been found to be

42
interesting, convincing and effective according to consumer judgement. An increasingly
common form of competitive advertising is comparative advertising which shows one
brand’s strengths relative to competitors. Firms that use comparative advertising need
market research and test results to provide legal support for their claims. Reminder
advertising is to reinforce previous knowledge of a product. It is good for products that
have achieved a well recognised position and are in the mature phase of their product life
cycle.

Some would go so far as to say that advertising actually enriches our lives. Commercial
television is able to provide us with free programmes thanks to its advertising revenues.
National newspapers derive much of their income from advertising. Look at a typical
newspaper and you will discover the proportion of the pages devoted to advertisements.
We also have advertisers to thank for the free caller supplements accompanying the
newspapers.

Arguments for advertising:

1. 1. Advertising tells consumers about the products that are available, allowing them
to make a wider and more informed choice.

2. 2. It encourages competition between firms, which have to produce cheaper and

better products.

3. 3. By creating a wider market for products, advertising makes large-scale

production and sales possible. Mass production also makes goods and services
cheaper for consumers.

43
4. 4. Without advertising, media such as newspapers and television would be more
expensive. Many sporting clubs and other organisations also benefit from advertising
revenue.
Arguments against advertising:

1. 1. Advertising is expensive and may lead to prices being higher than necessary.
High advertising costs may also prevent new firms from entering the market because
they cannot afford the expense.

2. 2. Advertising is often wasteful, sometimes involving the same firm advertising

virtually identical products against each other. Some writers claim that advertising
has little or no effect upon the total demand for goods or even upon the demand for a
particular type of good or service. This argument is supported by cigarette
manufacturers, who claim that advertising only causes a shift from one brand to
another.

3. 3. Advertising can be misleading. However, there are substantial controls upon the
industry.

4. 4. Advertisers can exert control over media such as the written press and the
television, which often design their content specifically to reach target groups such as
the young or the better-off. It can be argued, however, that such “targeting” only
works by providing consumers with the reading or entertainment that they want.

Once the firm has decided that advertising is going to play some role in the marketing of
its product, it must then decide on the message, the media and the receiver. All these
factors will be linked. It could be that the receiver – the so-called target audience – will
determine the message and the media.

44
1. 1. Identifying the target audience. To the extent that time and money permit, the
target audience for the advertising programme is the target market for the firm’s
product, which is identified from the marketing research and market segmentation
studies. The more a firm knows about its target audience’s profile (including their
lifestyle, attitudes and values), the easier it is to make an advertising decision.

2. 2. Specifying advertising objectives. Consumers can be said to respond in terms of

hierarchy of effects, which is the sequence of stage a prospective buyer goes through
from initial awareness of a product to eventual action.

•  Awareness: the consumers ability to recognise and remember the product

and brand name.

•  Interest: an increase of the consumers desire to learn about some of the

features of the product and brand.

•  Evaluation: the consumers appraisal of how he or she feels about the

product and the brand.

•  Trial: the consumers actual first purchase and use of the product and brand.

•  Adoption: through a favorable experience on the first trial, the consumers

repeated purchase and use of the product and brand.

3. 3. Setting the advertising budget. Determining the ideal amount for the budget is
difficult because there is no precise way to measure the exact results of spending
advertising money. However, there are several methods used to set the advertising
budget.

•  Percent of sales: funds are allocated to advertising as a percentage of past or

anticipated sales, in terms of either money or units sold.

45
•  Competitive parity: matching the competitors absolute level of spending on
the proportion per point of market share a competitor has.

•  All you can afford: common to many small businesses, money is allocated to
advertising only after all other budget items are covered.

•  Objective and task: the best approach, the company (1) determines its
advertising objectives, (2) outlines the tasks to accomplish these objectives and (3)
determines the advertising cost of performing these tasks.

4. 4. Selecting the right media. Every advertiser must decide where to place the
advertisements. The alternatives are the advertising media, the means by which the
message is communicated to the target audience. This media selection decision is
related to the target audience, type of product, nature of the message, campaign
objectives, available budget and the costs of the alternative media.

Media buyers speak a language of their own. So, every advertiser involved in
selecting the right media for campaigns must be familiar with some common terms.
Reach is the number of different people exposed to the message, term often used to
describe the total circulation of a newspaper. Television and radio stations describe
their audience using the term rating, the percentage of households in a market that are
tuned to a particular TV show or radio programme. When advertisers want to reach
the same audience more than once, they are concerned with frequency, the average
number of times a person in the target audience is exposed to a message. Cost per
thousand (CPM) refers to the cost of reaching 1,000 individuals or households with
the advertising message in a given medium.

5. 5. Writing the copy. The central element of an advertising programme is the

advertising copy, the messages that the target audience is intended to see or hear. This
usually involves identifying the key benefits of the product that are deemed important

46
 to a prospective buyer in making and adopting decisions. In designing the message
the advertiser needs to consider the following: the content of the message, who the
receiver is, the person used for sending the message, the timing and number of
messages.

6. 6. Creating the actual message. The ”creative people” or copywriters in an

advertising agency have the responsibility to turn appeals and features such as
quality, style, dependability, economy into focus, getting believable advertising copy.
This often relies on creative use of fear, sex, humor, sound or visual effects.
Translating the ideas into an actual advertisement is also a complex process,
including artwork and layout.

7. 7. Scheduling the advertising. There is no correct schedule to advertise a product,

but three factors must be considered. First, the issue of buyer turnover, which is how
often new buyers enter the market to buy the product. Second, purchase frequency,
which means that the more frequently the product is purchased, the less repetition is
required. Third, companies must consider the forgetting rate, the speed with which
buyers forget the brand if advertising is not seen or heard.
Setting schedules requires an understanding of how the market behaves. Most
companies tend to follow one of two basic approaches:

•  Steady ( drip ) schedule, when demand and seasonal factors are

unimportant and advertising is run regularly throughout the year.
•  Pulse (burst) schedule, when advertising is distributed unevenly
throughout the year because of seasonal demand, heavy periods of promotion or
introduction of a new product.

8. 8. Evaluating the advertising programme. The purpose of evaluating advertising

efforts is to try to ensure that the advertising is not wasted. Evaluation is done usually
at two separate times: before and after the advertisements are run in the actual
campaign, taking into account the intended or accomplished objectives.

47
9. 9. Making needed changes. Results of post-testing the advertising copy are used to
reach decisions about changes in the advertisement programme. If the posttest shows
that an ad is doing poorly in terms of awareness or cost efficiency, it may be dropped
and other ads run in its place in the future. On the other hand, sometimes an
advertising may be so successful it is run repeatedly or used as the basis of a larger
advertising programme.

***

I think I have convinced you that communication, marketing and advertisement are rules
of the game being called “market economy” or “customer-oriented economy”, which is, at
its turn, part of Western Europe and American capitalist civilisation. I will talk about
tourism, because exotic places and wonderful holidays have also become characters of
mass culture, so communicational devices, marketing tools and advertising are
successfully applied to it.

In essence, travelling and tourism is a huge market reflecting the demands of consumers
for a very wide range of related products. It is a field clearly connected to elitist interests
and extended to middle class concerns. It is formed by more groups of markets,
continuing each other or opposing to one another. It has to do with environmental studies
(concerning preservation) and economy (investment, employment, balance of payments),
with transportation but also with culture and science, etc. So, the strategic objectives of a
campaign aiming to develop tourism in a certain area should take into account many
different aspects.

Tourist is part of a non-homogeneous group, which is always changing, without any

consistence. In a book called “Framing of the Sign Criticism and Its Institutions”,
Jonathan Culler wrote in the article “The Semiotics of Tourism”: “The tourist, it seems,
is the lowest of the low. No other group has such a uniformly bad press. Tourists are
continually subject to sneer and have no anti-defamation league. Animal imagery seems

48
their inevitable lot: they are said to move in droves, herds, swarms or flocks; they are as
mindless and docile as sheep but as annoying as a plague of insects when they descend
upon a spot they have discovered”. This is the elitist opinion about average people
travelling together in order to get “the real thing” out of a well-known place. Though,
tourism agencies use to praise such a habit, crowding to offer the most comfortable seats
in the plane, the best hotel rooms, and the most exciting views. In a way, both elitist
presentation and advertisement are caricatural.

While visiting a new, although familiar through advertising, place, tourist is attracted by
the main feature s of the local population, searching for something he has been informed
about, wanting to discover traces of pre-established notions. He knows that Frenchmen
are witty and subtle, Englishmen distinguished but cold and Spaniards hot lovers, or
eventually that Romanians are thieves. He doesn’t understand individuals or daily
situations, orienting towards an empty generalisation derived from peoples’ psychology,
practised during the 19th century. In these conditions, promotion presents tourists meeting
thin elegant women in a pub in Paris, lords on the streets of London and toreadors in an
arena in Madrid. We can notice again that reification is applicable to such behaviours, as
tourists use signs as signs themselves, for their plain usage.

Moreover, tourist seldom likes the authentic (to him often unintelligible) product of a
foreign culture, he prefers his own provincial expectations. The French “chanteuse”
singing English with a French accent seems more charmingly French than the one who
simply sings in French. Tourist “attractions” offer an elaborately contrived indirect
experience, an artificial product to be consumed in the very place where the real thing is
free as air. Conventionalism is taken as originality, holidaymakers create complex
symbolic strategies to induce the traveller the feeling that a constructed topos is
ingenious. It’s the same way as following something known, which, according to
Maslow’s scheme, gives the appearance of certainty. The American tourist in Japan looks
less for what is Japanese than for what is Japanesey.

49
Tourism thus brings out what may prove to be a crucial feature of modern capitalist
culture: a cultural consensus that creates hostility rather than community among
individuals. Tourism is a system of values uniting large segments of the world population
from the richer countries. Groups with different national interests are brought together by
a systematised knowledge of the world, a shared sense of what is significant and a set of
“moral” imperatives: they all know what one “ought to see” in Paris, what you “really
must” visit in Rome or that it “would be a crime “ never to see San Francisco in a cable
car. The touristic code is the most powerful and widespread modern consensus, yet the
effect of these shared values is not to create solidarity within the international community
of tourists but hostility, as each wishes the other tourists were not there.

***

As a conclusion, I will quote from a text of Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer,
entiltled “The Culture Industry: Enlightement as Mass Deception”:

“The sociological theory that the loss of the support of objectively established religion,
the dissolution of the last remnants of pre-capitalism, together with technological and
social differentiation or specialisation, have led to cultural chaos is disproved every day;
for culture now impresses the same stamp on everything. Films, radio and magazines
make up a system which is uniform as a whole and in every part. Even the aesthetic
activities of political opposites are one in their enthusiastic obedience to the rhythm of the
iron system. The decorative industrial management buildings and exhibition centres in
authoritarian countries are much the same as anywhere else. The huge gleaming towers
that shoot up everywhere are outward signs of the ingenious planning of international
concerns, toward which the unleashed entrepreneurial system (whose monuments are a
mass of gloomy houses and business premises in grimy, spiritless cities) was already
hastening. Even now the older houses just outside the concrete city centres look like
slums, and the new bungalows on the outskirts are at one with the flimsy structures of
world fairs in their praise of technical progress and their built-in demand to be discarded
after a short while like empty food cans. Yet the city housing projects designed to

50
perpetuate the individual as a supposedly independent unit in a small hygienic dwelling
make him all the more subservient to his adversary - the absolute power of capitalism.
Because the inhabitants, as producers and as consumers, are drawn into the centre in
search of work and pleasure, all the living units crystallise into well-organised
complexes. The striking unity of microcosm and macrocosm presents men with a model
of their culture: the false identity of the general and the particular. Under monopoly all
mass culture is identical, and the lines of its artificial framework begin to show through.
The people at the top are no longer so interested in concealing monopoly: as its violence
becomes more open, so its power grows. Movies and radio need no longer pretend to be
art. The truth that they are just business is made into an ideology in order to justify the
rubbish they deliberately produce. They call themselves industries; and when their
directors’ incomes are published, any doubt about the social utility of the finished
products is removed. Interested parties explain the culture industry in technological
terms. It is alleged that because millions participate in it, certain reproduction processes
are necessary that inevitably require identical needs in innumerable places to be satisfied
with identical goods. The technical contrast between the few production centres and the
large number of widely dispersed consumption points is said to demand organisation and
planning by management. Furthermore, it is claimed that standards were based in the first
place on consumers’ needs, and for that reason were accepted with so little resistance.
The result is the circle of manipulation and retroactive need in which the unity of the
system grows ever stronger. No mention is made of the fact that the basis on which
technology acquires power over society is the power of those whose economic hold over
society is greatest. A technological rationale is the rationale of domination itself. It is the
coercive nature of society alienated from itself. Automobiles, bombs, and movies keep
the whole thing together until their levelling element shows its strength in the very wrong
which it furthered.”

We live in an alienated society, which takes glamorous glass as gold. But, in the same
time, it is a society in which information spreads fast, in which people know more than
ever and have more than ever. It depends on each of us to choose whether we follow real
value or fake, propaganda, deceit.

51
 BIBLIOGRAPHY

•  Adler, Ronald B., Communicating at Work, Random House, New York, 1998
•  Brody, E.W., Communication Tomorrow. New Audiences, New Technologies,
New Media, Praeger Publishers, New York, 1990

52
•  Daft, R.L., Organization Theory and Design, West Publishing Company,
Minneapolis, 1987
•  DeFleur, Melvin L., Ball-Rokeach, Sandra, Teorii ale comunicării de masă,
Editura Polirom, Iaşi, 1999
•  Dominick, Joseph R., The Dynamics of Mass Communication, McGraw-Hill
Publishing Company, New York, 1990
•  Dulek, R., Fielden, J.S., Principles of Business Communication, MacMillan
Publishing Co., New York, 1990
•  Epstein, Edward, Between Fact and Fiction: The Problem of Journalism,
Random House, New York, 1985
•  Graber, Doris, Mass Media and American Politics, Congressional Quarterly
Press, Washington D.C., 1994
•  Haberman, David, Dolphin, Harry, Public Relations: The Necessary Art, Iowa
State University Press, 1984
•  Hennssey, Jane, Global Marketing Strategies, Houghton Mufflin Company,
New York, 1995
•  Jowett, Garth, oDonnell, Victoria, Propaganda and Persuasion, SAGE
Publications, New York, 1992
•  Kuiper, S., Wolf, M.P., Effective Communication in Business, South-Western
Publishing Co., Cincinnati, 1994
•  Linski, Martin, Impact: How the Press Affects Federal Policymaking, Norton
Press, New York, 1996
•  McQuail, Denis, Mass Communication Theory. An Introduction, SAGE
Publications, New York, 1990
•  Nager, Norman R., Allen, Harrell T., Public Relations. Management by
Objectives, Longman Press, New York and London, 1984
•  Schramm, Willem, How Communication Works, University of Illinois Press,
1971
•  Schultz, Don, Strategic Advertising Campaigns, NTC Business Books,
Illinois, 1995

53
•  Shaw, David, Press Watch, Mac Millan Publishing Co., New York, 1984
•  Toma, Gheorghe (coord.), Tehnici de comunicare, Editura Artprint, Bucureşti,
1999
•  Wilcox, Dennis, Ault, Phillip, Agee, Warren, Public Relations, Harper-Collins
College Publishers, New York, 1994
•  Wood, Robert J., Gunther, Max, Confessions of a PR Man, New American
Library, New York, 1988
•  *** International Media Guides: Newspapers Worldwide, Consumer
Magazines Worldwide, Business Publications Asia/Pacific, Europe, the Americas,
Middle East/Africa, International Media Enterprises, 22 Elizabeth Street, South
Norwalk, CT 06856.

54