Thinker, Faker, Spinner, Spy

Description

The public relations industry is not just about celebrity gossip. This book shows how, whenever big business is threatened, spin doctors, lobbyists, think tanks and front groups are on hand to push the corporate interest, often at the public's expense.



Written by leading activists and writers, this book reveals the secrets of the PR trade including deception, the use of fake 'institutes', spying and dirty tricks. The impact can be devastating -- when the public is denied access to the truth, the results are rising inequality and environmental catastrophe.



Exposing the misdeeds of famous companies including Coca Cola, British Aerospace, Exxon and Monsanto, and revealing information about the covert funding of various apparently independent thinks tanks and institutes, the authors offer a guide to campaigns that can help us roll back corporate power and resist deceptive PR.
Introduction: Unearthing Corporate Spin by William Dinan and David Miller - Strathclyde University Department of Geography and Sociology

Part 1: Global Corporate Power and Corporate Spin

1. Public Relations and the Subversion of Democracy by David Miller and William Dinan - Strathclyde University Department of Geography and Sociology

2. Achilles Has Two Heels: Crises of Capitalist Globalisation by Leslie Sklair - London School of Economics and Political Science (Sociology)

3. A Tour of the United Kingdom’s Public Relations Industry by Chris Grimshaw - Corporate Watch

Part 2: How Corporations Use Spin to Undermine Democracy

4. Powers Behind the Throne: Washington’s Top Political Strategists by Laura Miller - Center for Media and Democracy

5. Spinning Farmed Salmon by David Miller - Strathclyde University Department of Geography and Sociology

6. Exxon’s Foot Soldiers: The Case of the International Policy Network by Andy Rowell - Freelance writer and investigative journalist

7. Biotech’s Fake Persuaders by Jonathan Matthews - Founder of GM Watch and Lobbywatch

8. Fighting Dirty Wars: Spying for the Arms Trade by Eveline Lubbers - Investigative Reporter, Amsterdam

9. Manufacturing a Neoliberal Climate: Recent Reform Initiatives in Germany by Ulrich Mueller - LobbyControl, Germany

Part 3: The Subterranean World of the Power Brokers

10. Globalising Politics: Spinning US ‘Democracy Assistance’ Programmes by Gerald Sussman - Portland State University

11. Behind the Screens: Corporate Lobbying and EU Audiovisual Policy by Granville Williams - Media and Journalism, University of Huddesfield

12. Spinning Money: Corporate Public Relations and the London Stock Exchange by Aeron Davis

13. The Atlantic Semantic: New Labour’s US Connections by William Clark - Strathclyde University Department of Geography and Sociology

Part 4: Fighting Back: Campaigning Against Spin and Rolling Back Corporate Power

14. Unmasking Public Relations by Bob Burton - Freelance Journalist, Canberra, Australia

15. Corporate Power in Europe: The Brussels ‘Lobbycracy’ by Olivier Hoedeman - Corporate Europe Observatory, Amsterdam

16. Killer Coke by Andy Higginbottom - Kingston University in London

Conclusion: Countering Corporate Spin by David Miller and William Dinan

Contributors

Index

Sujets

• Political Advocacy
• Political Process
• Political Science
• Advocacy group
• Communication studies

Informations

• Publié par: Pluto Press
• Date de parution: 20 juin 2007
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781783711697
• Langue: English

Extrait

Thinker, Faker, Spinner, Spy

First published 2007 by Pluto Press 345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA and 839 Greene Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48106
www.plutobooks.com
Copyright © William Dinan and David Miller 2007
The right of the individual contributors to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Hardback ISBN-13    978 0 7453 2445 6 ISBN-10    0 7453 2445 2
Paperback ISBN-13    978 0 7453 2444 9 ISBN-10    0 7453 2444 4
eISBN    978 1 7837 1169 7
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data applied for
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Designed and produced for Pluto Press by Chase Publishing Services Ltd, Fortescue, Sidmouth, EX10 9QG, England Typeset from disk by Stanford DTP Services, Northampton, England Printed and bound in the European Union by CPI Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham and Eastbourne
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Unearthing Corporate Spin William Dinan and David Miller
Part I Global Corporate Power and Corporate Spin
1. Public Relations and the Subversion of Democracy David Miller and William Dinan
2. Achilles Has Two Heels: Crises of Capitalist Globalisation Leslie Sklair
3. A Tour of the United Kingdom’s Public Relations Industry Chris Grimshaw
Part II How Corporations Use Spin to Undermine Democracy
4. Powers Behind the Throne: Washington’s Top Political Strategists Laura Miller
5. Spinning Farmed Salmon David Miller
6. Exxon’s Foot Soldiers: The Case of the International Policy Network Andy Rowell
7. Biotech’s Fake Persuaders Jonathan Matthews
8. Fighting Dirty Wars: Spying for the Arms Trade Eveline Lubbers
9. Manufacturing a Neoliberal Climate: Recent Reform Initiatives in Germany Ulrich Mueller
Part III The Subterranean World of the Power Brokers
10. Globalising Politics: Spinning US ‘Democracy Assistance’ Programmes Gerald Sussman
11. Behind the Screens: Corporate Lobbying and EU Audiovisual Policy Granville Williams
12. Spinning Money: Corporate Public Relations and the London Stock Exchange Aeron Davis
13. The Atlantic Semantic: New Labour’s US Connections William Clark
Part IV Fighting Back: Campaigning Against Spin and Rolling Back Corporate Power
14. Unmasking Public Relations Bob Burton
15. Corporate Power in Europe: The Brussels ‘Lobbycracy’ Olivier Hoedeman
16. Killer Coke Andy Higginbottom
Conclusion: Countering Corporate Spin David Miller and William Dinan

Contributors
Index
Acknowledgements
This book has been the product of a long-term collaboration between a wide variety of people and organisations. We work as academics at the University of Strathclyde. But we are also directors of Spinwatch, the website we launched (along with co-directors Eveline Lubbers and Andy Rowell) in late 2004. This book arose out of the Corporate Spin conference we hosted in November 2004 in Glasgow.
In putting this book together we have accumulated many debts to those who have helped this process along. This collection is the first book-length product from Spinwatch and it is seeing the light of day somewhat later than it should have. This is partly due to the arrival of the G8 leaders in Scotland in 2005, which put the book on the back burner amid preparations for the demonstrations against the G8, including the Alternatives Summit held on 3 July 2005, and to work on the book Arguments Against G8 , edited by David Miller and Gill Hubbard (London: Pluto Press, 2005).
The idea to set up Spinwatch had been in our minds for some time before the launch and it was first given concrete form at the international seminar called by Corporate Europe Observatory and hosted formally by Caroline Lucas MEP in Girona, Catalonia, in 2002. There, Miller, Lubbers and others discussed how to create a new organisation that might monitor PR and spin in Europe. In discussion with John Stauber we explored different ideas on how to develop a European version of the US quarterly PR Watch . It was not until late 2004 that we were able to go public with the launch of the website www.spinwatch.org at the conference on Corporate Spin held at Strathclyde University.
We are indebted to all the speakers and participants at the Corporate Spin conference for their input, ideas and suggestions. We are especially grateful to all the contributors to this collection. They have all been very patient and supportive in helping this book to press. We should also mention the contributions of all those who have contributed to the Spinwatch project by sharing information, circulating news, supporting our endeavours and donating money. We are grateful to all those who have allowed us to speak and write about corporate deception and who have encouraged our efforts. Perhaps we should mention by name Mark Ballard MSP, Davids Cromwell and Edwards, Frances Curran MSP, Mark Curtis, Steve Dorril, Bob Franklin, Michael Sean Gillard, Tim Gopsill, Ed Herman, Olivier Hoedeman, Mark Hollingsworth, Nick Jones, Robert McChesney, Tricia Marwick MSP, George Monbiot, Greg Philo, John Pilger, Danny Schechter, Tommy Sheridan MSP, Nancy Snow, Hilary Wainwright, Barry White, Granville Williams and the following organisations: the Glasgow Branch of the National Union of Journalists, G8 Alternatives, World Development Movement, Corporate Europe Observatory, ALTER EU, and the Centre for Media and Democracy.
We would also like to thank a number of other colleagues and friends who have supported this initiative, including George Yule, Lorraine Nelson and Lynne Davies at the Department of Geography and Sociology at Strathclyde for helping to organise and manage the conference. We’d also like to thank Spinwatch’s many friends, supporters and contributors. There are too many to mention here but we’d like to express our gratitude to Muhammad Idrees Ahmad, Billy Clark, Rich Cookson, Josselien Janssens, Tommy Kane, Michael Greenwell, Paul de Rooij and Bill Stevens for their input to the project.
In the latter stages of the production of the book we benefited from the beady eye of Julie-Ann Davies, who took time out from other pressing tasks to help us with copy-editing. Many thanks to her for that, and for a myriad of other contributions to the Spinwatch project.
We would like to acknowledge the support of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), award R000238993, which allowed us to conduct research on corporate public relations in Britain, and to convene the Glasgow conference.
We should also say thanks (again) to Pluto Press for publishing the book and for their support for our various projects over the last ten or more years. We should mention on this occasion David Castle, Robert Webb, Anthony Winder and – of course – the (almost) always sensible interventions of Anne Beech.
Lastly, thanks to Emma Miller, Caitlin and Lewis Miller, Carol Clydesdale, and Ciara and Niamh Dinan for the inevitable sacrifices to home life that goes with this kind of work, as well as for their many other contributions to the process.
We hope that this book contributes to a greater awareness of corporate spin and to the social movements which counterpose democracy to corporate power.

DM and WD, Glasgow, March 2007.
Introduction:
Unearthing Corporate Spin
William Dinan and David Miller
This book intends to change how you might think about spin and public relations. We argue that corporate spin is an important means by which corporate power is defended and extended. This idea is not well recognised in the mainstream media, it is misunderstood among a surprisingly large number of well-informed and well-intentioned activists and campaigning groups, and it is virtually unnoticed by the general public. This misrecognition is no accident. It is part of the project of corporate spin and the public relations industry to deny, dissemble and disguise their work. As a result the popular image of PR and corporate spin is that it is not really important. We often dismiss some recent happening with the phrase ‘it’s just PR’, as if it were somehow trivial and unimportant. Corporate spin is often wrongly equated with celebrity endorsements and sponsorships geared towards selling products and services: a form of advertising barely disguised as news that is both ephemeral and disposable.
Political spin is a different matter. The manipulations, evasions and distortions that are ubiquitous in political campaigning in advanced liberal democracies have done much to popularise (if that’s the right term) the idea of spin. The careful crafting of political messages, the invention and burnishing of politicians’ images, and the spread of negative campaigning all contribute to an awareness that spin is used by the powerful to further their own interests. Perhaps this has also given rise to an inkling among those not interested in party politics that this is not what democracy is supposed to be like. Viewed in this way, the declining levels of political participation in many industrial democracies is not quite as baffling as many liberal commentators suggest.
The propaganda related to the war in Iraq, from the invention of a pressing threat from Weapons of Mass Destruction, to the ongoing efforts of the US and British administrations to ‘sell’ the invasion and its aftermath, are undoubtedly the most incontrovertible exemplars of the deadly serious nature of spin. 1 The shadow of certain American corporations across the oil fields of Iraq, 2 and policy circles in Washington, suggest that we might need to reappraise the nature of contemporary corporate power. To do so, we need to understand corporat