Book Review: A Century of Spin
A Century of Spin critiques the public relations industry's role in facilitating corporate propaganda and undermining democracy. It’s a polemic takedown of public relations practice. It is itself an exercise in public relations.
Ethics in public relations practice can be a challenging issue. It’s one of the reasons why public relations itself occasionally becomes the story. Recently, whether it’s political advisers resigning over supposed factual errors or documentaries about the relationship between public relations and big polluters, the morality of the profession continues to be under the microscope.
It’s an appropriate time to revisit A Century of Spin, first published in 2008 by the then University of Strathclyde professors David Miller and William Dinan.
In the intervening 15 years, both academics have moved on from Strathclyde. Miller worked at the University of Bristol until 2021. Dinan is currently Head of the Division of Communication, Media and Culture at the University of Stirling.
This is a controversial text that poleaxes public relations probity and informs media descriptions of professionals to this day, using terms such as propaganda and spin.
The book is aimed at a general audience, in what Miller and Dinan say, “is our attempt to try to explain how the insidious and mysterious power of public relations works to undermine democracy.” But it’s nonetheless a valuable read for professionals to consider how much truth or traction there is in this perspective.
The book is a critique of capitalism, seen here as a system gamed in favour of big corporations, which has undermined government independence and responsiveness to the needs of citizens. The authors argue that the public relations industry has evolved purely to facilitate this and describe how they watched it develop during the 20th century.
“The result of corporate propaganda can be seen in the contemporary commonsense that what is good for business must be good for society,” they state.
Starting with the advent of universal suffrage, the book moves through key historical events, including the First World War, the General Strike, the miner’s strike, and, most controversially, Nazism, ascribing public relations as a critical actor in each event.
The authors analyse Thatcherism and what they see as the capture of the Labour Party by big business, positing that public relations practice has oiled the wheels every step of the way.
Their presentation of the role of public relations in facilitating the damage capitalism has done to the environment foreshadows the recent BBC documentary Big Oil v the World.
The authors have a broad view of what public relations encompasses, concluding it has evolved from news and reputation management to general corporate and government activity and lobbying.
A Century of Spin presents a persuasive case for why the profession should constantly be vigilant on ethics.
Ethical issues continue to present challenges, but the contemporary public relations reader might like to consider whether transparency and accountability in the profession have improved since some of the episodes described in this book occurred.
But to do so may make you a “public relations apologist,” a term used throughout this book. Miller and Dinan don’t consider examples of where public relations has been used for ‘good’ purposes - say, to advance humanitarian or charitable causes - to balance the bad. It wouldn’t suit the narrative that public relations is inherently a negative force.
But is it still all-powerful? Since this book was published, we’ve had the rise of social media, citizen journalism and fake news, arguably making one of the book’s key points – that public relations is “about the few, at the expense of the many” – a bit out of date even for 2008. We’re now in an era when anyone with a phone has the potential to create a story.
To say this book is cynical about public relations is an understatement. Ironically, with such a powerful narrative and arresting language deployed in this book, the authors display their own compelling public relations skills.
A Century of Spin
David Miller and William Dinan
Pluto Press, 2008
£24.99
About Claire Munro
Claire Munro Chart.PR, is an award-winning communications professional and manager with over 15 years of experience in Scotland’s environment and housing sectors.
She’s on the Committee of CIPR Scotland, and has a CIPR Diploma in Internal Communications and the AMEC International Certificate in Measurement and Evaluation. Claire is a Member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing.