PR Watch, Third Quarter 1998, Volume 5, No. 3

Is it real grassroots democracy, or is it corporate "astroturf," the appearance of democracy bought and paid for with millions of dollars from wealthy special interests? Unfortunately, it's astroturf.

The marriage and merger of PR and politics over the past two decades has spawned scores of PR/lobby firms that can (given enough cash) create the appearance of citizen involvement, while in fact driving genuine grassroots activism into the far dark corner, drowning it out of the political debate.

The current U.S.

by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber

During the 1998 elections, a frightening new trend in the public relations industry's efforts to manipulate democracy has come to fruition. Throughout the United States, corporations and other vested interests have dumped hundreds of millions of dollars of "soft money" into hard-hitting TV advertisements attacking one candidate or praising another.

What makes these soft money ads different from the political propaganda in past elections is that there are no financial limits, no reporting requirements, and business can spend secretly and directly to determine an election's outcome. Journalists and the public often have no way of knowing which wealthy interests are backing these sophisticated political ads, because they hide behind cleverly invented names such as "Citizens for Reform," "Citizens for the Republic Education Fund" and "Coalition for Our Children's Future."

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book review by Sheldon Rampton

The twentieth century, argued Australian scholar Alex Carey, has been shaped largely by three trends: "the growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy."

Now Sharon Beder, another Australian, has published Global Spin: the Corporate Assault on Environmentalism. In it, she examines the third of the trends that Carey talked about: corporate propaganda and its corrosive effect on democratic institutions. What she describes will be surprising, shocking and yet simultaneously familiar to many readers.

by Carissa Kowalski

Science is a part of our everyday discourse. At work, we chat about the latest computer software; at home, we tinker with our cars and our appliances; in our leisure time, we read about space telescopes and wonder drugs. But how do we get our information? Chances are, we get it from the mass media, which in turn relies on ready-to-use soundbites or press releases from industry public relations people like J. Patrick McGinn.

McGinn is the manager of communications and media relations at PPG Industries in southwestern Louisiana, an area sometimes called the "cancer corridor" because of the many chemical manufacturers that operate there.

PPG Industries manufactures ethylene dichloride (EDC) and vinyl chloride monomer (VCM), carcinogenic chemical precursors to the vinyl plastic that appears in everything from children's toys to electrical insulation and home siding.

Self-described as a "national trade association representing the leading manufacturers of vinyl," the Vinyl Institute is a client of the Jefferson Group, Inc. (www.jeffersongroup.com

), a powerful DC-based PR and lobby firm whose many clients include Dow Chemical Company, W.R. Grace & Company, the public employees union AFSCME, and the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

The Vinyl Institute is a powerful propaganda machine in its own right.