Abstract
Cronin argues that the social and political significance of ‘commercial speech’ (PR, advertising, marketing) is intensifying due to its enhanced role in forging promises or contracts. The chapter explores the relationship of commercial speech to practices of lying, practices of the imagination, and a ‘post-truth’ politics. Cronin argues that these developments shift PR practitioners’ role from that of cultural intermediaries to that of ‘social brokers’ of promises or contracts. PR’s capacities to both manage truths and broker new forms of promise place PR in a privileged position in today’s new sociopolitical context. This represents a reconfiguration of promotional culture, according it a heightened social, political, and economic significance as it comes to inhabit more centrally the realm of the promise or the social contract.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Arendt, Hannah. 1998 [1958]. The Human Condition. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.
———. 1972. Crises of the Republic. San Diego, New York, and London: Harcourt Brace and Company.
Bhattacharyya, Gargi. 2015. Crisis, Austerity, and Everyday Life: Living in a Time of Diminishing Expectations. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Boorstin, Daniel J. 1975. The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America. New York: Atheneum.
Bourdieu, Pierre. 2000. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. London: Routledge.
Couldry, Nick, and Andreas Hepp. 2017. The Mediated Construction of Reality. Cambridge: Polity.
Cronin, Anne M. 2004a. Advertising Myths: The Strange Half-Lives of Images and Commodities. London and New York: Routledge.
———. 2004b. Regime of Mediation: Advertising Practitioners as Cultural Intermediaries? Consumption, Markets and Culture 7 (4): 349–369.
———. 2016. Reputational Capital in “the PR University”: Public Relations and Market Rationalities. Journal of Cultural Economy 9 (4): 396–409.
Crouch, Colin. 2011. The Strange Non-Death of Neoliberalism. Cambridge: Polity.
Davis, Aeron. 2013. Promotional Cultures: The Rise and Spread of Advertising, Public Relations, Marketing and Branding. Cambridge: Polity.
Featherstone, Mike. 1991. Consumer Culture and Postmodernism. London: Sage.
Fenton, Natalie. 2016. Digital, Political, Radical. Cambridge: Polity.
Hall, Stuart. 2011. The Neo-Liberal Revolution. Cultural Studies 25 (6): 705–728.
Hansard Society. 2017. Audit of Political Engagement 14. London: Hansard Society.
Haug, Wolfgang F. 1986. Critique of Commodity Aesthetics: Appearance, Sexuality, and Advertising in Capitalist Society. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Lee, Martyn J. 1993. Consumer Culture Reborn: The Cultural Politics of Consumption. London and New York: Routledge.
Moor, Liz. 2012. Beyond Cultural Intermediaries? A Socio-Technical Perspective on Culturalization and the Market for Social Interventions. European Journal of Cultural Studies 15 (5): 563–580.
Nixon, Sean, and Paul Du Gay. 2002. Who Needs Cultural Intermediaries? Cultural Studies 16 (4): 495–500.
Peck, Jamie, Nik Theodore, and Neil Brenner. 2012. Neoliberalism Resurgent? Market Rule after the Great Recession. The South Atlantic Quarterly 111 (2): 265–288.
Schudson, Michael. 1993. Advertising, the Uneasy Persuasion: Its Dubious Impact on American Society. London: Routledge.
Slater, Don, and Fran Tonkiss. 2001. Market Society: Markets and Modern Social Theory. Cambridge: Polity.
Warner, Michael. 2002. Publics and Counterpublics. New York: Zone Books.
Wernick, Andrew. 1991. Promotional Culture: Advertising, Ideology and Symbolic Expression. London: Sage.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Cronin, A.M. (2018). Conclusion: Promotional Culture, PR as Commercial Speech, and the Politics of Lying. In: Public Relations Capitalism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72637-3_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72637-3_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-72636-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-72637-3
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)