Public relations, business news and the reproduction of corporate elite power

Abstract

This article discusses the rise of corporate public relations in Britain and offers an alternative explanation of how it has benefited the corporate sector. Most assessments of corporate PR tend to support traditional radical media accounts of strong corporate influence over media production and public opinion. All either argue or assume that PR is an effective form of ‘mind control’ with which to influence ‘the masses’. Against this account, this article instead argues that corporate PR has been more frequently used to gain a competitive advantage over rivals and has been primarily targeted at other corporate elites. This corporate elite focus has worked to further exclude non-corporate elites from participation in the production of financial and business news. As a result, a more general corporate advantage has been gained as much by exclusion as persuasion of the general public. After a brief discussion of the evidence and debates, these conclusions are illustrated with a case study of the Granada take-over of Forte in 1995–96.