Discrimination history

Discriminating between people on the grounds of merit is generally lawful in Western democracies. Discrimination on other grounds generally is not. When unlawful discrimination takes place, it is often described as discrimination against a person or group of people.

Social theories such as Egalitarianism claim that social equality should prevail. In some societies, including most developed countries, each individual's civil rights include the right to be free from government sponsored social discrimination.^[1]

In contrast, conservative writer and law professor Matthias Storme has claimed that the freedom of discrimination in human societies is a fundamental human right, or more precisely, the basis of all fundamental freedoms and therefore the most fundamental freedom. Author Hans-Hermann Hoppe, in an essay^[2] about his book Democracy: The God That Failed, asserts that a natural social order is characterized by increased discrimination.

Unlawful discrimination can be characterised as direct or slightly less direct. Direct discrimination involves treating someone less favourably because of their possession of a legally protected attribute (e.g., sex, age, race, religion, family status, national origin, military status, disability), compared with someone without that attribute in the same circumstances. An example of direct discrimination would be not giving a woman a job because she is more likely to take maternity leave. Indirect discrimination involves setting a condition or requirement which a smaller proportion of those with the protected attribute are able to comply with, without reasonable justification. The case of Griggs v. Duke Power Company[2] provides an example of indirect discrimination, where an aptitude test used in job applications was found "to disqualify Negroes at a substantially higher rate than white applicants".

Race discrimination

Racial discrimination differentiates between individuals on the basis of real and perceived racial differences, and has been official government policy in several countries, such as South Africa in the apartheid era.

In the United States, racial profiling of minorities by law enforcement officials has been called racial discrimination.^[3] As early as 1866, the Civil Rights Act provided a remedy for intentional race discrimination in employment by private employers and state and local public employers. The Civil Rights Act of 1871 applies to public employment or employment involving state action prohibiting deprivation of rights secured by the federal constitution or federal laws through action under color of law. Title VII is the principal federal statute with regard to employment discrimination prohibiting unlawful employment discrimination by public and private employers, labor organizations, training programs and employment agencies based on race or color, religion, gender, and national origin. Title VII also prohibits retaliation against any person for opposing any practice forbidden by statute, or for making a charge, testifying, assisting, or participating in a proceeding under the statute. The Civil Rights Act of 1991 expanded the damages available in Title VII cases and granted Title VII plaintiffs the right to a jury trial. Title VII also provides that race and color discrimination against every race and color is prohibited, including whites, blacks, hispanics, and Asians.

In the UK the inquiry following the murder of Stephen Lawrence accused the police of institutional racism.

• Weaver v NATFHE (now part of the UCU) Race/sex discrimination case. An Industrial (Employment) Tribunal in the UK decided that a trade union was justified in not assisting a Black woman member, complaining of racist/sexist harassment because the accused male would lose his job. The Employment Appeal Tribunal upheld the decision. Also known as the Bournville College Racial Harassment issue.

Life after Civil War

African Americans expected that the end of the Civil War would mark the end of the division between African Americans and Caucasian Americans,^{[citation needed]} but it merely signified the end of slavery. While the formal physical abuse had subsided, African Americans were only given second-class citizenship. Through the Jim Crow Laws, African Americans were given a limited amount of rights. Voting rights were manipulated and through different clauses such as the grandfather clause, it was made so only Caucasian Americans could vote. Although African Americans were no longer held against their will as slaves, they were not given equal rights.

Black people were still used for labor but were able to have some sort of growth. Basically, African Americans would oversee the farms and fields of Caucasians. Although they could keep some profit, they were forced to return most of it to the farm owner.

This way of life, though degrading, greatly informed African American culture, which became set on a seven day rhythm: work for five days, Saturday for recreation, and Sunday for worship. Saturday evenings established the Blues because African Americans spent the night together expressing their hurt in an artistic way. Slavery widely informed later African American culture.

Age discrimination

Age discrimination is discrimination against a person or group on the grounds of age. Although theoretically the word can refer to the discrimination against any age group, age discrimination usually comes in one of three forms: discrimination against youth, which is also called 'adultism'; discrimination against those 40 years old or older [3], and; discrimination against elderly people.

In the United States, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act prohibits employment discrimination nationwide based on age with respect to employees 40 years of age or older. The Age Discrimination in Employment Act also addresses the difficulty older workers face in obtaining new employment after being displaced from their jobs, arbitrary age limits.

In many countries, companies more or less openly refuse to hire people above a certain age despite the increasing lifespans and average age of the population. The reasons for this range from vague feelings that younger people are more "dynamic" and create a positive image for the company, to more concrete concerns about regulations granting older employees higher salaries or other benefits without these expenses being fully justified by an older employees' greater experience.

Some people consider that teenagers and youth (around 15-25 years old) are victims of adultism, age discrimination framed as a paternalistic form of protection. In seeking social justice, they feel that it is necessary to remove the use of a false moral agenda in order to achieve agency and empowerment. This perspective is based on the grounds that youth should be treated more respectfully by adults and not as second-class citizens. Some suggest that social stratification in age groups causes outsiders to incorrectly stereotype and generalize the group, for instance that all adolescents are equally immature, violent or rebellious, listen to rock tunes and do drugs. Some have organized groups against age discrimination.

Ageism is the causal effect of a continuum of fears related to age.^{[citation needed]} This continuum includes:

• Pediaphobia: the fear of infants or small children.
• Ephebiphobia: the fear of youth.
• Gerontophobia: the fear of elderly people.

Related terms include:

• Adultism: Also called adultarchy, adult privilege, and adultcentrism/adultocentrism, this is the wielding of authority over young people and the preference of adults before children and youth.
• Jeunism: Also called "youthism" is the holding of beliefs or actions taken that preference 'younger' people before adults.

Gender discrimination

Gender discrimination is discrimination against a person or group on the grounds of sex or gender identity.

Socially, sexual differences have been used to justify societies in which one sex or the other has been restricted to significantly inferior and secondary roles. While there are non-physical differences between men and women, there is little agreement as to what those differences are.

Unfair discrimination usually follows the gender stereotyping held by a society.

The United Nations had concluded that women often experience a "glass ceiling" and that there are no societies in which women enjoy the same opportunities as men. The term "glass ceiling" describes the process by which women are barred from promotion by means of an invisible barrier. In the United States, the Glass Ceiling Commission has stated that between 95 and 97 percent of senior managers in the country's biggest corporations are men. [4]

Transgendered individuals, both male to female and female to male, often experience problems which often lead to dismissals, underachievement, difficulty in finding a job, social isolation, and, occasionally, violent attacks against them.

Legislation

In the U.S., Title VII of the CRA of 1964 allows a BFOQ for gender (contact prison guards, washroom attendants) but such permission is extremely limited. The Equal Pay Act (part of the Fair Labor Standards Act) prohibits wage discrimination by employers and labor organizations based solely on sex.

In the UK, the principal legislation is found in the Equal Pay Act 1970 (which provides for equal pay for comparable work) and the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, which makes discrimination against women or men (including discrimination on the grounds of marital status) illegal in the workplace. The adoption of the Human Rights Act 1998 in 2000 provides more scope for redressing all forms of discriminatory imbalances.

Employment discrimination

Main article: Employment discrimination

The federal laws that protect against:

• race, color and national origin discrimination include the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Executive Order Number 11478 among other numerous laws that protect people from race, color and national origin discrimination.
• sex and gender discrimination include the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Equal Pay Act of 1963.
• age discrimination include the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967.
• physical and mental disability discrimination include the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990
• religious discrimination include the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
• military status discrimination include the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act of 1974

Drug discrimination

People are sometimes discriminated against on the basis of whether they take illegal drugs. The legality and ethics of such discrimination is part of a wider debate on the arguments for and against drug prohibition. (See also drug test).

A recent British case involving this form of discrimination is that of Casey William Hardison, who appealed to the European Court of Human Rights after being refused a final appeal at the House of Lords, the highest court in Great Britain. The essence of Hardison's argument was that the Government’s distinction between illegal and legal drugs is arbitrary, vague and unscientific; based more on historical moral prejudice than on objective evidence. Hardison is currently serving a twenty-year sentence for producing a variety of entheogenic drugs.

• See also: Article about Drug Discrimination and Casey Hardison

Language discrimination

People are sometimes subjected to different treatment because their preferred language is associated with a particular group, class or category. Commonly, the preferred language is just another attribute of separate ethnic groups.

"Reverse discrimination", "preferential treatment", and opponents of modern preferential programs

Main article: Reverse discrimination

Reverse discrimination is a term used to describe discriminatory policies or acts that benefit a historically socio-politically non-dominant group (e.g. women, blacks etc), at the expense of a historically socio-politically dominant group (e.g. men, whites etc). Most academic and expert opponents of preferential policies that favor historically-discriminated groups, such as Carl Cohen, would avoid the term "reverse discrimination" on the grounds that "discrimination is discrimination" and that the label "reverse" is a misnomer (a point that experts on both sides of issue generally agree with). Groups such as the American Civil Rights Institute, run by Ward Connerly, have opted for the more legally precise terms "race preference", "gender preference," or "preferential treatment" generally, since these terms are contained and defined within existing civil rights law, such as the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

In this vein, Ward Connerly has promoted and won a series of ballot initiatives in the states of California (California Proposition 209 (1996)), Washington (1998 - I-200), and Michigan (the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative - MCRI, or Proposal 2, 2006). California's initiative was co-authored by academics Tom Wood and Glynn Custred in the mid-1990s and was taken up by Connerly after he was appointed in 1994 by Governor Pete Wilson to the University of California Board of Regents. Each of the ballot initiatives have won, and Connerly plans what he calls a "Super-Tuesday" of five additional states in 2008. The language of these ballot initiatives all use the terms "preferential treatment" as their operative clauses.

Academics such as Cohen, who was a supporter of Michigan's Proposal 2, have argued that the term "affirmative action" should be defined differently than "race preference," and that while socio-economically based or anti-discrimination types of affirmative action should be permissible, those that give preference to individuals solely based on their race or gender should not be permitted. Cohen also helped find evidence in 1996 through the Freedom of Information Act that lead to the cases filed by Jennifer Gratz and Barbara Grutter against the the University of Michigan for its undergraduate and law admissions policy - cases which were decided by the U.S. Supreme Court on June 23, 2003.

Notable^{[citation needed]} national bloggers and internet resources against preferential types of affirmative action include John Rosenberg's Discriminations, Tim Fay's Adversity.net, and Chetly Zarko's Power, Politics, & Money.

Disability discrimination

Please help improve this article by expanding this section with: further examples of disability discrimiation. Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion. Please remove this message once the section has been expanded. This section has been tagged since June 2007.

People with disabilities have to sometimes face discrimination in all levels of society.

Chronic pain is a debilitating condition which is often neglected in modern society. According to the American Chiropractic Association [5], over 50% of all working US Citizens complain of back pain each year. An estimated 80% of the population will experience back pain at some point in their life. Many times pain can become chronic and debilitating. Ergonomic seating and work environments are not only be a reasonable accommodation for those who suffer, the are also a preventative measure to counteract the soaring cost of medical treatment for pain conditions. Ergonomic seating in all public institutions would be a positive step to providing access to public services for all those who need it. In the United States the Americans with Disabilities Act [6] provides guidelines for providing wheelchair access for public institutions, but ergonomic devices for those who suffer from pain are something that has yet to be implemented.

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Public relations

Public relations (PR) is the managing of outside communication of an organization or business to create and maintain a positive image. Public relations[1] involves popularizing successes, downplaying failures, announcing changes, and many other activities.

Definition

The term Public Relations was first used by the US President Thomas Jefferson during his address to Congress in 1807. ^[2]

One of the earliest definitions of PR was created by Edward Bernays. According to him, "Public Relations is a management function which tabulates public attitudes, defines the policies, procedures and interest of an organization followed by executing a program of action to earn public understanding and acceptance."

Examples/users of public relations include:

• Corporations using marketing public relations (MPR) to convey information about the products they manufacture or services they provide to potential customers in order to support their direct sales efforts. Typically, they support sales in the short to long term, establishing and burnishing the corporation's branding for a strong, ongoing market.

• Corporations using public relations as a vehicle to reach legislators and other politicians, in seeking favorable tax, regulatory, and other treatment. Moreover, they may use public relations to portray themselves as enlightened employers, in support of human-resources recruiting programs.

• Non-profit organizations, including schools and universities, hospitals, and human and social service agencies: such organizations may make use of public relations in support of awareness programs, fund-raising programs, staff recruiting, and to increase patronage of their services.

• Politicians aiming to attract votes and/or raise money. When such campaigns are successful at the ballot box, this helps in promoting and defending their service in office, with an eye to the next election or, at a career’s end, to their legacy.

Today "Public Relations is a set of management, supervisory, and technical functions that foster an organization's ability to strategically listen to, appreciate, and respond to those persons whose mutually beneficial relationships with the organization are necessary if it is to achieve its missions and values." (Robert L. Heath, Encyclopedia of Public Relations).

Essentially it is a management function that focuses on two-way communication and fostering of mutually beneficial relationships between an organization and its publics.

There is a school of public relations that holds that it is about relationship management. Phillips, explored this concept in his paper "Towards relationship management: Public relations at the core of organisational development" paper in 2006 which lists a range of academics and practitioners who support this view.

History

Precursors

Evidence of the practices used in modern day public relations are scattered through history. One notable practitioner was Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire whose efforts on behalf of Charles James Fox in the 18th century included press relations, lobbying and, with her friends, celebrity campaigning.

A number of American precursors to public relations are found in publicists who specialized in promoting circuses, theatrical performances, and other public spectacles. In the United States, where public relations has its origins, many early PR practices were developed in support of the expansive power of the railroads. In fact, many scholars believe that the first appearance of the term "public relations" appeared in the 1897 Year Book of Railway Literature.^{[citation needed]}

Later, PR practitioners were—and are still often—recruited from the ranks of journalism. Some reporters, concerned with ethics, criticize former colleagues for using their inside understanding of news media to help clients receive favorable media coverage.

Despite many journalists' discomfort with the field of public relations, well-paid PR positions remain a popular choice for reporters and editors forced into a career change by the instability and often fewer economic opportunities provided by the print and electronic media industry.^{[citation needed]}

Examples of prominent PR firms staffed by former journalists and television producers include organizations like Medialink, DS Simon and Mediahitman.

The first "names"

The First World War also helped stimulate the development of public relations as a profession. Many of the first PR professionals, including Ivy Lee, Edward Bernays, John Hill, and Carl Byoir, got their start with the Committee on Public Information (also known as the Creel Commission), which organized publicity on behalf of U.S. objectives during World War I. Some historians regard Ivy Lee as the first real practitioner of public relations, but Edward Bernays is generally regarded today as the profession's founder. In describing the origin of the term Public Relations, Bernays commented, "When I came back to the United States, I decided that if you could use propaganda for war, you could certainly use it for peace. And propaganda got to be a bad word because of the Germans.. using it. So what I did was to try to find some other words, so we found the words Council on Public Relations".

Ivy Lee, who has been credited with developing the modern news release (also called a "press release"), espoused a philosophy consistent with what has sometimes been called the "two-way street" approach to public relations, in which PR consists of helping clients listen as well as communicate messages to their publics. In the words of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), "Public relations helps an organization and its publics adapt mutually to each other." In practice, however, Lee often engaged in one-way propagandizing on behalf of clients despised by the public, including Standard Oil founder John D. Rockefeller. Shortly before his death, the US Congress had been investigating his work on behalf of the controversial Nazi German company IG Farben.

In the 1890s when gender role reversals could be caricaturized, the idea of an aggressive woman who also smoked was considered laughable. In 1929, Edward Bernays proved otherwise when he convinced women to smoke in public during an Easter parade in Manhattan as a show of defiance against male domination. The demonstrators were not aware that a tobacco company was behind the publicity stunt.

Bernays was the profession's first theorist. A nephew of Sigmund Freud, Bernays drew many of his ideas from Freud's theories about the irrational, unconscious motives that shape human behaviour. Bernays authored several books, including Crystallizing Public Opinion (1923), Propaganda (1928), and The Engineering of Consent (1947). Bernays saw public relations as an "applied social science" that uses insights from psychology, sociology, and other disciplines to scientifically manage and manipulate the thinking and behavior of an irrational and "herdlike" public. "The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society," he wrote in Propaganda. "Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country."

One of Bernays' early clients was the tobacco industry. In 1929, he orchestrated a legendary publicity stunt aimed at persuading women to take up cigarette smoking, an act that at the time was exclusively equated with men. It was considered unfeminine and inappropriate for women to smoke, besides the occasional prostitute, virtually no women participated in the act publicly.

Bernays initially consulted psychoanalyst A. A. Brill for advice, Brill told him: "Some women regard cigarettes as symbols of freedom... Smoking is a sublimation of oral eroticism; holding a cigarette in the mouth excites the oral zone. It is perfectly normal for women to want to smoke cigarettes. Further the first women who smoked probably had an excess of male components and adopted the habit as a masculine act. But today the emancipation of women has suppressed many feminine desires. More women now do the same work as men do.... Cigarettes, which are equated with men, become torches of freedom."

Upon hearing this analysis, Bernays dubbed his PR campaign the: "Torches of Liberty Contingent".

It was in this spirit that Bernays arranged for New York City débutantes to march in that year's Easter Day Parade, defiantly smoking cigarettes as a statement of rebellion against the norms of a male-dominated society. Publicity photos of these beautiful fashion models smoking "Torches of Liberty" were sent to various media outlets and appeared worldwide. As a result, the taboo was dissolved and many women were led to associate the act of smoking with female liberation. Some women went so far as to demand membership in all-male smoking clubs, a highly controversial act at the time.

For his work, Bernays was paid a tidy sum by George Washington Hill, president of the American Tobacco Company.

Standards

In 1950 PRSA enacts the first "Professional Standards for the Practice of Public Relations," a forerunner to the current Code of Ethics, last revised in 2000 to include six core values and six code provisions. The six core values are "Advocacy, Honesty, Expertise, Independence, Loyalty, and Fairness." The six code provisions consulted with are "Free Flow of Information, Competition, Disclosure of Information, Safeguarding Confidences, Conflicts of Interest, and Enhancing the Profession."

In 1982 effective Public Relations helped save the Johnson & Johnson Corporation, after the highly publicized Tylenol poisoning crisis.

The industry today

Modern public relations uses a variety of techniques including opinion polling and focus groups to evaluate public opinion, combined with a variety of high-tech techniques for distributing information on behalf of their clients, including satellite feeds, the Internet, broadcast faxes, and database-driven phone banks to recruit supporters for a client's cause. According to the PRSA,

"Examples of the knowledge that may be required in the professional practice of public relations include communication arts, psychology, social psychology, sociology, political science, economics, and the principles of management and ethics. Technical knowledge and skills are required for opinion research, public issues analysis, media relations, direct mail, institutional advertising, publications, film/video productions, special events, speeches, and presentations."

Although public relations professionals are stereotypically seen as corporate servants, the reality is that almost any organization that has a stake in how it is portrayed in the public arena employs at least one PR manager. Large organizations may even have dedicated communications departments. Government agencies, trade associations, and other non-profit organizations commonly carry out PR activities.

Public relations should be seen as a management function in any organization. An effective communication, or public relations, plan for an organization is developed to communicate to an audience (whether internal or external publics) in such a way the message coincides with organizational goals and seeks to benefit mutual interests whenever possible.

As industry consolidation becomes more prevalent, many organizations and individuals are choosing to retain "boutique" firms as opposed to so-called "global" communications firms. These smaller firms typically specialize in only a couple of practice areas and thus, often have a greater understanding of their client's business. And because they deal with certain journalists with greater frequency, specialty firms often have stronger media contacts in the areas that matter most to their clients. Added benefits of smaller, specialty firms include more personal attention and accountability and as well, cost savings. This is not to say that smaller is always better, but there is a growing consensus that specialty firms offer more than once considered.

A number of specialties exist within the field of public relations, including:

• crisis management
• reputation management
• issue management
• investor relations and labor relations
• grassroots PR (sometimes referred to as "astroturf PR")

[edit] Methods, tools, and tactics

Public relations and publicity are not synonyms. Publicity is the spreading of information to gain public awareness in a product, service, candidate, etc. It is just one technique of public relations as listed here.

Audience targeting

A fundamental technique used in public relations is to identify the target audience, and to tailor every message to appeal to that audience. It can be a general, nationwide or worldwide audience, but it is more often a segment of a population. Marketers often refer to economy-driven "demographics," such as "white males 18-49," but in public relations an audience is more fluid, being whoever someone wants to reach. For example, recent political audiences include "soccer moms" and "NASCAR dads."

In addition to audiences, there are usually stakeholders, literally people who have a "stake" in a given issue. All audiences are stakeholders (or presumptive stakeholders), but not all stakeholders are audiences. For example, a charity commissions a PR agency to create an advertising campaign to raise money to find a cure for a disease. The charity and the people with the disease are stakeholders, but the audience is anyone who is likely to donate money.

Sometimes the interests of differing audiences and stakeholders common to a PR effort necessitate the creation of several distinct but still complementary messages. This is not always easy to do, and sometimes – especially in politics – a spokesperson or client says something to one audience that angers another audience or group of stakeholders.

Press releases

Main article: Press release

Press release format The typical press release announces that the statement is "FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE" across the top (some may instead be embargoed until a certain date), and lists the issuing organization's media contacts directly below. The media contacts are the people that the release's issuer wants to make available to the media; for example, a press release about new scientific study will typically list the study's lead scientist as its media contact. The bottom of each release is usually marked with ### or -30- to signify the end of the text.

Five "W"s and an "H" There are 6 vital facts to convey in the first paragraph of a release to ensure that it doesn't end up in the bin.

• Who
• What
• When
• Where
• Why
• How

A press release is a written statement distributed to the media. It is a fundamental tool of public relations. Press releases are usually communicated by a newswire service to various news media and journalists may use them as they see fit. Very often the information in a press release finds its way verbatim, or minimally altered, to print and broadcast reports. If a media outlet reports that "John Smith said in a statement today that...", the "statement" usually originated in a press release, or a direct quote from an interview with a John Smith.

The text of a release is usually (but not always) written in the style of a news story, with an eye-catching headline and text written standard journalistic inverted pyramid style. This style of news writing makes it easier for reporters to quickly grasp the message. Journalists are free to use the information verbatim, or alter it as they see fit. PR practitioners research and write releases that encourage as much "lifting" as possible.

Many journalists believe it is unethical to copy from a press release—they believe it is a lapse of good judgement (for instance, a direct quote, as in: Senator Smith said, "This is the most fiscally irresponsible bill that the Congress has passed since the Buy Everyone A Mercedes Act." In this case, a journalist may copy the quote verbatim into the story, although ethical reporters prefer to try soliciting an individual quote from the speaker before filing their story). Public relations professionals believe that press releases and other collateral material aid a journalist's job, and it is the job of the journalist to decide whether or not reprinting material verbatim tells the real story.

Since press releases reflect their issuer's preferred interpretation or positive packaging of a story, journalists are often skeptical of their contents. The level of skepticism depends on what the story is and who's telling it. Newsrooms receive so many press releases that, unless it is a story that the media are already paying attention to, a press release alone often isn't enough to catch a journalist's attention.

With the advent of modern electronic media and new technology, press releases now have equivalents in these media_video news releases and audio news releases. However, many television stations are hesitant to use VNR's that appear canned and are not newsworthy.

A new kind of press release—"optimized" for the Internet

The advent of the Internet has ushered in a new kind of press release known as an optimized press release. Unlike conventional press releases of yore, written for journalists' eyes only, in hopes the editor or reporter would find the content compelling enough to turn it into print or electronic news coverage, the optimized press release is posted on an online news portal. Here the writer carefully selects keywords or keyword phrases relevant to the press release contents. If written skillfully, the press release can rank highly in searches on Google News, Yahoo or MSN News (or the many other minor news portals) for the chosen keyword phrases.

Readers of optimized press releases constitute far more than journalists. In the days before news search engines, a press release would have landed only in the hands of a news reporter or an editor who would make the decision about whether the content warranted news coverage. Although the news media is always privy to online press releases in the search engines, most readers are end-users. Optimized press releases circumvent the mainstream media which is formerly—but no longer—the gatekeeper of the news.^{[citation needed]}

Lobby groups

Lobby groups are established to influence government policy, corporate policy, or public opinion. These groups claim to represent a particular interest. When a lobby group hides its true purpose and support base it is known as a front group.

Spin

In public relations, spin is a sometimes pejorative term signifying a heavily biased portrayal in one's own favor of an event or situation. While traditional public relations may also rely on creative presentation of the facts, "spin" often, though not always, implies disingenuous, deceptive and/or highly manipulative tactics. Politicians are often accused of spin by commentators and political opponents, when they produce a counter argument or position.

The term is borrowed from ball sports such as cricket, where a spin bowler may impart spin on the ball during a delivery so that it will curve through the air or bounce in an advantageous manner.

The techniques of "spin" include:

• Selectively presenting facts and quotes that support one's position (cherry picking)
• Non-denial denial
• Phrasing in a way that assumes unproven truths
• Euphemisms to disguise or promote one's agenda
• Ambiguity
• Skirting
• Rejecting the validity of hypotheticals
• Appealing to internal policies

Another spin technique involves careful choice of timing in the release of certain news so it can take advantage of prominent events in the news. A famous reference to this practice occurred when British Government press officer Jo Moore used the phrase It's now a very good day to get out anything we want to bury, (widely paraphrased or misquoted as "It's a good day to bury bad news"), in an email sent on September 11, 2001. The furor caused when this email was reported in the press eventually caused her to resign.

Spin doctor

Skilled practitioners of spin are sometimes called "spin doctors", though probably not to their faces unless it is said facetiously. It is the PR equivalent of calling a writer a "hack". Perhaps the most well-known person in the UK often described as a "spin doctor" is Alastair Campbell, who was involved with Tony Blair's public relations between 1994 and 2003, and also played a controversial role as press relations officer to the British and Irish Lions rugby side during their 2005 tour of New Zealand.

The American radio and television talk-show host Bill O'Reilly has called his television show The O'Reilly Factor "The No Spin Zone", emphasizing his own purported dislike of the phenomenon. Some other American talk and radio-show hosts and commentators, such as Keith Olbermann, who maintains an on-going "feud with Bill O'Reilly", and who himself has been tagged with being more liberal in his views, mock O'Reilly's epithet "no spin zone" suggesting his own avoidance of "spin" to be just another instance of spin from "the other side". (Olbermann frequently labels O'Reilly as "The Worst Person in the World" in one of his segments on his own show Countdown, which airs at the same time as The O'Reilly Factor on rival cable network MSNBC.) Such commentators on politics, despite their prominent roles in mainstream-media journalism, which purports to maintain objectivity, at times and sometimes even often seem engaged in the very phenomenon of spin that they deride. Many such commentators and their featured on-air media consultants, commonly termed "talking heads" or pundits, come to programs on radio, television, and in publishing from prior professional careers in public relations and politics, sometimes even as former political campaign directors or speech writers for political figures; for those who do, mastering the "art" of spin has already been an important part of their past work experience, and it may lead not only to their acute understanding and critique of the phenomenon but also to their supreme ability to continue practicing it in ever-more subtle ways.

State-run media in many countries also engage in spin by selectively allowing news stories that are favorable to the government while censoring anything that could be considered critical. They may also use propaganda to indoctrinate or actively influence citizens' opinions.

Other

• Publicity events, pseudo-events, photo ops or publicity stunts
• The talk show circuit. A PR spokesperson (or his/her client) "does the circuit" by being interviewed on television and radio talk shows with audiences that the client wishes to reach.
• Books and other writings
• After a PR practitioner has been working in the field for a while, he or she accumulates a list of contacts in the media and elsewhere in the public affairs sphere. This "Rolodex" becomes a prized asset, and job announcements sometimes even ask for candidates with an existing Rolodex, especially those in the media relations area of PR.
• Direct communication (carrying messages directly to constituents, rather than through the mass media) with, e.g., newsletters – in print and e-letters.
• Collateral literature, traditionally in print and now predominantly as web sites.
• Speeches to constituent groups and professional organizations; receptions; seminars, and other events; personal appearances.
• The slang term for a PR practitioner or publicist is a "flack."

The process of public relations

Scott Cutlip, Allen Center and Glen Broom describe the public relations process in four steps (1994). The first step is "Defining Public Relations Problems," usually in terms of a "situational analysis," or what public relations professionals call a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats). According to Cutlip, Center and Broom, this should answer the question, "What's happening now?" The next step in the public relations process is "Planning and Programming," where the main focus is "strategy," Cutlip, Center and Broom argue that this step should answer the question "What should we do and say, and why?" The third step in the public relations process is "Taking action and Communicating," also known as "Implementation;" this step should answer the question "How and when do we do and say it?" The final step in Cutlip, Center and Broom's Four-Step Public Relations Process is "Evaluating The Program," making a final "assessment," which should answer the question "How did we do," this is where public relations professionals make a final analysis of the success of their campaign or communication.

Another process model by Sheila C. Crifasi (2000) uses the acronym "ROSIE" to define a five-step process of "Research, Objectives, Strategies, Implementation and Evaluation (See Media evaluation)." Using another acronym, "ROPES," Dr. Kathleen S. Kelly explains a five-step process through "Research, Objectives, Program, Evaluation and Stewardship." Wilcox, Ault, Agee and Cameron (2002) define the public relations process through four steps of "Research, Action (Program Planning), Communication and Evaluation." Center and Jackson (1995) define the process of public relations through four steps: "Fact-finding and data gathering; Planning and programming; Action and communication; Evaluation."

People who are professionals in public relations use different methods for analyzing the results of their work such as focus groups, surveys, and one-on-one interviews. These same methods are used in defining what medium of communication will be used in the process of strategy and what tools will be used in relaying the message, such as press releases, brochures, Web sites, media packs, video news releases, news conferences and in-house publications.

Online PR is increasingly gaining prominence and credibility in its own right, as PR pros use new technologies including the Internet to further client goals. Online PR pros should be fluent in blogging, link-building, social media sites such as Digg, and SEO/SEM practices.

A subset of online PR is blogger relations, and the recognition of bloggers' prominence and importance in the world of digital content. Many online PR pros are themselves bloggers, to better understand this medium.

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Indonesian culture

Statue of Dewi Sri in Ubud, Bali.

Indonesian culture has been shaped by long interaction between original indigenous customs and multiple foreign influences. Indonesia is central among ancient trading routes between the Far East and the Middle East, resulting in many cultural practices being strongly influenced by a multitude of religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism and Islam, all strong in the major trading cities. The result is a complex cultural mixture very different from the original. Examples include Agama Hindu Dharma, a denomination of Hinduism now practiced by 93% of Balinese, the fusion of Islam with Hindu in Javanese Abangan belief, the fusion of Hinduism, Buddhism and animism in Bodha, the fusion of Hinduism and animism in Kaharingan, and many others.

Indonesian art-forms express this cultural mix. Wayang, traditional theater-performed puppet shows, were used to spread Hinduism and Islam amongst Javan villagers. Both Javanese and Balinese dances have stories about ancient Buddhist and Hindu kingdoms, while Islamic art forms and architecture are present in Sumatra, especially in the Minangkabau and Aceh regions. Traditional art, music and sport are combined into a martial art form called Pencak Silat.

Western culture has influenced Indonesia mostly in modern entertainment such as television shows, movies and songs. India has notably influenced Indonesian songs and movies. A popular type of song is the Indian-rhythmical dangdut, which is often mixed with Arab and Malay folk music.

Despite the influences of foreign culture, some remote Indonesian regions still preserve uniquely indigenous culture. Indigenous ethnic groups of Mentawai, Asmat, Dani, Dayak, Toraja and many others are still practising their ethnic rituals, customs and wearing traditional clothes.

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journalism and its history based wikipedia

Journalism is a discipline of gathering, writing and reporting news, and more broadly it includes the process of editing and presenting the news articles. Journalism applies to various media, including but not limited to newspapers, magazines, radio, and television.

While under pressure to be the first to publish their stories, news media organizations—each adhering to its own standards of accuracy, quality, and style—usually edit and proofread their reports prior to publication. Many news organizations claim proud traditions of holding government officials and institutions accountable to the public, while media critics have raised questions about holding the press itself accountable.

The digitalization of news production and the diffusion capabilities of the internet are challenging the traditional journalistic professional culture. The concept of participatory or citizen journalism proposes that amateur reporters can actually produce their own stories either inside or outside professional media outlets, and thus end the monopoly the press holds over information production.

News-oriented journalism was described by former Washington Post editor, Phil Graham, as "a first rough draft of history", because journalists often record important historical events as they are happening, but just the same, they must produce their news articles on short deadlines.

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