Marketing in Media

Avoiding Marketing

When reading about Astroturfing, I thought back about how many times I have seen products placed in a TV show or substitutes put into the show instead. There are countless shows that have used the "Lets" potato chips as a replacement for the name brand, as we can see by the two examples below. These bags are used as  a way to avoid paying copyright fees to the big brands while still giving the feeling that they are the brands we know and love. They use the same colors, same type of lettering, and of course, hold the same product. While this is not the only example of avoiding copyright, it is one of the most common.

Source: Orange is the New Black

Source: Community

 Advertising in TV Shows and Movies

The idea of astroturfing made me think of "Schitt's Creek", a Canadian TV show that became popular after being on Netflix. In this show, there is a moment where Alexis, one of the main characters, is trying to have a screening of her mother's new movie. As most things do in this series, everything went wrong. Crows attacked the audience and mayhem ensued. Alexis somehow is able to play this off as a PR stunt that she supposedly orchestrated to help hype up the movie. You can watch the clip here. It causes her to land a job with the streaming company, Interflix. While Alexis did not mean for anything to happen, she was able to capitalize on the 'successful screening' and the movie became an instant classic. 

Advertising has become so prevalent that we do not always realize it is happening. It has become so ingrained in our society that it can be hard to know if we wanted to buy -that- specific brand of deodorant because we think it works well or because we briefly saw an ad for it online or in a show.

One of the most popular movie franchises of the last decade, The Avengers, is not immune from this, either. If you sit down and watch a Marvel movie with the intention of finding product placement, you will be surprised with how many you can find. It has happened so often that Disney+ now has product placement warnings on certain movies where it is common. Is Disney+ doing the right thing with these warnings or are they an unnecessary addition in this world where everything is an advertisement? After all, the movies had to be sponsored by someone. 

The Perpetual Conflict Machine

Guerilla Marketing 

Carole Lyn Zeleny

cz812701@ohio.edu

Image by Shutterstock

Media and stakeholder groups have accused public relations practitioners of being spin doctors and describing a reality that suits their purposes. This attitude is encapsulated in the descriptor that an activity is merely a "PR ploy", a "PR maneuver" or a "PR effort." Practices such as "flogging" (fake blogging), "astroturfing" (fake grassroots lobbying), and "stealth marketing" (fake promotions with actors masquerading as private citizens) have come under criticism.

Image by Market Watch

Of all the word-of-mouth marketing techniques, stealth marketing is particularly efficient. In a digitized world, it might be surprising to learn that word-of-mouth marketing can often give content marketing and email marketing a run for their money. To learn how effective this organic method is for spreading the news about a product check out these figures. There are 2.4 billion brand-related conversations every day in the US with over 90% of them happening offline and 66% are positive.

Image by Starbucks

Every year, Starbucks the coffee brand releases a unique design for their holiday cups and in 2015, the design was thought by some to be very understated, too plain and not Christmassy enough! Pundits, consumers and critics made their voices heard and their opinions known about the lack of elaborate cup design. The whole ordeal created a massive media buzz about the product across the entire planet. Much later the news leaked that the cup controversy was fake. In fact only very few people actually hated the cup, but the stir caused Starbucks’ sales to soar. 

Image by Market Watch

The massively popular TV show “Game of Thrones” suffered a so-called “blooper” when a Starbucks cup was visibly left on the table in one of the scenes. Obviously, this wasn’t really a blooper, but the unexpected appearance of the object got the people talking online and offline. This was a well-thought-out publicity stunt that captured the attention of viewers across the world.

Image by Ad of the World

In line with the Axe body spray brand’s commercial messaging of men becoming irresistible to the opposite sex when using Axe body spray, their new guerilla marketing campaign created a new narrative as well as a story about the traditional exit sign. In a classic guerilla/stealth move, Axe made a modification to a traditional “exit” sign used in places such as garages and public buildings. Then Axe body spray added customized stickers in the same style to that of existing exit man sign; however, they then added women figures chasing after the man figure.

Image by Headstuff

Released in 2003, "The Italian Job" was a re-make of a much-loved film. The 2003 version used some key elements from the 1969 original such as the title, a once in a lifetime robbery, and  the Mini Cooper to inspire a story about revenge and payback set in LA. Movies are a commonly used media for product placement and this movie turned into a big screen ad for the Mini Cooper brand.  

Undercover marketing stirs up conversations to bring consumers closer to the brand and get better acquainted with their products. In the process, it ensures significant perks for the marketers using it. Stealth marketing advantages include the fact that it creates pre-launch interest, promotes without advertising, boosts brand image, identifies ideal customer profiles and saves money.

Stealth marketing does have potential pitfalls and downsides, such as damaging the brand image. Instead of building a positive brand image, stealth marketing campaigns can backfire dramatically. In 2006, Sony’s online video and fan site campaign promoting the PSP console took a turn when consumers discovered that the enthusiastic fan from the videos was really a paid actor. While this did not impact PSP sales negatively, it did some damage to Sony’s reputation through negative buzz about the brand. Certain stealth marketing acts and practices fall into the gray area of legality in certain jurisdictions. In the European Union, for example, numerous stealth marketing strategies are forbidden by law. A business that considers using undercover marketing first needs to be aware of local laws regarding this type of advertising.

Image by PR Week

In Japan, the term "stealth marketing" is used to describe the failure to disclose promotional material in the media as such, or the presentation of paid content or advertorials as legitimate editorial coverage. 

Image by Board Effect

Recent investigative reports in the Japanese business media around so-called ‘stealth marketing’ tactics led by PR firms have sparked questions as to whether the industry needs to draw up more stringent regulations to ensure greater transparency.

Image by PEDIAA

When in doubt as to whether an act is moral or not, apply the categorical imperative, which is to ask the question: 

"What if everyone did this deed?"

Protect Kids, Not Guns

Shannon Limbach

SL668021@Ohio.Edu

Today I Marched

I went to a park today. I walked in silence among 300 strangers as I held a sign that read Protect Kids, Not Guns. We listened to speeches and grieved together as the names of the victims of the latest mass shootings were read aloud. 

                                   

When I was in elementary school, my greatest fear was not for myself but for the awkward kid who was consistently picked last for the recess kickball team. When it was my turn to be captain, I always picked him first. The traditional fire-drill was a once a month occurrence at the school and four times a year we had our regular California earthquake drill. We did not have active shooter drills. It was unheard of. 

1999

My daughter was two years old the day of the Columbine shooting. One of the high school students murdered that day was Lauren Townsend. Lauren was a valedictorian nominee. A member of the honor society. Captain of the volleyball team. 

9 News

I think about her often. She most likely would have her own little ones running around as grandma and grandpa doted on their grandchildren. But gun violence ended her life and so many others who were killed that day. 

My Daughter's Name is Lauren

I have never met the Townsend family but I made a secret promise to the them. I promised I would raise my daughter, Lauren, to be kind, spirited, academic, and a leader, just as their Lauren was before her life was tragically cut short. I feel so lucky. My daughter has grown into an accomplished young woman. 

My daughter's school years were much different than mine. Of course there was the traditional fire-drills and earthquake drills and now K-12 lockdown shooter drills. Once she entered middle school, there were self defense assemblies, which coincided with the lockdown shooter drills. The flyer sent home with the kids went as follows:

Step one: report any strange sound

Step two: If you hear active shooter alarm, barricade yourself in classroom, lock all doors

Step three: pile desks in front of entrance

Step four: hide

Step five: if shooter is in classroom, fight back if possible

Step six: if shooter is on other side of campus, escape by foot to nearest neighborhood

Step seven: don't wear bright colors to school, it makes you an easy target when running

 

NRA Public Relations  

The National Rifle Associations Convention was to take place a few days after the Columbine mass murders and only a few miles from the killings. Twenty years after that eventful day, National Public Radio received a recorded audio of a meeting that took place a day after Columbine with the NRA and their public relations firm. They huddled in distress, not over the loss of life, but for the negative press that would be coming their way. Columbine was a defining moment for the NRA. 

Over the next two decades, this unapologetic message would come to define the NRA's tone in the wake of mass shootings at American schools. After 32 people were killed at Virginia Tech in 2007  :  "This is a time for people to grieve, to mourn, and to heal. This is not a time for political discussions or public policy debates." After the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School: "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun." And after the 2018 shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida, the NRA's spokesperson said bluntly, "Many in legacy media love mass shootings."

The Perfect Spin

Corporate news is big business. The National Rifle Association is a 501 C4 tax exempt "non-profit" and a helluva big business. They have their own in-house public relations firm and a willing Congress to project the NRA talking points. In referencing the Financial Times article, The Invasion of Corporate News, The lines between journalism and PR are rapidly becoming blurred as business interest bypass traditional media to get their message across. The public relations tapes revealed by NPR showed an interesting connection to corporate news, messaging, and Congress. As noted in the NPR piece:  "We got a call from Congressman Tancredo, who is ... as good as they get, and he's nervous as a cat on a hot tin roof," says baker. La Pierre claims that Senate Majority Whip Don Nickles, R-Okla., had secretly asked him for talking points to use after the shooting. "I was talking to Nickles' office this morning, and what they told me is they're planning on sending them all to schools because what they wanted us to do was secretly provide them with talking pints." 

And here we go ......... the National Rifle Association public relations firms sends talking points to members of Congress. These pro-NRA members of Congress are interviewed and or quoted by every local and national paper, and it costs them nothing. 

A Master Class in Deception

October 1, 2017 - 58 Dead. An assault rifle was used to massacre 58 people enjoying a concert in Las Vegas. 500 people were injured. The NRA was praised for their "action on gun safety". 

In the article what The NRA can teach us about the art of public persuasion, "Whatever you think of the national Rifle Association you have to give them credit for some highly effective issue management. In the wake of the shooting rampage in Las Vegas, they could have dusted off their usual response after every previous mass shooting. But instead, the public relations at the NRA came up with an audacious new approach - they called for a review of the so-called bump stocks, which are devices retrofitted to turn a legal semi-automatic weapon into an illegal automatic killing machine. In issue management terms, the NRA's strategy was a classic case of "look over here" while maintaining its devotion to its core objectives."

"By seeming to give away something that is peripheral to the gun rights issue, the NRA implemented a perfect example of the tried and true "issue diversion tactic". In doing so, it positioned itself as part of the solution, rather than as a key part of they problem." 

BUMP STOCKS

Once again, the press ate it up faster than the slaughter of 58 people.

ABC News 

Sputnik

OC Register

The World Today

Life is Beautiful 

In late September 2017, my Lauren was in Las Vegas at the Life is Beautiful festival. The Vegas shooter booked a room overlooking the event. It was not clear if he aborted plans to carry out massacres at those sites.  

Today we marched. 

Wait, Who Said That?

 Tony Zimmerman

tz996419@ohio.edu

Grassroots, ground-up organizing is the most effective way to motivate and fire up people about an issue. In political campaigns, it is well understood that the most effective messenger to potential voters is their friends or family. Having a friend share and advocate for the campaign's positions leads to people being far more receptive to the information. Why is this? It’s because people trust people they know and are less trusting of big corporations and campaigns. The only thing is that wealthy donors who fund campaigns are aware of this too. 

Their solution to getting around the general public not trusting them is simple. Change the messenger to "local advocates." This is precisely what the Koch family did in Virginia when they found some local parents who were upset about the COVID policies of their local school. They could take a natural movement, amplify it, and fund it far beyond what it actually was. Why did they do this? To push the agenda, they have been driving and advocating since the 1960s, defunding public education and promoting privately funded education. How does this type of astroturfing work? It isn’t all done with bots, as one might assume, but rather by real people employed to create multiple fake profiles. All of these profiles are then pushing the same narrative making it appear as though it is a widely and deeply held position. 

Source: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

It takes a lot of money to employ real people to perform these actions but setting up a website with fake or inflammatory news stories isn’t complicated or expensive as one researcher found. It not only wasn’t tricky, but it was profitable to do. The researcher received an ad revenue check shortly after creating it. So, not only is political astroturfing a way to set a narrative around an issue, but it is also a potentially very lucrative practice. This helps us see why it is so dangerous. 

A silver lining is that if a group is outed as being funded by millionaires or billionaires, it can lose credibility with the people it’s trying to sway. People do not like being tricked into doing something or taking a position on something. People are willing to listen to someone if they are upfront and transparent about their connections to an issue but far less forgiving when they are purposefully misled about a person’s ties to a subject.

Follow The Oil..

 Gabriel T

gt814529

 Follow The Oil..

Sometimes the spheres of information and advertisements mix, whether it be an ad made to appear like a story in a newspaper, or even more pointed, releasing false information to misrepresent an issue, as in astroturfing.

One interesting area in this arena is a company run website, or brand journalism, such as the Richmond Standard news site that is funded by Chevron. One slight area of caution is that it was run by the company itself, so things like oil spills or environmental concerns, may not be fully covered. While it presents news, its coming from the company itself could be seen as a conflict of interest when unfavorable stories take place.

I was quite surprised to come across a similar type of site, when looking up the Dakota Access Pipeline, a highly contested piece of infrastructure that would carry oil across several states, and whose construction was met with much protest by environmentalists and indigenous tribes, ever since it was first announced in 2015.

When I searched DAPL (for short), the top search result was a site called Dakota Access Pipeline Facts. And one of the first lines read that “The pipeline is the safest and most efficient means to transport crude oil from the geographically constrained region”, which I was momentarily surprised again to read, as that seemed to be quite the flip side from everything I recall hearing about the pipeline when it was first built. I remember many months of protests, and widespread support for the prevention of the pipeline, citing that it would be built near important Native American land, and could endanger water nearby sources. So to read that it was very safe, runs counter to what I had heard.

I went to check the publisher of the website for clues, and it looks like it was from Energy Transfer, the company behind the pipeline. Upon further looking, many of the pages of the site mentioned the benefits the pipeline would bring, and (written in bold lettering) that it did not cross any Native American lands. Once again, these claims seems to be opposed to the ones of the protestors and objectors of the pipeline. It definitely seems as though the site was mentioning only the benefits the line had, and not too much of the controversy surrounding it.

There was one graph though, that did stand out. It mentioned how the DAPL line was constructed along the same path as an already existing pipeline. This makes it seem that it is not drilling into a completely new area, just extending a similar pipe line trail. Could this be taken as truthful information?

With the website’s info at hand, and the protests surrounding the pipeline, I decided to see if there were any other sites out there reporting on the line that might show an objective look at the situation.

One article I found mentioned how since the line has been built, there have only been a couple very minor leaks (at least, up until that year). With the most extensive spill coming from a different section of the line that ran past Tennessee, operated by an Energy Transfer subsidiary.

Oil Spills Graph: The Intercept, 2018

Though another article mentioned that some farmers in the area, whose land the pipe cuts across, feel that not all of the soil has returned to its previous growing state, and that the company hasn’t yet fully rebuilt or remediated the soil of which they said was part of the construction process. All while a note from Energy Transfer said that “the company is mostly done remediating Iowa land impacted by the project and working with a few farmers to fix things. The spokesperson said the company also paid farmers in advance for three to five years worth of crop loss.”

One more article I saw mentioned how the DAPL case had been taken to courts, especially over how the Energy Transfer company had yet to full disclose to the Native American cities nearby the full extensive plans and backups they had in case of leaks, which the Native Tribes said could endanger Lake Oahe, and a vital drinking water source for many. A judge even ruled in favor of pausing the pipeline and conducting another more extensive environmental review.

While the pipeline hasn’t stopped since, the review is still on and to be completed by September of 2022, this year. 

While the DAPL site above does present information about the pipeline, it does not entirely encompass the whole picture or the multiple perspectives surrounding the construction. Labeling the site as “Facts” makes it sound pretty definitive. And if this info was the first you had read about the Dakota Pipeline, as it came up first in the search results, it could be misleading. Particularly when considering the possible motives of Energy Transfer to want to put information out there about the project. It could be looking to brush aside some of the other ongoing counterpoints.

Payola in the Music Industry

Matilda Jakovac

mj244121@ohio.edu 

"Sympathy and Payola"

In 2018, during an ongoing feud between female rappers, Nicki Minaj and Cardi B, Minaj stated on her radio show that Cardi B's claim to fame was "sympathy and payola." According to NewsWeek, the term payola quickly became a trending topic with more than 23,000 mentions on Twitter. 

So what exactly is payola? According to Dictionary.com, payola is a secret or private payment in return for the promotion of a product, service, etc., through the abuse of one's position, influence, of facilities. 

In other words, Nicki was claiming that Cardi's publicity team was paying to have the artist's music and image promoted. 

Photo courtesy of BBC

Payola throughout the decades

If you're shocked at the idea that an artist could pay their way to the top of the music charts, you'll be disheartened to know that this isn't the first-time this kind of thing has happened. 

As a matter of fact, payola has been in the music industry for quite some time and was made illegal in the U.S in 1960. 

According to MusicThinkTank, "the first evidence of payola can be traced back to W.M Hutchinson, a rising song publisher, could not get famous singers of the time to sing his songs since the singers were so busy with other publishing companies. W.M. decided he would pay them some money to sing his song, plus the royalties." 

Since then, stories of money being exchanged to promote musicians or help maintain their images in the eye of the public, have circulated throughout the music industry for decades. 

The impact on music journalism

From a journalist perspective, payola is an issue for several reasons. The biggest problem is that it poses a threat to the integrity of the field of journalism. 

According to the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics, "journalists should refuse gifts, favors, fees, free travel and special treatment, and avoid political and other outside activities that may compromise integrity or impartiality or may damage credibility." 

The Radio Television News Association Code of Ethics takes a similar stance by stating that "commercial endorsements are incompatible with journalism because they compromise credibility. In journalism, content is gathered, selected, and produced in the best interests of viewers, listeners and reader- not in the interests of somebody who paid to have a product or position promoted and associated with a familiar face, voice or name." 

With that being said, it's clear that there's no room for payola in music journalism or in any other field of journalism for that matter. At a time when anyone can publish a story on the internet and call themselves a journalist, it's more important than ever that true journalists act independently... even if that means turning down a couple extra bucks in exchange for an artist's promotion. 

Bigger Pockets Means Bigger Issues

Cait Williams

cw699619@ohio.edu

Money, relationships and their cost

   For this blog post, I want to talk about checkbook journalism. Checkbook journalism is the practice of news outlets and journalists paying sources for information. Checkbook journalism, though usually not called that, is typically talked about in some aspect within ethics codes. Ethics codes warn about paying any source for information. Payments which may involve money, but also concern any kind of exchange for source material. It's unethical for several reasons. It creates incentives for people to sell stories instead of just coming forward, it may cause a disadvantage for news networks that lack funds to pay sources, and it can lead to questionable credibility of the source and network. However, does that mean that all compensation for people who speak with journalists is unethical? 

   In an article by Robert Boynton for the Columbia Journalism Review, he explores checkbook journalism a little more in depth. In his writing he discusses instances where subjects were compensated by journalists and why those instances may have not been as morally unsound as it may seem. In several of the stories, subjects had agreed to speak without being offered compensation in the start, but had been paid after the writer felt indebted to their subject. In one instance during the article, Boynton references the writer John Krakauer. Krakauer wrote Into Thin Air, a book that chronicles the fatal story of eight climbers who died while trying to summit Mt.Everest. Krakauer insisted that after writing his book the subjects be compensated for their contributions. The people involved in his book had been through horrendous pain and loss, but had been willing to talk about it for the sake of his book. In another story in the article, Boynton writes about Alex Kotlowitz, a former reporter for the Wall Street Journal. Kotlowitz spoke to him about a story he had done where his subject was a poor African-American family. After covering the family for 2 years, Kotlowitz began to feel a connection to them. A situation that had begun as strictly business had become blurred, not because of money, but because of human emotion. I think this is the aspect of checkbook journalism that intrigued me most. In examples like the above 2, it seems that the unethical issue was not that subjects had been compensated, but that a relationship had formed between the writer and their subject. 

National Library of New Zealand

   In an article for Propublica, Steve Mills writes about the difficulties journalists face when it comes to having professional relationships with sources, while also having to discuss deep and personal issues. I enjoyed reading both articles that I mention here because they take an issue that looks relatively black and white and exposes how easy it is to actually fall into. Checkbook journalism may be something that a journalist does not intentionally take part in, but may accidentally be implicated in when they become to close to sources. It is certainly an issue that journalists need to be weary of when they consider giving any kind of compensation to subjects, even when they do not intend for it to be used to improve their story or quality of information they are receiving. I felt inclined to brush this subject off because it felt simple to avoid, but I think doing that would be irresponsible. I would caution anyone going into journalism to think twice about this topic. 

What is even real anymore?

Ann Sims | as770992

Who can you trust?    

We all want to belong and feel like we fit in.  We like to think that we're part of something bigger.  We seek out things to belong to.  We feel our opinions strongly and want to find those who are like-minded. 

But do we really know what we're trying to belong to?  Are all the causes presented on the internet or television real?  Not always.  The lines are becoming blurred due to the efforts of one side or another using paid talent to grow their numbers.  

How the Media Manipulates you with Astroturfing, Denton & Sasquatch

Sadly, we are so easily manipulated online and in televised news.  

What is really scary is that there is the strong possibility that  the advocates that you believe and trust in aren't real.  What you thought was a real cause was actually staged for the benefit of something else.  

This is called astroturfing and it should really grind your gears.  Astroturfing misrepresents what is really going on.  What can look like a genuine grassroots campaign might actually be paid demonstrators, placed for your manipulation.  

Photo Source: Roll Call  Protesters March on Washington

What's an easy way to get people to join your side?  Make it look popular, make it look like something people don't want to miss out on.  If there are a lot of participants, it makes others want to join in.  But what if your cause isn't naturally popular, how do you attract attention?  You can pay people to be part of it!  Problem solved!  

However, solving your numbers problem with paid demonstrators creates a whole other set of difficulties, but on a much larger scale.  This downgrades true activism and prevents actual change from happening.  Causes and activism lose credibility in general.  There is more mistrust in the collective consciousness.  People become less likely to want to be involved and believe in things.  

The beauty of the internet is that everyone and anyone can have a voice.  Who is everyone and anyone, though?  Some of those voices belong to bots.  Some are generated by persona management software, which creates realistic profiles.  If you think these fake profiles are only used by shady companies and internet trolls, think again.  These are everywhere, including the United States government and military. The Air Force is particularly guilty of these tactics.  

The Truth and the tRuTh

Aside from the false grassroots of astroturfing, some companies employ reviewers to build themselves up.  They also pay reviewers to tear down the competition.  

Spam Reviews on Google

Photo Source:  Reputation Defender

This is unethical because it doesn't accurately represent the company, brand, or product.  We are taken in by false claims.  

We are also subjected to corporate advertising disguised as news.  These stories are produced and presented in the same manner as real news and we are loath to tell the difference at times.   

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver:  Native Advertising

Native advertising is another thing that confuses the lines of reality.  Ads and paid content are produced to resemble actual news.  Who is behind the stories??  Who is paying for the stories?  

We need to learn to differentiate between real and fake.  Advertising and actual journalism.  It takes patience and perseverance to make the distinctions.  

What is Astroturfing and How Can we Spot it?

 Regan Morello

Alert.reganmorello@gmail.com

What is Astroturfing? 

Astroturfing, as defined by Merriam-Webster, is "organized activity that is intended to create a false impression of widespread, spontaneously arising, grassroots movement in support of or in opposition to something (such as a political policy) but that is in reality initiated and controlled by a concealed group or organization (such as a corporation)." 

In times before the Internet appeared, examples of astroturfing could be found in your local community paper. It was first used on the letters page where fake people would write letters to the newspaper about what politician they support, what local business they may support, what policies they were against, and much more. Once the Internet came around, the world was handed a vast new playground for all of their astroturfing desires. In modern times, the purpose of astroturfing remains the same, to make it seem like there are more people in support of or against something than there really are. 

We see it every day we are on any social platform or surfing the web. Fake accounts on Twitter pledging their vote to certain politicians; reviews on big corporations like McDonald's seem much more desirable than they really are, etc. However, this sort of scam does not only happens on the Internet. For example, according to Business Insider, McDonald's paid 1,000 of their part-time employees to wait outside a McDonald's restaurant in Japan overnight to make it seem like a lot of people were heavily anticipating the release of their new burger. This is only one of the astroturfing publicity stunts big corporations have pulled, so the question I'd like to ask is, how can we spot the others? 

We are all guilty of spending time browsing through the comments on a viral post on social platforms. I am sometimes guilty of spending more time in the comments of social posts than looking at the actual post. However, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. Throughout the various times I have done this I have seen multiple duplicated comments on various posts that have nothing to do with each other - except for the fact that they have gone "viral." If I were astroturfing, I would want my fake comments to be visible to hundreds of thousands of people, wouldn't you? What better place for a bot to hide out and astroturf than in the comments of a viral post thousands of people are scrolling through every minute? 

Bots Spam Comments on a Facebook Post

In order to identify these fake users/comments, we have to first identify what we are looking for. You should be looking for various wording of the same comment on different posts, similar profiles (spam posting the same content or message), as well as wording (does it sound like a robot wrote this?). If these apply to the comment/post you are looking at, then you are most likely a victim to astroturfing. Next time you decide to scroll through TikTok, Instagram, or Twitter, see if you can identify one of these comments/profiles. If you do happen to, always, and I mean always report it. You could save the next person scrolling from fake information. 

Buying Bot Comments on Tiktok 

 Audrey McQuillan

am646319@ohio.edu

In the age of social media, the access to information has never been so widespread in any point in human history. We can hear about events occurring across the planet in mere minutes. With this access to such information, the average person has a tough time deciphering what is true and false. Social media sites, such as Twitter and Facebook, are filled with fake accounts promoting certain political positions or societal values. Some could describe this phenomenon as “astroturfing”.

According to an article from ACB7 Denver’s Ash-Har Quraishi, astroturfing is defined as “an effort to mobilize the mass public in a way that distances that mobilization from the person who is sponsoring it or the organization that's sponsoring it”. Whether that mobilization is for a goal of political policy change or promoting a social value, astroturfing is not limited to social media. Mass protests around the country have increased significantly in the last decade, whether about police brutality, Covid restrictions, or from certain political nominations. Quraishi describes how many of these protests are not as spontaneous as they seem. 

“When things appear to be spontaneous and exciting, and especially, they're happening all over the country, that tends to gain a lot of media attention,” Quraishi states. “But many of these protests that appeared to be generated spontaneously were in fact manufactured by well-funded organizations. The practice is known as ‘astroturfing.’” While the philosophy of astroturfing has been deployed by governments and organizations for decades, it has increasingly become more widespread in the social media age. People can coordinate events much more efficiently and quickly, calling on other individuals to take part in such demonstrations both online and in the real world.

A real-world example can be found in 2018, when then-President Donald Trump nominated Brett Kavanaugh to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy’s position on the Court. Protests at the steps of the Supreme Court broke out almost immediately, fearing that Kavanaugh’s appointment may lead to the Court reversing decisions on rulings, such as Roe v. Wade. For a supposedly spontaneous protests, there were photographs of different signs saying, “STOP BARRETT, STOP KETHLEDGE, STOP HARDIMAN, STOP KAVANAUGH”. These were the names of the short list of candidates Trump was considering for the nomination. So, it seemed that they were ready to protest any nominee that was chosen, not just Brett Kavanaugh, and it was a planned event, not spontaneous. 

Capitol Research Center, an organization that studies non-profits to encourage philanthropy, charity, and volunteerism, went to the protest and identified many of the speakers as activists affiliated with left-leaning non-profits. This is an example of astroturfing. You can identify astroturfing when you see people, whether in person or online, calling on emotions and virtues to call people to support or oppose certain political or social policies. So, if you see this type on content in the real world or on social media, make sure to stop and think twice on if it is trying to call you to action, whether in good faith or in the service of a government or corporation.

Capital Research Center 

The Responsibility of Public Relations

Julia Batoki

jb478621@ohio.edu

What is Public Relations?

Public relations is an organization set up by a company whose purpose is to create a positive image of said company. They place a high emphasis on building strong relationships with the public and the organization that they work for. In order to accomplish this, PR uses communication methods and means to manage and organize information regarding their company. This can include speeches, press releases, dealing with other companies, and focusing on the public’s opinion. 

According to FeeDough, public relations adds trust to the company from the public. Having PR increases credibility due to its position in being a third party. Because of this, the public views PR as more trustworthy than the advertising company. 

Responsibilities of PR

Public relation departments wear a lot of hats for the people that they work for. They primarily are in charge of addressing the public in a beneficial way for both parties. They compile information and present in a professional manner. This can include social media, interviews, and more. Additionally, public relations can handle press releases, new product releases, and predict the public's reactions towards new ads, products, and actions made by the company.

Photo Source: Alpha Public Relations

Public Relations and Ethics:

In order for public relations to have an ethical platform to stand on, and for them to continue to gather trust from the public’s eye, they must follow a set of ethics. A major point is accountability. PR professionals must hold respective parties responsible for their actions. Explained, this means that cover-ups and deceit are heavily discouraged and looked down upon. 

Additionally, public relations must have specific roles. Each role has various responsibilities. Employees must be aware of the actions of their coworkers, CEO’s must understand the companies that they represent, and transparency and honesty are important. This relates to accountability and credibility. Following ethics and having high standards for the information that they are releasing is essential in public relations. 

Roles of PR

According to The Daily MBA, there are many roles of public relation professionals. First, they are in charge of building the reputation for the company that they work for. They are the face that is presented to the public. Also, PR is responsible for crafting and shaping messages for their audiences.

Public relation departments are held to high standards because of this. Sharing information to various audiences is important. As a society, we need to have a level of trust in the information we are receiving as well as the company presenting it. The roles that public relation professionals play follow a code of ethics, which reinforces our trust in it. Solely believing the word of a company whose main goal is for themselves, is exceedingly difficult. Having PR firms, who are obligated to live up to specific ethics and honesty aids in building that trust. 

Astroturfing: The True Problem of Its Use

 Aaron Liles 

al508219@ohio.edu

Source: Fameable

What really is astroturfing?

Astroturfing can be most easily explained by looking at the textbook definition for it; "organized activity that is intended to create a false impression of a widespread, spontaneously arising, grassroots movement in support or opposition to something (such as a political party) but that is in reality initiated and controlled by a concealed group or organization  (such as a corporation)." This is what makes astroturfing so popular to companies, it simulates a real uprising of people either supporting or opposing an issue at hand. 

The term astroturfing was coined by U.S. Senator Lloyd Bentsen as a result of him receiving mountains of letters promoting industry interests, and these letters were deemed not to be from genuine humans. That is just the beginnings of astroturfing however, as it has ballooned in uses by companies attempting to promote their own self-interests or even their own products. An example of this could be a company hiring people to write fake reviews to make it seem like their product is more popular than it really is. It is estimated that up to around one-third of all reviews online are not true reviews by people who actually have used what they were reviewing. 

The problem with astroturfing

For companies/organizations it can be very tempting to use astroturfing methods in order to promote something, but this would not be a wise choice for many reasons. For one, is is stated in the code of ethics by the Public Relations Society of America that astroturfing is prohibited. Not only that, many countries themselves have laws prohibiting astroturfing including but not limited to, the United States. If the general public were to find out that a company was using astroturfing, that company could find themselves in a PR nightmare. 

With all of this information at hand, why would a company want to do this with all of the ethical issues associated with it? The ease of doing it is why companies do it, it is very easy to pay people to write fake reviews, and it can get results quickly. Many popular companies have took part in using astroturfing including McDonald's, Comcast, and Walmart just to name a few. This just goes to show that astroturfing is all around us, and it can be hard to avoid. Hopefully these companies will start to realize that using these deceptive methods of promotion are not truly effective, and more often than not cause harm that will be hard to get rid of. 

The Deceitful Act of Astroturfing

Lucas Rogers

lr826917@ohio.edu

What is Astroturfing?

Dictionary.com defines astroturfing as "the deceptive tactic of simulating grassroots support for a product, cause, etc., undertaken by people or organizations with an interest in shaping public opinion." A play on the term "grassroots movement" due to the hypothetical grass being fake. 

What Is The Point?

The point of astroturfing is to present a product, service or movement as being highly sought after by a certain customer base as a way to build up excitement for it, all while misleading the people being targeted. This practice is used by businesses, political groups, advertisers etc. and we see it on all different platforms. It is a practice that happens all around by so-called "trusted sources" and usually has no repercussions for being caught in the act. 

Source: News Literacy Project

Where We See It

Although it began in newspapers, (usually to stir up some relevant political drama) astroturfing is now found mostly online through simple blog posts and comment sections. According to this article, up to one-third of all online reviews are found to be false by some form of astroturfing. Many Western countries now regulate highly deceptive forms of astroturfing in an attempt to control the spread of it. Despite these regulations, we still see many get away with it. Many businesses have experienced significant damage or loss in profit as a result of astroturfing. 

How To Spot Astroturfing

Because there are many different forms of astroturfing, there are many different ways to spot it. This article by Sharyl Attkisson shows just a few of them, I suggest taking a look into the article so that you can avoid becoming a victim of astroturfing yourself. 

• One of the most common indications tends to be how dramatized the description of the product, service or movement is. Typically using flashy words, figurative language and hyperbole to convince the viewers just how great this thing really is.  
  
• Another indicator of astroturfing is most have many defense mechanisms when they are on the verge of being found out as fake. They tend to describe other things as "fake news" or "agenda driven" as a way of protecting their image. Most are very protective of their beliefs and will do everything in their power to convince you they are telling the truth. 
• It never hurts to look into what you are reading or watching. Look up more information on the company or political campaign that is trying to convince you of something. Do they have a credible history? Are they reliable? Who has backed them in the past? All questions that should be considered. If the claim is from a forum or comment section, I suggest taking a deeper dive into the topic and educating yourself on what the claim is. 

Take these ideals into consideration and good luck on detecting any astroturfing you may come across in the future!

Hit me with your best shot: Public relations and the campaign for Covid-19 vaccines

 ew758821@ohio.edu

Elisabeth Warner

    In an irony lost on no one, public relations as a professional practice has terrible PR. Often associated with campaigns that spin slivers of truth into narratives of fool's gold, PR has come to mean corporate or political manipulation with an eye toward lining someone's pocket or maintaining power of a particular realm.

    PR cliches abound: the vapid PR flack, inauthentic and fantastical portrayals of harmful products, people, or institutions, and athletic maneuvering to protect those with privilege against the consequences of their own actions. Fairly or not, PR is not typically spoken of in the same breath with ethical and principled occupations.

Image: The Atlantic

The more you know

    But for all the ire PR as a profession receives, the long history of public service campaigns, a marketing endeavor that combines advertising and PR, is almost universally regarded as a positive contribution to society. 

    Iconic promotions include recruitment drives for working women during World War II, Smokey the Bear's forest fire prevention campaign, awareness for organizations like the Red Cross, Peace Corps, and the United Negro College Fund (though the famous "Crying Indian" ad, in addition to being racist, intended to promote environmental awareness, and instead turned out to be full of ethical issues).

Image: Ad Council

    But even when promoting behaviors that are intended to protect the public, many of the ethical concerns that exist in conventional PR or advertising* are present in public service campaigns, as well. In any campaign, time is on no one's side, whether the work is in support of a household product or a significant public safety measure. The temptation to get sloppy with the quality of work that results from the pressures around urgency– real or imagined– is evergreen. But the very real stakes of a public service campaign has the potential to amplify that temptation.

    Public service campaigns are no less vulnerable to the use of emotional manipulation, excessive fear, or an over-reliance on harmful stereotypes to advance their messaging than their commercial counterparts, either. They may even be more susceptible because the perceived greater good could justify some blurring of ethical guidelines so strictly employed in commercial PR work. 

    And because so much of any campaign depends of the deployment of agents of influence, the campaign architects may prioritize the potential impact of the influencer over their lack of experience or history of problematic actions or statements, either of which could create injury to the public.

Image: Tenor

No shortage of ethical challenges

    The US public service campaigns designed to encourage and advance vaccinations against Covid-19 have provided an opportunity to witness many of these ethical challenges in real time. The PR campaigns, notably those created by the Ad Council, the dominant organization producing and disseminating public service campaigns (and the same organization who produced those previously mentioned iconic PSAs), and the US government, have a famously difficult objective– to combat the unique vaccine hesitancies represented in disparate populations. 

    Any public service announcement faces an ethical obligation to reach as many potentially impacted people as possible. In the case of Covid, that meant the entire country, necessitating complex, resource-heavy strategies. This forces the campaign to weigh the benefits of delaying the launch until each of the campaign's components can be simultaneously coordinated, which meant a longer absence of life-saving messaging, against those of dropping each component as it's completed to reach some targets more quickly, which could advantage those groups unfairly and even put the general population at greater risk.

Image: Strategic Agility Institute

Content Counts

    The content of the Covid vaccine campaign also has ethical implications. In addition to the challenges of knowing when and how to launch, Americans are consuming Covid and vaccine content from a surfeit of sources, making it necessary to curate specific messaging campaigns for a wide variety of population groups. To maximize the efficacy of the messaging impact, some campaign developers may be tempted to loosen ethical prescriptions against using gender, racial, or religious stereotypes for more visceral and immediate reactions. 

    In some cases, developers may choose vaccine messaging that is entwined with behaviors that are harmful in some other arena of public health to connect with hard-to-reach populations. Messaging that reinforces objectification of women, for instance,  celebrates gun use in young men, or shows one population to be superior to another my lead to higher vaccination rates for that targeted group, but would signal that behaviors known to lead to negative social outcomes are culturally acceptable.

 Image: Twitter

The Influencers

    The use of influencers in public service campaigns is a powerful tool that expands messaging reach, and the success of any campaign often rests on pairing the right influencer with the right target population. Again, as in commercial campaigns, the value of the cultural figure who will resonate with the intended audience is critical, but that may mean the social currency of that figure is more relevant than their lack of expertise, minimizing the value of true experts. 

    Does anyone believe the members of BTS to be more knowledgeable about vaccines than the average epidemiologists? Probably not, but reinforcing the value of celebrity over expertise has consequences to our society. Sometimes an influencer may be highly valued by one group but disdained by another the campaign is trying to reach. PR professionals need to balance competing ethical concerns to determine which course of action will protect the most people, both in the immediate moment and in the future.

Image: Washington Post

Individualist v collectivist themes in Covid public service campaigns    

Finally, the slogans used in the two primary Covid vaccine campaigns present additional ethical considerations.

    In the campaign conceived by the Ad Council, their slogan was, "It's up to you". This had the benefit of testing well, as it aligned with those whose  primary objection to the vaccine was a belief that it was a government intrusion. "It's up to you" gives individuals a sense of agency, which helped many, especially those in conservative groups, feel more positively toward the message.

    At the same time, "It's up to you" underplays their seriousness of Covid by making it appear that vaccines were optional and creating an impression that optional vaccines would somehow lead to a Covid-free future. If Covid were that much of a threat, some might think, the government would mandate vaccines, just as they do seatbelts and drivers liveness. The Ad Council's tagline also lets the government off the hook by communicating that the responsibility to eradicate Covid was the public's, not the government's. This has the added effect of implying the government is too weak to get people to vaccinate through their own possible regulations and incentives.

    Conversely, the slogan used by the US government, "We can do this", sends a message of collectivism and unity. Many would argue that this approach is both necessary and ideal, considering the nature of the issue– a virus that is exponentially replicating in hosts who are not immune. The conventional wisdom is that Covid can't be eradicated if it can live in its hosts at full strength, so anything less than a full-throated endorsement of a collectivist strategy would risk lives.

    But, of course, the United States is as divided as it has been in anyone's living memory, making the earnestness of the government's roll up our sleeves attitude seem embarrassingly out of touch, and easy to dismiss by those who have never felt less connected to their neighbors. 

Image: Imgflp

Different dilemma, same ask

    In each of the ethical dilemmas outlined here, some type of compromise is needed to determine what path will serve the greatest number of people with the lowest cost, and that answer will shift depending on the many variables that require thoughtful consideration.

    The work of PR professionals, despite the industry's poor reputation, is essential not just to their powerful clients but to the messaging that comes from public service campaigns that have the power to shape cultural discourse and public health. This supercharges their responsibility to painstakingly explore the ethical questions that present in every communication, and to weigh the potential cost and benefit for each scenario they pursue with an eye to what is in the best interest of the public.

*PR and advertising are separate occupations but are both under the larger marketing umbrella and naturally have many shared goals and tactics. There is an overlap between the two in public service campaigns, where advertising is one components. Ads are joined with PR efforts to craft the rhetoric supporting a given issue and partner with various media platforms, as well as cultural- and issue- specific influencers, to promote that issue.