Book review : Rethinking public relations : pr propaganda and democracy

This outstanding book should be compulsory reading for anybody concerned with the research, teaching, study, or practice of public relations. It is also an essential reference for anyone who critiques public relations and wants to be taken seriously. The book is a milestone event in public relations scholarship. It places Moloney on the same level of authority with other leading public relations theorists.

Western propaganda models reconsidered : the "Catherine Whell" of censorship circumvention in developing world internal conflicts

This study is a deep-text analysis of military censorship applied to the national press in the Sri Lankan conflict. We examine press coverage of two Sri Lankan military operations, namely Operation Jayasikurui (1997) and the Capture of Elephant Pass (2000), to identify patterns of signification that help us construct a novel theory of conflict reporting under censorship within the context of ethnic, intrastate conflict. Our study shows that Sri Lankan newspapers, while abiding by censorship regulations, contradictorily also manoeuvred around these regulations as if censorship did not exist. Noteworthy were the censorship circumvention techniques that were used. For example, journalists taught readers how to ‘read’ blank space. They used commentary to educate readers how to read the straight news. They used conflict frames to overcome bias towards official viewpoints. They used multi-source confirmation to avoid pre-dominance of official views. They used respectful words rather than demonised opponents. Great attention
was paid to victims of the conflict, destruction of life and property, and civil society. Our findings do not accord well with previous theoretical models of the media role in society and of press censorship under conflict. The Sri Lankan press is highly intertwined within its cultural context and follows its own value system. We propose the ‘Catherine Wheel Model of Censorship Circumvention’ about press behaviour in times of internal conflict. Our model attempts to explain internal conflict within the developing world context in which the press system is based deeply in culture and is more accustomed to circumventing censorship than obeying it.

‘Neojihadism’ and YouTube : Patani militant propaganda dissemination and radicalization

This article examines the use of YouTube by the new generation of Patani 2. Muslim militants in their dissemination of propaganda and radical identity formation. These fighters have now brought their neojihadist war to the ‘Virtual’. Videos of Patani shuhada and Buddhist beheadings are regularly posted on YouTube, with the aim of legitimizing their ‘defensive jihad’. While most of the efforts in countering virtual terrorist radicalization have focused on jihadist websites, forums and blogs, very little attention has been paid to the relationship between the ‘YouTube effect’ and neojihadist violence. This article offers an analysis of the use of YouTube by the Patani Muslim insurgency in order to extract the ideological themes which enable us to understand the process of glocal neojihadist radicalization in southern Thailand.

The janus face of new media propaganda: The case of Patani neojihadist YouTube warfare and its Islamophobic effect on cyber-actors

Surfing on the Internet 2.0 revolution, Patani 2.0 has allowed Patani neojihadist militants to access new competitive spaces and create their own imagined online community by penetrating new realms of the Internet. This article discusses the use of new media militant propaganda by Patani militants and how it is Janus faced. It further examines how the Patani 2.0 social interaction enabled by social media such as YouTube leads to group cohesion among certain actors and the formation of a collective identity that is clustered around the notions of Muslim victimization and defensive jihad; and how, at the same time, it reinforces antithetical identities and fosters group identity competition, where one religious group is often pitted against another. As a result, the Janus effect of Patani neojihadist YouTube online propaganda, while it primarily seeks to radicalize, also generates a reactionary, often virulent, anti-Muslim response from the movement's critics.

The propaganda strategies adopted by the Colonial British during the Malayan Emergency, 1948-1960 as applied in newspaper coverage: A case study

The ongoing discussions on the fluid boundaries between ‘propaganda’ and ‘persuasion’ have emerged in numerous studies, the most prominent being Jowett and O’Donnell (2006). Sharing their views, Herman and Chomsky (1988) argued on the repercussions of only using elite sources in media reports due to their capacity to mobilise the masses for a single cause and shape elite opinions, due to the absence of alternative or opposing viewpoints. This case study examined the nature of propaganda strategies adopted by the colonial British during the Malayan Emergency that proved to be highly effective. This study consisted of two separate elements. First, it extends the discussion on propaganda by examining the significance of ‘race’ used as a crucial element within the discourses of anti-communism, as a legitimate rationale to mobilise forces, primarily within a Malayan context. Second, it investigated how propaganda strategies such as the forced resettlement of the ethnic Chinese, strategies used in framing the insurgents, and psychological warfare operated as powerful mechanisms to shape propaganda communication. A comparative content analysis of two mainstream English newspapers – namely The Times (London) and Straits Times (Singapore) – was conducted to identify trends in reporting used. Juxtaposing this method was the administration of in-depth interviews with ex-service personnel who had actively served in Malaya during the Malayan Emergency. The findings of this research reveal a significant correlation between ‘race’ and the constructs of communism. The results also indicate that psychological strategies adopted by the British in the form of deeds and news production proved to be highly effective.