ABSTRACT
Public Relations (PR) is an expanding and increasingly signifi cant feature of the contemporary media-scape. Despite academic and popular interest in propaganda, especially in times of armed confl ict, understanding of routine domestic propaganda-PR or spin-is rather limited. The conventional view is that modern PR was invented in the United States in the early twentieth century, and later exported around the globe. A closer historical analysis suggests that spin was adopted as a strategic response by capital (and the state) to the threat of the extended franchise and organised labour (Miller & Dinan, 2008). The subsequent growth of the public relations industry is closely linked to corporate globalization (Miller & Dinan, 2003) and to forms of neoliberal governance, including deregulation and privatization (Miller & Dinan, 2000).
