ABSTRACT
One response to PR today is to regard it as selling with a modern name: 1 an activity which is certainly pervasive - but in the sense that that very quality makes citizens and consumers aware of it and so neutralises any harmful effects. Thus they can be forearmed before the salesman, the politician, the vested interest. Caveat emptor (buyer beware) - the argument would go - always has been and always will be alone sufficient defence against those with something to sell. In a market economy allied to a competitive, representative political system, reported on by media, most of which is commercially owned, we expect salespeople, politicians and journalists to be 'tricky'- selective with data, biased in argument and coaxing in manner. Jensen (1997) has called people who present only half a case 'hemispheric communicators': 'they are an important informational engine for society and let people know of those things that would otherwise not be known' (p. 68). We expect them to be persuasive.2 If salespeople did not sell, if politicians did not canvass voters and the media did not seek the largest audiences, UK society could not function, the argument would assert.
