Transforming international communications strategies

The strategy used by governments to communicate with foreign populations has changed dramatically in the twentieth century. The need perceived by governments to use such a strategy in the first place derived from numerous social changes in the 150 years before World War I, most particularly the increased role played in politics by the masses organized in nation‐states. The shifting strategy of persuasive communication since then forms part of a broader transformation of international political communication which includes technological change, organizational developments, and absolute but not necessarily relative growth in international communications transactions.

The predominant strategy developed in World War I was propaganda. It used fairly straightforward appeals to rationality, sense of morality, and such important but readily accessible emotions as hatred. Its excesses, especially the wide dissemination of atrocity stories which did not bear up well under later dispassionate examination, at once made all propaganda suspect and alerted governments to the necessity of refining their communicative techniques for the eventuality of future international conflicts.

The years before and during World War II saw international communicators—especially Goebbels in Nazi Germany and the Anglo‐American psychological warriors—develop a new strategy which utilized new knowledge about the psychological roots of human behavior. In addition to straightforward appeals to the consciousness of individuals, they sought to manipulate their audiences by playing on their deep‐seated desires and fears. Of particular importance for Nazi Germany were the allegedly racial ties of the individual to a people and the need for figures of authority.

First major experiments were made in World War II to develop an even more basic strategy of international communication: structuring the situation in which people learn their predispositions, perspectives, and behaviors. Its basic idea is to create situations in which the communicator does not have to tell the targeted audience anything at all, but in which the audience, left to its own devices, can only come to the conclusions desired by the communicator. Thus strategic bombing sought to destroy the morale of the enemy's home front and, through that action, to weaken its war‐making capacity. The postwar occupation of Germany originally sought to create a new environment in which Germans could be reeducated to democracy. Subsequent emphasis has also been on communications aimed at generating certain predispositions, such as a desire for consumer goods or a particular political style, which then spawn appropriate perspectives and behaviors.

This new strategy of structural communication has its limits. The most important of these is the difficulty of controlling all aspects of a foreign population's communications environment (which includes traditions, face‐to‐face networks, and conflicting sources of information). The potential importance of the strategy nonetheless makes it likely that governments will continue to work toward its development and implementation for their own international political purposes.     

《广告法》如何对植入式广告进行规范

植入式广告受到国内传媒界的热捧,但过多过滥的现状令人堪忧。广告监管部门因担忧无法可依而尚未对植入式广告实施任何监管措施,然其理由值得商榷。植入式广告本质上难脱商业广告性,是我国《广告法》第二条第二款＂广告＂的组成部分,应当适用《广告法》。不仅如此,对植入式广告进行规范也是我国《广告法》立法之应有之意,也即,运用《广告法》对植入式广告进行规范有其价值衡量角度的依据。但是,《广告法》也应同时注意植入式广告所异于传统广告的特殊之处,做进一步的修订或完善。     

The Demand for Cinema in Sweden: An Application of Proportional Odds Model

ABSTRACT

This article examines the determinants of demand for cinema using a randomly drawn sample of the movie-going population in Sweden. A proportional odds model is applied to capture the natural ordering of dependent variables and any inherent nonlinearities. The findings show that individual demand for cinema depends on gender, age, educational attainment, income, marital status, critical reviews, word of mouth, and willingness to pay. The fact that cinema demand is correlated with economic and socio-demographic variables has important implications for theoretical and empirical research in cultural economics and human decision-making processes.     

A critical discourse analysis of 2008 advertising campaigns against software piracy in South Africa

Abstract

This article examines the discursive landscape of anti-piracy campaigns run by the Business Software Alliance (BSA) on behalf of major global software companies. Using semiotic techniques, rhetorical analysis and critical discourse analysis, the article demonstrates the primacy of new capitalism in reinforcing the public understanding of global knowledge economy. But the BSA's strategies and tactics are also found to offer mixed discursive messages, possibly attenuating a major objective of any communication campaign: social behaviour change.     

The Transformation of Going Public: President Clinton,the First Lady,and Health Care Reform

This article examines the going public thesis in the context of U.S. President Clintons health care reform campaign in 1993 and 1994. This case study highlights the changing nature of presidential public relations. The novel use of the first lady as a public spokesperson for a presidential initiative also raises new questions about presidential public relations and its impact on congressional behavior. Data for the study include appearances and speeches by the president and first lady concerning health care reform over an 11-month period. Results suggest that certain presidential public activities assist presidents in gaining public support for their policies. However, most presidential public efforts may be thwarted by issue advertising from opponents in a more combative public environment. A going public strategy may not provide a forum to explain sophisticated policies and to build alliances in support of these policies over a substantial period of time.     

From calculation to alienation: disentangling economic abstractions

This article uses a debate between Michel Callon and Daniel Miller to explore tensions within economic sociology and anthropology.The tension is between characterizations of markets and economic rationality that seem to dissolve them into a generalized notion of culture and those which seem to abstract them as specific social forms. The paper argues that markets are best defined in terms of a form of transaction rather than a specific mode of calculation: market transactions involve the alienation of goods in the form of property. Such transactions require the kinds of socio-technical apparatuses that Callon describes, in order to establish both alienability and its limits; on the other hand, and drawing on Callon's own concepts of framing and overflowing, such transactions allow for more diverse, ambiguous and contradictory forms of calculation than Callon seems to allow. The latter point is developed particularly in relation to cultural calculation, typified by marketing and advertising.     

浅谈完善广告发布者和明星代言责任追究机制

虚假广告屡禁不止，而且有愈演愈烈之势，在被查处的虚假广告案件中，广告发布者承担责任的情形却很少见，这在一定程度上减轻了他们对于广告事前审查的注意义务；另外在明星代言的虚假广告中，明星们很少去承担法律责任。这些权利和义务不一致的状况是不符合法律要求的。     

论广告法的完善与执法机制的建立

广告定义已不能完全概括现有广告的情形,而且关于广告最高级、最佳级含义不清,按广告费用确定罚款额,使许多企业自印违法广告单从法律上得不到处罚。应当科学界定广告定义,制定由执法人员根据违法情节确立处罚额的自由裁量罚则,建立全国统一的对违法广告的监测机构,实行统一监测,分级查处,社会监督的机制。     

浅析中国电视广告中的人文关怀

传统的营销传播是以物为中心，而如今整合营销传播是以人为中心，人文因素已经成为电视广告中的重要组成部分，对实现良好传播效果有重要意义。实现人文关怀的途径有坚持服务至上的创作理念，强化人性诉求，注重品牌塑造，彰显公益理念等。