Reading Questions, Chapter 4
PR! By Stuart Ewen

Chap. 4

  1. Who was Walter Lippman, and what were his beliefs on muckraking, social order and the social sciences, according to Ewen?
  2. How did Le Bon's views differ from Tarde's?
  3. What did Tonies view as the role of media?
  4. Why do you think Ewen discusses social theorists like Lippman, Le Bon, Tarde and Tonnies in a book on PR?
  5. Who was Ivy Lee? What relevance does Jame's philosophy seem to have for Ivy Lee's behavior?

Chap. 5

  1. In fact, Ewen argues that Ivy Lee was basically a press agent who was called on to help manage PR crises. However, he also argues that Lee had an important vision of what "a doctor of publicity" (p. 84) should do, what the relationship should be like between PR specialist and client, etc. What was this vision?
  2. According to Ewen, early in the century, AT&T under Theodore Vail "moved toward Lee's fantasy of proper public relations" (p. 89). In this vein: a) What does Ewen mean in stating that "Vail was a quintessential 'corporate liberal'" (p. 89); b) What did Vail mean in saying that "the public must be 'educated' toward a greater understanding of" corporations' rights; c) How did AT&T's policies move beyond just rhetoric--i.e. what other behaviors did the corporation engage in to bolster good public opinion, according to Ewen?
  3. How did AT&T's public relations strategies deal with Americans' "fear of 'bigness'" (p. 93)?
  4. What kind of relationships did AT&T cultivate with the media?
  5. It might e argued that some of AT&T's strategies reveal a darker side of corporate liberal PR. Examples?
  6. What were some of the conditions AT&T faced that made their distinctive style of PR a good strategy?

Chapter 6

  1. What was the CPI and why and how did it come into existence?
  2. What was the relationship between CI and many progressive publicists?
  3. Ewen seems to argue that CPI's approach was new in part because of the view that "every moment of human interaction [was] a suitable venue for publicity (p.119). What media did CPI utilize in pursuing this belief?
  4. Many progressive journalists--including George Creel as head of CPI--had at least paid lip service to the idea that public opinion was based in reason. Did the practices of CPI support such a claim?
  5. Was the public relations effort in the U.S. during WWI free of censorship?

 

 

 

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