"Image Makers: Advertising, Public Relations and the Ethos of Advocacy" by Jackall & Hirota

by: Angenene Kendrick

I chose “Image Makers: Advertising, Public Relations, and the Ethos of Advocacy” by Robert Jackall and Janice M. Hirota.

This book traces the roots of American advocacy in the form of advertising and public relations back to World War I. The government’s role in the creation of the Committee on Public Information was the beginning of selling America’s international relations to its public. Public opinion was effectively altered through the work of the CPI, and subsequent messages from the U.S. government came from the strategic messaging and imaging models that were developed in the early part of the 20^th century. I think this is amazing, because the most popular media avenues which we now use weren’t even invented yet.

Today nearly 80 percent of production of “news” now comes from advocacy sources. Branding, centralized messages, and moral interpretation was propagated in the profession and vocation of advertising and public relations. In today’s integrated model, we see that sometimes the lines have blurred between the two divisions, but historically, they have worked in tandem also.

“Image Makers” also traces the connections between public policy, the market economy and strategic communications professionals. It follows the social and cultural changes in American thinking and how it was impacted and is still impacted by advocacy professionals.

Jackall is a sociologist and Hirota is an anthropologist. I think their views are very interesting in interpreting the historic advocacy and strategic communications fields. They define the modern expert as “the image maker skilled in the creation and propagation of symbols to persuade mass audiences to some action or belief."