Public Affairs, Book Review Example

Introduction

This paper examines the concept of the challenges for Agenda setting in Public Affairs.  Jamieson outlined the importance of unraveling factual information from a whole world of disinformation.  Hence the importance of framing agendas in order to determine facts in order to both facilitate decision making and problem solving. (Brooks Jackson, 2007)

Summary

The book provides an in depth look on how information is manipulated by what we now refer to as “Spin Doctors”.  We become the recipients of information  that includes half-truths, mixed messages, misrepresentation of facts and distorted statements.  The news media is now so distracted that it fails to recognise these deceptions taking place.  The book provides techniques for identifying this and the importance of structured agenda setting to disseminate factual information.

Authority/Objectivity

Brooks Jackson is an investigative reporter and Kathleen Hall Jamieson is a Professor at the University of Pennsylvania.  Both authors speak from a position of authority on the subject matter.  The two authors also embraced the Pullitzer prize cartoonist from the Philadelphia Daily News in helping to gain input on how the concept of ‘spin’ impacts politics and the daily news projected into our lives.   People have described the new book as ‘ the secret decoder ring for 21^st century information’ (Nisbet, M.C. 2007).

Audience

The book has been designed to be an informative read for the general public but equally those students of political science and business administration or other academics that wish to derive more insight into the concept of ‘spin doctoring’ and how information can be manipulated in order to deal with specific agendas. This can be arranged in a number of different formats that include misrepresentation, misleading information, distorted facts or presented in a way that will lead you to a preordained conclusion.  These approaches are explored and discussed within the framework of the book.

Scope and Content

The concept of ‘spin’ and misinformation spans virtually every aspect of our private lives. This comes from advertisements on the TV to that of political news media and others that wish to convince us on specific selling points and move us towards a specific course of action.  The book takes us through the various different applications of ‘spin’ and ultimately provides a strategy to fight back against all of the misleading information that we are confronted with.

The authors do an excellent job in terms of constructing this book in an easy to read format over certain complex subject areas.  They use excellent case study examples including that of the Listerine campaign where the product claimed to kill the germs that cause halitosis or bad breath. This was released in 1923 when in fact no product was scientifically proven to cure bad breath and kill all of the germs associated with it. This was said to be misleading but bringing this up to date they have changed the view to that of removing dental plaque which is one of the contributors towards bad breath.

An interesting concept of the book relates to the cognitive abilities of the brain and how at times these functions can contribute to your deception and assimilation of misleading facts. The concept has been used widely by politicians and advertisers in order to create psychological advantages that play to specific agendas of their own.  Psychologists state that we are made for these types of deceptions as we are resistant to concepts that we already believe. An example being the widespread concern of Aliens and UFO’s in the USA and how this has been manipulated by religious groups to try and substantiate prophecies from the Bible and the belief of government conspiracies. Much of this is focused back on human beings who are more prone to think subjectively on information presented to them. This means the receptors are much more willing to accept the other persons point of view.

Visual media has been used with great effect in this manner. The internet has also been a double edged sword; on the one hand it is a wonderful repository of information but equally it can be very misleading. An example of this being medical predictions.  You should always follow the advice and listen to your Doctor as opposed to trying to make informed decisions from internet data.   This lack of factual information and sometimes misrepresentative information has led to people making wrong decisions including that of suicide.

Style

The book overall portrays very good style. Perhaps one criticism is the extensive amount of case study examples presented. Whilst this enables you to understand the different angles on the types of ‘spins’ taking place, nevertheless this becomes overwhelming on occasions and somewhat difficult to absorb.

Conclusion

A good book well worth the investment and time to read. It provides an added dimension into the fast pace of modern life.

References

Brooks Jackson, K. H. (2007). unSpun: Finding Facts in a World of Disinformation. London: Random House .

Nisbet, M. (2007, 4 2). Unspun: Finding facts in a world of disinformation. Retrieved from Big Think: http://bigthink.com/age-of-engagement/unspun-finding-facts-in-a-world-of-disinformation