THE BUSINESS OF MASS MEDIA

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Traditionally, public relations (PR) professionals try to influence audiences, often by attempting to gain positive coverage in the news media. Social media like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and Tumblr have shortened the path of communication; now PR pros can communicate directly with their audience—as can many of their famous clients. But entertainers, celebrities, and politicians who live by social media may also see their mistakes and foibles go viral. Ashton Kutcher, Alec Baldwin, Amanda Bynes, Justin Bieber, and former congressmen Anthony Wiener and Christopher Lee are among the celebrities who have damaged their images with ill-considered social media posts.

Other celebrities have more carefully developed incredibly strong followings through social media. Taylor Swift has 70 million Facebook likes, 57.3 million Twitter followers, and almost 30 million Instagram fans. Fellow diva Beyoncé has 63 million Facebook likes, 14 million Twitter followers, and more than 32 million Instagram fans.

And then there’s Vin Diesel. Although he doesn’t quite have the same standing in the traditional media as, say, Taylor Swift (he doesn’t appear on nearly as many magazine covers), in social media, he qualifies as a superstar. On Facebook, he is the world’s third-biggest celebrity, with almost 92 million likes, trailing only Shakira and World Cup soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo. Diesel ranks ahead of Eminem, Rihanna, Leo Messi, Will Smith (the only other actor in the Top 10), and Justin Bieber. (Taylor Swift and Beyoncé are twelfth and fourteenth, respectively.) Diesel doesn’t do Twitter, but he has 6.8 million Instagram followers and a popular Web site, vindiesel.com.

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Diesel is not among Hollywood’s elite actors, but his social media popularity provides some clues about the incredible popularity of the Fast and Furious movie franchise. The huge success of the seventh installment’s opening in April 2015 took many industry watchers by surprise. In just seventeen days, the movie earned more than $1 billion worldwide, a record pace in crossing that mark. The New York Times noted that the movie’s content contributed to additional social media: “The sheer spectacle of ‘Furious 7’—Universal Pictures crashed at least 230 vehicles during filming—led to enormous chatter on social media networks after its arrival on April 3, which in turn has kept demand high.”1

To get demand high in the first place, the movie studio, Universal, and many stars of the franchise had built a growing community of fans. It didn’t hurt that the cast itself was a rare one, in that it “reflected the reality of our country’s racial makeup,” as noted by Entertainment Weekly.2 A wide range of audience members can identify with the racial and ethnic backgrounds of the large ensemble cast, which includes Diesel, Paul Walker, Dwayne Johnson, Michelle Rodriguez, Jason Statham, Jordana Brewster, Tyrese Gibson, Ludacris, Tatchakorn Yeerum, Sung Kang, and Romeo Santos.

Many of these stars had also been building a fan base at least since the first film, The Fast and the Furious, in 2001. For example, after Vin Diesel (#3 on the Facebook list) comes a number of other Facebook stars: Jason Statham (#29), Dwayne Johnson (#31), Paul Walker (#36), Wiz Khalifa (#49, who performed the film’s theme song, “See You Again,” which became a #1 hit), Romeo Santos (#61), and Tyrese Gibson (#77). It is likely that no other film has had a cast with as many Top 100 Facebook celebrities. Among entertainment sites on Facebook, the movie Furious 7 itself ranked #7, with more than 56 million likes.

With such a built-in fan base and long-running characters, it should not have been surprising that the seventh film had such promise for the box office. But it wasn’t an easy journey. Tragedy hit the production of the movie with an off-set car accident in November 2013 that killed star Paul Walker. As the Guardian recounted, Walker’s death left Universal in a difficult position in finishing the film and also handling his passing with sensitivity. The studio’s strategy was to use social media to reach out to fans:

The studio kept them apprised every step of the way. Universal issued three messages via social media during a seven-month period immediately after Walker’s death, until Fast & Furious 7 wrapped in July 2014. The correspondence was respectful and illustrated the uncommon dialogue the studio, Vin Diesel, and other cast members have enjoyed with the films’ audience. Fast and Furious had built up a cinematic superpower over 14 years, a borderless social media tribe of millions.3

After its fifth week of release, Furious 7 neared a total of $1.5 billion in international box office receipts, while the total franchise had earned more than $3.39 billion.

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THE VIN DIESEL STORY ILLUSTRATES A MAJOR DIFFERENCE between advertising and public relations: Advertising is controlled publicity that a company or an individual buys; public relations attempts to secure favorable media publicity (which is more difficult to control) to promote a company or client.

Public relations covers a wide array of practices, such as shaping the public image of a politician or celebrity, establishing or repairing communication between consumers and companies, and promoting government agencies and actions, especially during wartime. Broadly defined, public relations refers to the total communication strategy conducted by a person, a government, or an organization attempting to reach and persuade an audience to adopt a point of view.4 While public relations may sound very similar to advertising, which also seeks to persuade audiences, it is a different skill in a variety of ways. Advertising uses simple and fixed messages (e.g., “our appliance is the most efficient and affordable”) that are transmitted directly to the public through the purchase of ads. Public relations involves more complex messages that may evolve over time (e.g., a political campaign or a long-term strategy to dispel unfavorable reports about “fatty processed foods”) and that may be transmitted to the public indirectly, often through the news media.

The social and cultural impact of public relations has been immense. In its infancy, PR helped convince many American businesses of the value of nurturing the public, who became purchasers rather than producers of their own goods after the Industrial Revolution. PR set the tone for the corporate image-building that characterized the economic environment of the twentieth century and for the battles of organizations taking sides on today’s environmental, energy, and labor issues. Perhaps PR’s most significant effect, however, has been on the political process, in which individuals and organizations—on both the Right and the Left—hire spin doctors to shape their media images.

In this chapter, we will:

As you read through this chapter, think about what knowledge you might already have about what public relations practitioners do, given that PR is an immensely powerful media industry and yet remains largely invisible. Can you think of a company or an organization, either national (like BP) or local (like your university or college), that might have engaged the help of a public relations team to handle a crisis? What did the team do to make the public trust the organization more? When you see political campaign coverage, are you sometimes aware of the spin doctors who are responsible for making sure their candidate says or does the “right” thing at the “right” time to foster the most favorable public image that will gain the candidate the most votes? For more questions to help you understand the role of public relations in our lives, see “Questioning the Media” in the Chapter Review.

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