On the pages of VO, issues of PR or "public relations" have been discussed more than once. Someone even wrote in the comments - "More good and different PR!" and one simply cannot but agree with this. But … you need to know everything about him then in order to make him so, and not primitive and stupid. But … to read textbooks when you only need a little bit … There is hardly anyone who will argue that it is more interesting to read novels than textbooks. Moreover, there are those among them that are able to teach PR and advertising no worse than any textbook! For example, Emil Zola's novel "Ladies' Happiness" may well be considered the best textbook on PR and advertising. But there is also the novel by the English writer Rudyard Kipling "Kim" and the American Sinclair Lewis "It's impossible with us", the dystopia of George Orwell "1984", the novel by Robert P. Warren "All the King's Men", and the novel by Arthur Haley "The Money Changers" and even such a little-known work of H. G. Wells in our country as "Tono-benge".
The last novel (and I want to start with it) does not belong to the masterpieces of the English writer, this is not "War of the Worlds" and you can and should not read it from the beginning, but only the part in which the invention of "Tohno-Benge is told. ", An obvious parody of the well-known" Coca-Cola ". But … here HG Wells turned out to be a fine fellow - he painted everything exactly as it should, so include this excerpt from his novel in an advertising textbook at least! But advertising and PR are different things !!!
But isn’t it funny to read in Zola’s novel about how the merchant Boutmont decided to consecrate his new store “Four seasons” and invited the priest of the Church of St. think about how to invite the archbishop himself [1].
"Kim" by R. Kipling is a "tale of spies", but which, nevertheless, has the most direct relation to "public relations". After all, a real PR man is a person who is connected with other people by a very complex complex of various informational relations ?! And this is exactly how Kim was associated with the Indians [2]. He is both white and Indian at the same time, so he knows why the locals do certain things (not only, for example, how they dress, but even how they spit!), And why they do everything that way, and therefore knows how to adapt to them and, accordingly, influence them!
American writer Sinclair Lewis in his novel "It's impossible with us" [3] skillfully described American political PR and, in fact, his entire book is a ready-made script of PR events, very creative and thoughtful, like similar actions in the novel R. NS. Warren's "All the King's Men" [4].
In the elections, an agitator there made speeches to nine miners in a copper mine; to the policemen, chess players who gathered in a narrow circle; to roofers who worked on the roofs of houses; he performed in breweries, prisons, hospitals, insane asylums, small chapels, nightclubs”[3]. It's funny to read how in the novel they come up with an identity for minutemans: sometimes stars, sometimes wheels, but this is a good example of how important it is to choose good logo for your organization!
In A. Averchenko's story "The Golden Age" [5], a PR campaign to promote a mediocre person to fame is described in all its details. Take it, do the same and success in 80% to you and he is guaranteed - if only he had the money to pay for all this. That is, this is not even a story, but a fictionalized plan for the PR promotion of a certain Kandybin to famous writers. It's funny to read it, but … a fairy tale is a lie, but it is also a hint at the same time!
Do you like detectives? And here at your service there is a work that makes you think about "public relations" (that is, about managing the masses by disseminating information selected in a certain way) and about many things in general. This is the famous detective Pera Vale "The death of the 31st section" [6], written by him in 1964. The detective line is given there only in order to highlight the main thing: a person is a slave of metered information, and if you select it correctly, dispense it and serve it to the masses, then they, these masses, are yours!
Doesn't the science-fiction story of the Strugatsky brothers "Predatory things of the century", which by some strange coincidence, also written by them in 1964, which has already become a historical science-fiction story, sound modern today ?!
“Love and hunger. Satisfy them and you will see an absolutely happy person. All utopias of all time are based on this simplest consideration. Free a person from worries about their daily bread and about tomorrow, and he will become truly free and happy, says Opir, Ph. D., and many people only dream of this today.
“The fool is cherished, the fool is carefully nurtured, the fool is fertilized … The fool has become the norm, a little more - and the fool will become an ideal, and doctors of philosophy will lead round dances around him … And science is at your service, and literature, so that you have fun and do not need anything was thinking. And you and I, you fool, will smash all sorts of hooligans and skeptics that are harmful to them. And weekly newspapers try to cover this stinking swamp with a cloying crust of happy chatter, and this certified fool glorifies sweet dreams, and thousands of non-certified fools indulge in dreams like drunkenness. The newspapers were filled with witticisms, caricatures, advice on how to occupy your hands, and at the same time, God forbid, do not bother your head. And to come up with something - you need to have special abilities. This is a mountain of books to read, but try to read them when you are sick of them! Now, it means that smart people come up with something new for themselves … "[7]
This is how the Strugatskys' system of managing fools is formed in their work. And not fools in this society are very hard, first of all, because there are very few of them. And don't we see practically the same around us today, isn't this work of theirs still relevant? However, the Strugatsky brothers still did not foresee something: there is no mobile phone in their future. Well, instead of the drug they invented, we use ecstasy, heroin and crack in the old fashioned way.
And here is a completely amazing book: the novel by Ivan Efremov "The Hour of the Bull" (1968) [8]. We open and consider: “The escalation of the threat of total war as a method of political agitation, the constant reminder of this in newspapers, radio, television, contributed to the psychosis of the young part of the population - contradictory aspirations to experience all the joys of life and escape from its reality. The saturation of entertainment, the intensity of artificial experiences created a kind of "overheating" of the psyche. People more and more persistently dreamed of leaving for another life, to the simple joys of being their ancestors, to their naive faith in rituals and secrets. " And here is another very indicative quote: “According to the dialectical laws of the reverse side, the iron fortress of the oligarchic regime is at the same time very fragile. It is necessary to study its nodal attachments in order to systematically hit them, and the whole building will crumble, despite the seeming solidity, because it rests only on fear - from top to bottom. " So the conclusion is quite unambiguous: the more incompletely the history of society is reflected in literature, the more talented the author does it, the more effectively this work as a whole, or some of its parts, can be used for practical training even in such a specific profession as “public relations "!
