Where the Truth Lies: a Symposium on Propaganda Today February 15, 2008

Moderator
David Brancaccio
David Brancaccio is the host and senior editor of NOW, the weekly investigative news program on PBS. A winner of a 2007 Emmy, Brancaccio specializes in coverage of democracy, human rights and social enterprises. A broadcaster for more than 30 years, Brancaccio was the longtime host of the pioneering public radio program Marketplace, and is a recipient of the duPont-Columbia and Peabody Awards.

Keynote
Milton Glaser

Is there any difference between good propaganda and bad propaganda?
Glaser argues that in one essential way, there is not.

Milton Glaser is among the most celebrated graphic designers in the United States. He has had the distinction of one-man-shows at the Museum of Modern Art and the Georges Pompidou Center. In 2004 he was selected for the lifetime achievement award by the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum. As a Fulbright scholar, Glaser studied with the painter Giorgio Morandi in Bologna, and is a spokesman for the ethical practice of design. He opened Milton Glaser, Inc. in 1974, and continues to produce an astounding amount of work in many fields of design to this day.

Speakers
Maro Chermayeff
Carrier
A preview of Carrier, Maro Chermayeff’s 10-hour PBS documentary about life on the USS Nimitz during a six-month deployment in the Persian Gulf during combat support of the ground troops in Iraq. Carrier is the first film to take a raw and honest look at the U.S. Navy’s role in this controversial war. Carrier is a production of Icon Productions, LLC and Carrier Project, Inc. Executive producers are Mel Gibson, Bruce Davey, Nancy Cotton, Mitchell Block and Maro Chermayeff.
Maro Chermayeff is a three-time Emmy Award-nominated executive producer, producer, director, author and former television executive. Chermayeff produced, directed and edited the multi-award-winning feature-length documentary Kindness of Strangers, which screened at numerous film festivals and aired on HBO. She has been a consultant and producer/editor for Charlie Rose on his special arts programs and series for many years, resulting in more than 10 one-hour documentaries for PBS.

Stephen Duncombe
Learning from Las Vegas: A Possibility for Progressive Persuasion?
Although fantasy and spectacle have become the lingua franca of our time, progressives continue to depend upon sober reason to guide them. Instead they need to learn to communicate in today’s spectacular vernacular. Learning from Las Vegas, however, does not necessarily mean adopting its values. We can, and must, create ethical spectacles.
Stephen Duncombe is the author, most recently, of Dream: Re-Imagining Progressive Politics in an Age of Fantasy, and is the author and editor of several other books on the intersection of culture and politics. He is an Associate Professor at the Gallatin School of New York University and a life-long political activist.

Sam Ewen
The Changing Face of Consumer Marketing
How alternatives in art, technology and creativity are changing the way companies sell products.
Sam Travis Ewen runs Interference Incorporated – Unparalleled Guerrilla and Alternative Marketing. GE, Discovery Channel, Netflix, HBO, and many others have utilized Interference’s blend of high creative thinking and low on-the-streets execution. Interference Inc. has created many marketing firsts, from the largest stealth campaign ever executed to the largest aerial billboard ever flown, from introducing clean graffiti to the US to a certain light-up marketing technique in Boston that got international attention. http://www.interferenceinc.com

Stuart Ewen
Corporations in the Classroom
This presentation will track recent attempts by corporate America to influence the content of courses being taught at universities in the United States. The presentation will focus on one revealing case study in which a curriculum and required course goals were produced by a public relations firm working for a major business trade group. It will look at the way courses—sponsored and designed by big business—are working their way into college classrooms.
Stuart Ewen is Distinguished Professor in the Department of Film & Media Studies at Hunter College, and in the PhD Programs in History, Sociology and American Studies at The Graduate Center, City University of New York. He is generally considered one of the originators of the field of Media Studies, and his books have continued to shape debates in the field for more than three decades. http://stereotypeandsociety.typepad.com and http://www.rejectedletterstotheeditor.com

Jeffrey Graham
Your Consumer is Revolting: The History of Rumor Control in American Marketing
In the 20th century, corporations and the government had a stranglehold on mass communication, and developed sophisticated techniques to shape public opinion. But rumors are a pervasive form of word of mouth communication that are inherently difficult to track and control. Rumor control in the U.S. evolved as a process in which corporations and the government attempted to monitor, control and influence word of mouth communication in order to align it with their own interests. The presentation will focus on the development of corporate rumor control and the marketing industry’s recent response to mass adoption of the Internet.
Jeffrey Graham is a PhD candidate in Sociology at the CUNY Graduate Center, writing a dissertation on the history of rumor control in the United States. He has a Masters in Media Ecology from NYU and a BA in Communication from the University of Massachusetts. He has held a number of executive positions in the marketing industry. Most recently, he was Senior Vice President of Strategic Research at MediaVest, leading all communication research for Procter & Gamble. His clients have included Johnson & Johnson, General Motors, Microsoft and Disney. Currently, Jeffrey is Executive Director of Customer Insight at a major national newspaper based in New York City.

Julia Hobsbawm
Why You Can Trust Comment and Opinion More Than News
A look at the rise–and triumph–of the comment media over the news cycle. A look at how and why the opinionated media is perhaps more truthful, as well as a look at both the UK and the US comment scene in national newspapers and key blogs.
Julia Hobsbawm is London’s first Professor of Public Relations, at the London College of Communication, University of the Arts. After a successful 20-year career in public relations representing clients as diverse as Vanity Fair, George Soros and Emily’s List, she turned her attention to providing media analysis and data for use by both journalists and PRs alike. Her company, Editorial Intelligence, is the only media resource to summarize daily all UK mainstream comment and to profile over 800 UK and US commentators. Julia edited the collection of essays Where the Truth Lies: Trust and Morality in PR and Journalism for Atlantic Books in 2005. She is a regular broadcaster for the BBC and Sky News on the late night “Paper Review” slot, and contributes regularly to a range of publications in the UK. http://www.editorialintelligence.com

Eugene Secunda
How American Presidents Persuade the Public to Go to War
It is not war that Americans hate, but, rather, unsuccessful wars. This success is often determined by how wars are sold to the public. For more than one hundred years, the leaders of U.S. governments have tried to ‘‘sell’’ wars to the American people. This presentation will address why a majority of Americans are more than willing to buy a war, if it is properly packaged and skillfully marketed.
Eugene Secunda, PhD, is an adjunct professor of marketing and media studies at New York University. He also taught marketing-related subjects at Baruch College (CUNY) and Adelphi University. In 2006, he was a recipient of a Fulbright Scholar Award, lecturing at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. He is the co-author of Shifting Time and Space: The Story of Videotape, published by Praeger Publications in 1991; he is also the co-author of Selling War to America: From the Spanish American War to the Global War on Terror. Previously, he was President of Barnum/Secunda Associates, a New York advertising/PR agency. Earlier, he was a division manager and Senior Vice President at J. Walter Thompson Company and N.W. Ayer International. http://www.sellingwartoamerica.com



Throughout the seminar a selection of propaganda videos curated by Mary Jeys will be screened.
ORGANIZERS: Stuart Ewen, Steven Heller, and Mary Jeys.
SPONSORED BY the School of Visual Arts, New York in cooperation with the
PhD Programs in History and Sociology of The Graduate Center, CUNY
© 2008, Visual Arts Press, Ltd. Poster design: Michael J. Walsh, Brian E. Smith Web layout: Bola Famuyiwa Photography: Harry Zernike

Official Website: http://oldwww.schoolofvisualarts.edu/wherethetruthlies/