Submitted by Laura Miller on
"Wal-Mart has begun a media relations and community outreach effort to improve its image [in New York City] as it seeks future sites for local stores," PR Week writes.
Years of writing about public relations and propaganda has probably made me a bit jaded, but I was amazed nevertheless when I visited America's Army, an online video game website sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). In its quest to find recruits, the military has literally turned war into entertainment.
"America's Army" offers a range of games that kids can download or play online. Although the games are violent, with plenty of opportunities to shoot and blow things up, they avoid graphic images of death or other ugliness of war, offering instead a sanitized, Tom Clancy version of fantasy combat. One game, Overmatch, promises "a contest in which one opponent is distinctly superior ... with specialized skills and superior technology ... OVERMATCH: few soldiers, certain victory" (more or less the same overconfident message that helped lead us into Iraq).
Submitted by Laura Miller on
The U.S. Navy spent over $1.6 million on PR work to influence a vote on whether part of the Puerto Rican island of Vieques would continue to serve as a bombing range, the Associated Press reports.
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