Publicity
This afternoon the meditation centre that has been running a meditation class I've been attending went out and did some publicity to advertise the classes that are coming up. I had no plans for the afternoon, so they picked me up at the community centre and we drove into town.
Now, because Cardiff is in Wales, and Wales has a tendency to be rainy this was interesting. While I was in an organic cafe off of Queen Street (which smelled divine) the sky opened up and threw down buckets of water onto the City Centre. I darted out of the cafe to meet Neal, the meditation teacher, as people were shrieking and running for cover, as if Godzilla or some other equally scary gigantic monster were bearing down on them. It was just a little rain. Well, it was just a lot of rain. A lot of cold rain. We popped into an arcade and politely asked some more people if we could put posters up in their windows. It was a mostly successful day.
I saw a poster about this time last year and thought about going to classes. I speculate that it was this memory of the poster that inspired me to have a look online to see if they were still running classes. Well, that and the fact that and a friend of mine back home has recently started meditation and has found that it has been well worth her while.
I find the idea of volunteer publicity people to be quite interesting. Word-of-mouth seems to count for quite a lot. I know I find that when someone I trust recommends something to me, I am generally willing to give it a try. And, as for things online, I myself have gotten advance copies of CDs and DVDs in order to review them for BlogCritics. (I suppose, ethically, there may not be much difference between getting something from a publicist and being in the employ of a record label or some other corporation. It is possible that I am just a shill. However, I would like to, at this point, argue that the difference is that I am not paid for the reviews, nor am I paid for kind words. I review something because I have been given a copy of it. And, given that I'm a blogger and have been for some time, its not really much effort on my part as I would probably have written about most of the things I've written about anyway.) Its big business, publicizing things. Its big business that has come to the internet in a big way. And, you don't have to take my word for it, you just have to go to a site like rojo where you'll find stories about corporation created blogs or you can find plenty of reading material out there about the (as the article l just linked called it) "Trojan Horse" that online community sites have become. Its things like this that make me feel dirty. No one likes feeling like someone (or something) has taken advantage of them. If you were way into Lonelygirl15 and then you found out that Bree is not actually Bree but instead an actress named Jessica Rose, I'd feel a little taken for a ride. Wasn't that part of the problem people had with The Blair Witch Project? This is something I want to give some thought to, as part of my ethical ponderings.
I believe the world is not something that can be commodified and marketed, or at least that shouldn't be. Obviously,I'm in the minority on this one. What is the difference between companies publicizing things through sites like MySpace or blogs run by PR firms and me wandering around the City of Cardiff in order to spread the word about meditation classes?
I suppose the best place for me to start would be the difference expressed in the language. "Spreading the word" is a phrase that tends to be used to describe a process of dissemination of information meant for the betterment, enjoyment and safety of those around you. You spread the word about a great band you've heard or a film you've seen. The phrase is also used in religious settings such as, "The disciples set out to spread the word about Jesus." So, "spreading the word" (and, I would say "word of mouth") has this connotation of something being one trusted individual to another trusted individual. It has a sense of a goal that involves sharing something with you instead of having a goal of sharing something with as many people as possible.
To create a fake blog because or YouTube page because someone is paying you to is to take that trust that is implicit in the frame of "word of mouth" and "spreading the word" and to exploit it. Blogs are good publicity because they are virtual word of mouth. They are anonymous people chatting up and about what they do and do not like. Its like a bunch of people talking about things they like in a bar, only with a wider audience. This makes them a gold mine. However, to not dislcose that something is run by people that are paid by a company is disingenuous. But, then the goals of business, particularly under the doctrine of free-enterprise have little to gain from being open and honest.
So, it would seem that one's motivation may be just as important as what one does or says. Which is interesting, seeing as there is a long-standing debate about whether you get into heaven based on your deeds or your beliefs. I don't know if this has brought me any closer to figuring out what a "moral" is or what "ethics" are, but maybe it has. At the very least, its given me more stuff to consider. And, that's always a good thing.
