The Kosovo-Crisis

During the Kosovo Crisis and during the war that followed, and probably also after it, all sides of the conflict were manipulating their people and others as well, whenever they could. Some of the propaganda shown on TV was as primitive as in World War II, others were subtler. This propaganda started by telling the history of the geographic point of discussion from the own point of view, it went on with the interpretation of the motives of the enemy and finally came to censorship, manipulation of the number of victims ( for more information see: http://www.oneworld.org/index_oc/kosovo/kadare.html , spreading of atrocity stories and so on.
Many journalists and scientists are still working to detect more propaganda and disinformation stories.

An interesting detail about this war was that more people than ever before took their information about the war out of the internet. In part this had to do with the biased TV-reports on all sides. All parties put their ideas and perspectives in the net, so one could get an overview of the different thoughts and types of disinformation.
One of the big lies of NATO was the numbers of destroyed military facilities in Serbia. After the war the numbers had to be corrected down to a ridiculous number of about 13 destroyed tanks. At the same time the numbers of civilian victims turned out to be much higher than NATO had admitted in the first line. The method how European and American people had been persuaded to support the NATO-bombings was the promise to bomb only targets of the military or military-related facilities. Nearly every day NATO had to stretch this interpretation, as many civilian houses got destroyed. A cynical word was created for this kind of excuse: collateral damage.

The Serbs were not better than Western governments and media, which worked together closely. Serb TV showed the bombed targets and compared persons like Bill Clinton to Adolf Hitler and called the NATO fascist. On the other hand pictures from the situation in Kosov@ were left out in their reports.

More:
http://www.voa.gov/editorials/08261.htm (91)
http://www.foreignpolicy-infocus.org/progresp/vol3/prog3n22.html (92)
http://www.serbia-info.com/news (93)
http://www.nyu.edu/globalbeat/syndicate/Belgrade041399.html (94)
http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/1999/08/SAID/12320.html (95)

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Product Placement

With television still being very popular, commercial entertainment has transferred the concept of soap operas onto the Web. The first of this new species of "Cybersoaps" was "The Spot", a story about the ups and downs of an American commune. The Spot not only within short time attracted a large audience, but also pioneered in the field of online product placement. Besides Sony banners, the companies logo is also placed on nearly every electronic product appearing in the story. Appearing as a site for light entertainment, The Spots main goal is to make the name Sony and its product range well known within the target audience.

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Public Relations and the Advertising Industry

The public relations industry, the same as advertising, is concentrated in the hands of few dominant firms. Still, the striking element about corporate public relations is that PR firms are tightly related to advertising companies. Nine out of the ten biggest international PR agencies have close ties with the advertising industry. Also, looking at the largest acquisitions involving U.S. PR firms from 1997 to 1999 it is apparent that money coming from advertising agencies has played an important role.


Table: Top 10 PR Firms 1998


Rank 1998

PR Firm

Advertising Agency Related

1998 Net Fees (in U.S. $)

1997 - 1998 % Change

1

Burson-Marsteller

yes

258,417,000

4.2

2

Hill and Knowlton

yes

206,000,000

8.9

3

Porter Novelli Int.

yes

183,050,000

23.6

4

Shandwick

yes

170,300,000

7.3

5

Fleishman-Hillard

yes

160,692,000

19.1.

6

Edelman PR Worldwide

no

157,840,530

18.1

7

Ketchum

yes

125,248,000

29.6

8

BSMG Worldwide

yes

118,963,000

93.0

9

Weber PR Worldwide

yes

83,166,000

36.2

10

GCI/APCO

yes

79,667,957

28.4




With many PR agencies sold to advertising companies, the advertising industry's influence further increases; enabling them to offer their clients not only advertising services, but also know-how in marketing, public opinion, crisis and issues management and political lobbying.

Table: Acquisition of PR Agencies (1997 - 1999)

Acquired Company

Buyer

Buyers Industry

Estimated Purchase Price (in millions of U.S. $)

International PR

Interpublic Group of Cos.

Advertising

230

Fleishman-Hillard

Omicom Group

Advertising

85

Ketchum

Omnicom Group

Advertising

60

Dewe Rogerson

Incepta

Advertising

40

Financial Rel. Bd.

BSMG/TN

Public Relations

33

Weber PR

Interpublic Group of Cos.

Advertising

15

Alexander

WPP Group

Advertising

15

Charles Barker

BSMG/TN

Public Relations

15



Source: Odwyerpr.com.

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Bill Clinton

William J. Clinton (* 1946) studied law at Yale University, then taught at the University of Arkansas. He was elected Arkansas attorney general in 1976 and served as a governor until 1992. That year he became U.S.-President, the first democratic President after a row of Republicans. His sexual affairs not only cost him nearly his career but he also had to distract from his private affairs: he thought of fighting another war against Saddam Hussein in February 1999. Short afterwards he had a more interesting enemy, Slobodan Milosevic - and the NATO was most willing to fight with him.

For more information see: http://www.whitehouse.gov/WH/glimpse/presidents/html/bc42.html

http://www.whitehouse.gov/WH/glimpse/presiden...
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codes

an algorithm for bringing a legible message into an illegible form. There has to exist some sort of code book to encode/decode it.

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plaintext

the original, legible text

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Kessler Marketing Intelligence (KMI)

KMI is the leading source for information on fiber-optics markets. It offers market research, strategic analysis and product planning services to the opto-electronics and communications industries. KMI tracks the worldwide fiber-optic cable system and sells the findings to the industry. KMI says that every fiber-optics corporation with a need for strategic market planning is a subscriber to their services.

http://www.kmicorp.com/

http://www.kmicorp.com/
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ciphertext

the enciphered/encoded and primarily illegible text

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Digital Subscriber Line (DSL)

DSL connections are high-speed data connections over copper wire telephone lines. As with cable connections, with DSL you can look up information on the Internet and make a phone call at the same time but you do not need to have a new or additional cable or line installed. One of the most prominent DSL services is ISDN (integrated services digital network, for more information click here ( http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/4/0,5716,129614+15,00.html )).

http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/4/0...
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