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Advertising, Public Relations and Think Tanks Although advertising, public relations and think tanks at first seem to have nothing in common, after a closer look certain similarities arise. The first thing which can be noted is that public relations and the advertising industry, as well as - especially conservative - think tanks like the Heritage Foundation or the Brookings Institute have strong ties to corporate firms. Whereas the connection between the advertising and public relations industry and corporations is based on a consultant - client relation many think tanks heavily rely on corporate funding to pursue their activities. Therefore the interests of corporate firms are to an - in some cases considerable - extent reflected in their activities. Furthermore the aims of public relations and advertising firms and think tanks are not too different. Their main goal is to sell ideas and values. Albeit it sometimes makes the impression, as if only products, services and understanding (in the case of public relations) are sold, for the greater part the only thing being marketed is (political) ideology. |
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Examples of Mainly Corporate Funded Think Tanks: Manhattan Institute The Manhattan Institute, founded by |
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Dissemination Strategies Think tanks undertake research in very specific public policy areas. Which topics they cover mainly depends on their political and ideological orientation. In any case think tanks produce incredible amounts of "research findings". The crucial aspect usually is not their production, but their distribution. Therefore most think tanks have developed sophisticated dissemination strategies, whose main aim is the communication of their ideas to important audiences. These include members of governmental institutions, policymakers in the executive branch, news media, intellectuals, business men as well as academic and policy communities - in short, everybody, who is involved in shaping public opinion. |
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User tracking User tracking is a generic term that covers all the techniques of monitoring the movements of a user on a web site. User tracking has become an essential component in online commerce, where no personal contact to customers is established, leaving companies with the predicament of not knowing who they are talking to. Some companies, such as Whenever user tracking is performed without the explicit agreement of the user, or without laying open which data are collected and what is done with them, considerable |
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Operating system An operating system is software that controls the many different operations of a computer and directs and coordinates its processing of programs. It is a remarkably complex set of instructions that schedules the series of jobs (user applications) to be performed by the computer and allocates them to the computer's various hardware systems, such as the |
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Integrated circuit Also called microcircuit, the integrated circuit is an assembly of electronic components, fabricated as a single unit, in which active semiconductor devices ( |
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Aeneas Tacticus Supposedly his real name was Aeneas of Stymphalus. He was a Greek military scientist and cryptographer. He invented an optical system for communication similar to a telegraph: the |
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