Great, a entire book telling me why my future career is completely evil. Basically, ``Toxic Sludge is Good For You,`` is a book about how public relations and other corporate systems work in persuading the public in order to boost sales or corporate awareness. Public relations works to sway the publics opinion of a product or industry. For example, the book shows a very clever cartoon of a toxic waste plant saying ,``we need to do something to improve our environmental image,`` the next cartoon shows the same plant with a banner saying, ``proud sponsor of Earth Day 95`` hung over the waste. The book lists many examples of how public relations can take practically anything and put it in a good light in order to boost publicity. More publicity leads to awareness of a corporation and a boost in sales.
I enjoyed this book. I was surprised by how easily we are persuaded by public relations. ``Toxic Sludge is Good For You`` says, ``the best PR is never noticed``and the truth of the trade is that, ``pr is executives are today mediating public communications as never before.`` To me this implies that everything the media puts out is carefully planned to send exactly the right message across to the public. After reading this book I am a lot more critical about what I see and hear. I`ve also started thinking about what my role is going to be in public relations. I don`t think I could pull off the same stunts as the ones I read about in this book while still being able to sleep at night. There has to be more to pr then lies and deception....right?
Rampton, Sheldon and Stauber, John. Toxic Sludge is Good For You. Maine: Common Courage
Press, 1995.
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