Abstract
The work of secrecy is delicate, intricate and alluring, and at the same time, secrecy is a form of control, according to sociologist Georg Simmel (1906). Anne Cronin takes secrecy at the heart of her examination to explore its relationship with publicity in the UK news cultures and politics today. And while the question has been previously articulated in similar terms, Cronin manages to pose it in a way that sharply brings our attention to the significance and shifting notion of secrecy in a world of media monopolization, misinformation and sensitive ecologies of attention. Following Andrew Wernick’s (1991) contribution, a recent canon of work (Cronin being a well versed researcher in this area) has been focusing on an analysis of promotional culture as the meshing of boundaries between media and markets, information and entertainment, news and advertising, to name a few. In Promotional Cultures, Aeron Davis (2013) concludes that ‘much promotional activity is organized around blocking journalist access, smothering problematic stories and maintaining secrecy’ (p. 201). This key concern is seriously undertaken by Cronin, framed and analysed through original data and insightful case studies as the ‘secrecy-publicity dynamic’. Similarly, in the comprehensive book Understanding Public Relations, Lee Edwards (2018) suggests that research on the relationships between public relations practitioners and journalists can ‘inform the ongoing influence of public relations on media hierarchies, and thereby on contemporary public spheres’ (p. 118). Anne Cronin also accomplishes this, tracing relationships historically and presently.
The ‘secrecy-publicity dynamic’ concerns the relationship between secrecy and the making public of issues, interests, practices and relations. The book provides a strong and original theoretical and empirical basis to analyse secrecy and its deployment in the media ecology in the United Kingdom. Following Simmel, Cronin suggests that secrecy is ‘a foundational human characteristic that shapes social relations’ (p. 121). Like other scholars who aptly research PR through its intermediaries (Bourne, 2022), the author draws on 40 interviews with professionals working in the worlds of PR and news, focusing on a variety of practices that demonstrates how the secrecy-publicity dynamic operates. The book, then, offers a renewed understanding of media operations and practices behind the scenes. Uncovering some PR techniques related to secrecy and publicity, Cronin clearly demonstrates what she calls the shadow world of the media sphere, ‘a constellation of pockets of secrecy – of hidden dimensions – which shift and develop, merge and dissipate’ (p. 106). Importantly, Cronin argues, we need to take secrecy seriously: simply paralyzing action or bolstering an unproductive and constraining dualism of secrecy-publicity, practices of revelation can offer radical potential for social action and social change . . . addressing today’s problematic practices of secrecy and mobilizing principles of transparency- oriented, crucially, towards the need for greater accountability (italics in original) – may advance the broader project of shifting societal formations. (pp. 121–122)
The structure of the book is logical, and the argument is carefully threaded across key concepts (secrecy, secrecy-publicity dynamic, shadow world of the media sphere) to illuminate push and pull dialectics in the relationship between secrecy and publicity as mediated by news organizations and PR agencies. Chapter 2 conceptualizes the secrecy-publicity dynamic drawing mainly from Georg Simmel’s theorization, following his perspective of secrecy as productive of social relations. How divergent are the terms secrecy and publicity? For Simmel, there is a dynamic tension between the two and opens the possibility of a second world which influences the so-called obvious world which we are aware of. This second world is what Cronin calls the shadow world of the media sphere and the book unearths the dynamics, practices and technologies between secrecy and publicity. Problematising transparency as one of the most dominant forms of publicity in contemporary societies, Cronin highlights that is typically shaped by public relations and PR intermediaries who have been framing it as ‘one way communication rather than engaging more democratic principles of dialogue’ (p. 14). Chapter 3 focuses on PR techniques of secrecy and publicity which includes practices such as accentuating the positive (also highlighted in Wernick’s original approach to promotional culture), distracting and diverting attention, ‘data bombing’ and ‘astroturfing’. Chapter 4 explores the field of UK journalism and its relationship to PR. It analyses key technologies that shape PR and journalistic practice and influence: Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) and DSMA notices to outline how these shape public understandings about secrecy and the media. Chapter 5 explores revelation in the context of UK news media, specifically focusing on journalists’ investigative practices (including Freedom of Information requests, leaks, whistleblowing and ‘flying kits’) and PR practitioners’ use of press releases. Beyond dismissing the manufacturing of secrecy, Cronin discusses the way in which publics perceive of PR secrecy practices and become fascinated for revelation which tends to be spearheaded by celebrities and social media, what an interviewee calls ‘the market for secrets’. The author raises the point that PR practitioners promote the view that publics today expect organizations and individuals to be consistently involved in public narrations whether through social media accounts advertising and marketing campaigns or contributions in mainstream media sources. It would be interesting and important to see this point further teased out in future research. Chapter 6 concludes the book by highlighting the social embeddedness of secrecy and publicity practices. Cronin underscores that the secrecy-publicity dynamic is not simply an effect (italics in original) of media cultures (whereby the media act to conceal certain issues and publicise others). Instead, we need to appreciate that practices of secrecy and publicity are stitched into the very fabric of social relations within which news media cultures are themselves situated. (p. 105)
Throughout Secrecy in Public Relations, Mediation and News Cultures, Cronin works against a deterministic account of PR effects and influence, critically outlining its broad deep and subtle power to organize social and power relations. Questioning secrecy in the context of what Shoshana Zuboff (2019) calls surveillance capitalism, Cronin points out to the importance of further research in democratic claims about political representation and rights, mentioning also the significance of social injustice as a shift to reframe secrecy’s significance: ‘the public revelation of systematic social injustices can potentially initiate social change but it may also shift understandings of what constitutes “secrecy”’ (p. 111). Reflecting on the meaning of publicity today, Cronin reminds us of obstacles that legacy media face in pursuing investigations, typically through legal restrictions as she discussed earlier in the book. However, the author also notes open source investigation techniques such as those practices by the organization Bellingcat, who advocate that their practices can be undertaken by members of the public at a place of their choice at any point in time. Throughout the book, Cronin consistently and carefully constructs an argument for the complexity of secrecy and its dialectical relationship with publicity.
Despite the dire straits of news organizations and cultures, as well as the mounting financial and legal pressures that can obstruct investigative reporting, Cronin demonstrates how the enchantment of secrecy can be used to attract publics’ attention. Specifically focusing on the case of a detailed investigation by The Guardian in relation to the United Kingdom’s monarchy and their secretive interference in legislative procedures, Cronin argues that the rolling out of the articles over a period of months illustrates how the media are operating to highlight social justice while managing the secrecy-publicity dynamic. Yet, in this problematization of secrets and secrecy, Cronin concludes by questioning what secrets matter and why. For some journalists, publicity can operate contrary to the public’s expectations or interests. For many journalists, cultures of secrecy have been noted in some organizations and institutions. Secrecy shapes social relations.
Why should we care? Secrecy casts shadows over political corruption, human rights abuses, social justice, climate crisis, consumer safety, all issues that affect our lives and our understanding of them and right to act on them depends on the quality of information we receive. To say the least, journalism has an ambivalent relationship with secrecy. Focusing on relations between PR industry and news media, the book is the first of its kind to focus on secrecy and its deployment in the media ecology through an original theoretical and empirical approach. Cronin has produced an enriched and nuanced understanding of publicity in the contemporary age.
