Defensive public relation strategies to cover up and mislead the public

The following steps, which can follow a linear or circular (spiraling) pattern of escalation, describe defensive public relations (propaganda) strategies which organizations, mostly governments or companies, apply if they are accused of misconduct against the public interest. All actions by the accusing party (activists) can be promoted by methods of civil resistance.

Action by activists, Reaction by government, company or other organisation.

  1.  Step:
    1. Action (Activists): accuse government or company of misconduct
    2. Reaction (Government/Company): ignore accusations
  2. Step:
    1. Action (Activists): create attention
    2. Reaction (Government/Company): deny evidence
  3. Step:
    1. Action (Activists): provide evidence
    2. Reaction: admit, what cannot be denied
  4. Step:
    1. Action (Activists): provide more evidence
    2. Reaction (Government/Company): frame events as “errors”, “failure”, “wrong decision”, “isolated incidents”,  which preserves the frame that the government “wanted” to do the right thing and shares basic values with the accusing party
  5. Step:
    1. Action (Activists): give evidence of the underlying intention, e.g. by connecting multiple seemingly unrelated events of misconduct
    2. Reaction (Government/Company): attack integrity of the accusing party or its sources directly or indirectly collaborating with a seemingly independent witness (character assassination campaign)
  6. Step:
    1. Action (Activists): provide witnessess and evidence of integrity
    2. Reaction (Government/Company): promise to take corrective actions, however, with vague objectives and timelines, which cannot be assessed or will lie outside the attention span of the public
  7. Step:
    1. Action (Activists): demand specific actions with clear timelines of adequate scope
    2. Reaction (Government/Company): personalize the problem and assign responsiblity to a lower-ranking official, who gets fired to take the blame (but provide him with other awards, offices secretly) to protect the underlying system or interest groups (eg political party)
  8. Step:
    1. Action (Activists): give evidence of the underling system, e.g. by connecting multiple seemingly unrelated people (network)
    2. Reaction (Government/Company): personalize the problem and assign responsiblity to a high-ranking official, who gets fired to take the blame (but provide him with other awards, offices secretly) to protect the underlying system or interest groups (eg political party)
  9. Step:
    1. Action (Activists): give evidence of the underling system, e.g. by demonstrating the underlying moral deficiences of the system or ideology
    2. Reaction (Government/Company): frame the resulting movement as politically motivated, instrumentalizing innocent or naive citizens for a hidden agenda
  10. Step
    1. Action (Activists): demand organisatonal and legal conseqences to change the system and prevent such misconduct happending again
    2. Reaction (Government/Company): see all above
  11. Step:
    1. Action (Activists): mobilise a mass movement including protests and civil resistance actions
    2. Reaction (Government/Company):  (potential) system change

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