December 24, 2024 • 28 mins
Could corporate disinformation be quietly steering our perceptions and political actions? Join us as we engage with Grant Ennis, the author of "Dark PR: How Corporate Disinformation Undermines Our Health and the Environment." Ennis sheds light on the sophisticated strategies corporations use to manipulate public narratives and divert attention from crucial political actions. We discuss how framing influences discourse and underscores the significance of organized political movements in driving genuine change, rather than being sidetracked by superficial solutions and the misleading promise of panacea frames.
Show Notes:
- To help support the show, pick up a copy of the book through our Amazon Affiliates page at https://amzn.to/3P5oRS2 or even better, get a copy through your local bookstore!
- Further Reading: The Big Myth - How American Business Taught Us to Loath Government and Love the Free Market by Naomi Oreskes, No Short Cuts: Organizing for Power in the New Gilded Age by Jane McAlevey, If We Burn by Vincent Bevins
- To view the show transcripts, click on the episode at https://bookedonplanning.buzzsprout.com/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Stephanie Rouse (00:12):
you're listening to the booked on
planning podcast, a project ofthe nebraska chapter of the
american planning association.
In each episode we dive intohow cities function by talking
with authors on housing,transportation and everything in
between.
Join us as we get Booked onPlanning.
(00:36):
Welcome back, bookworms, toanother episode of Booked on
Planning.
In this episode we talk withGrant Ennis about his book Dark
PR (00:46):
How Corporate Disinformation Undermines Our Health and the
Environment.
This book was an eye-openingread into the tricks and
smokescreens put in place bycompanies that trickle down and
impact how planners are able tocreate thriving communities.
Jennifer Hiatt (00:55):
Yes, it certainly was eye-opening, and
once you learn about thesedifferent frames, you can't stop
seeing them in everyday life.
Unsurprisingly, corporationsreally know how to use these
frames to distract the generalpublic from advocating for real
change, and it's pretty amazinghow effective they are.
Stephanie Rouse (01:10):
Grant shows the nine devious frames through
three areas transportationissues, diabetes and climate
change.
In each of these areas, hemakes the argument that starting
at the bottom, picking away atsmall changes or individually
working towards change, is noteffective.
We need to work together and gofor changing policy at the top
level.
This may seem like more work,with many individuals working
(01:30):
together.
It has more potential thanindividuals changing their own
habits.
Jennifer Hiatt (01:34):
Just like anything, though right, we have
to come together to let ourgovernments know that we are no
longer okay subsidizingcorporate activities that
actually hurt us.
So let's get into ourconversation with author Grant
Ennis on his book Dark PR howCorporate Disinformation
Undermines Our Health andEnvironment.
Grant, welcome to the Booked onPlanning podcast.
We're happy to have you on totalk about your book, dark PR
(01:57):
how Corporate DisinformationUndermines Our Health and the
Environment.
Grant Ennis (02:01):
Thank, you very much for having me, Jennifer.
Very good to be here with you.
Health and the environment.
Jennifer Hiatt (02:04):
Thank you very much for having me, jennifer.
Very good to be here with you.
You start out your book bylaying out the nine devious
frames that corporations use todistract the general public.
Can you start by explainingwhat a frame is in this context
and how that impacts politicalaction or, ultimately, inaction,
potentially?
Grant Ennis (02:19):
Corporations use framing and frames in order to
shape our discourse and the waywe talk about things.
So a very famous example ofthat could be like pro-choice or
pro-life, accident versus crashor collision, climate change or
global warming or any number ofdifferent kind of ways of
talking about a given issue.
So corporations will focus,group and actually get people to
(02:44):
discuss and talk about thesekinds of different ways of
presenting information andnarratives and then see which
ways of talking about thingslead to less or more political
support for what they want ordon't want, which allows them
and enables them to influenceour politics.
Because if they can influencepeople the voters, the
(03:06):
constituents to be lesssupportive and more supportive,
that's going to shape then whatpoliticians do in turn.
Stephanie Rouse (03:12):
So your first three set of frames are the big
lies denialism, post-denialismand normalization.
While reading these, itreminded me of the Vision Zero
movement, especially because oneof the three example issues is
road safety.
Under normalization, you note,the big lie is the
transportation field framingroad deaths as accidents, which
you just mentioned, and thislanguage is shifting, with the
(03:34):
Vision Zero movement and thecampaigns calling out this as
being a misframing of the issueand instead using the term
crashes.
Do you see this as a step inthe right direction or are we
still missing the mark?
Grant Ennis (03:50):
I think it's a great step in the term crashes.
Do you see this as a step inthe right direction or are we
still missing the mark?
I think it's a great step inthe right direction.
It's probably one of the bestexamples we have, not just in
planning and in road safety andin looking at cars, but across
all different kinds of areas.
It's probably the best examplewe have of an activist movement
really shaping the narrative.
For the most part, the wordaccident is disappearing from
the way that people that work inthis space talk about crashes
because we now call them crashes.
(04:10):
We know from research frompeople like Peter Norton that
the word accident was somethingthat was introduced into the way
we talk about crashes in theearly 1900s by the automobile
industry.
At the time people were callingthem motor murderers and all of
these other kind of reallyextreme names for crashes, and
the automobile industry workedwith newspapers around the
(04:31):
country to get people to callthem accidents to make them
normalized.
We've seen that when people usethe word accident rather than
crash, people are less likely tobe politically involved.
So the campaign to get peopleto stop saying accident, to
start saying crash more oftenhas really been very successful.
I know many people still callthem accidents, of course, but
(04:53):
we've done a really reallypretty good job in this
community of changing ourlanguage and, yeah, I think it
is a really good step in theright direction.
Jennifer Hiatt (05:00):
The second set of frames you discuss you label
as the panacea frames silverboomerangs, magic and the
treatment trap.
These are all somewhat moresolutions-oriented frames that
are supposed to make people feellike we can do both.
We can both advocate for changeand cure diabetes.
But you point out thatpolitical will is a zero-sum
(05:21):
game and we can't normally justdo both.
So can you explain what theseframes are and how they limit
our ability to impact thepolitical change?
Grant Ennis (05:29):
Yeah.
So take, for example,autonomous cars versus reducing
subsidies for driving.
Many people don't know, but wesubsidize driving to an enormous
extent.
I don't have the numbers infront of me right now, but it
sometimes reaches up to like 50%of the cost of driving is
subsidized by government.
And if you're thinking, how dowe influence policies to end
(05:52):
those driving subsidies, how dowe get government to stop doing
that?
Well, we need an organizedpolitical movement and we need
that movement to really focus onthat change that we want to see
.
We need that movement to reallyfocus on that change that we
want to see.
Now, if the automobile industryor the road lobby recognized
that, what they would then do istry to undermine that right.
(06:12):
They wouldn't want thispolitical movement to be
undercutting their businessmodel so they might introduce
some kind of magical frame solike don't worry about subsidies
for driving, we can make it sothat driving won't be a problem,
you know it won't kill as manypeople because we're going to
introduce autonomous cars, youknow.
So autonomous cars would belike the, what I would call the
(06:34):
magic framing for reducing roaddeath, and the automobile
industry would really, reallypromote it in order to undermine
an effort to reduce thosedriving subsidies.
Now you might have somebody saywell, why can't we do both?
When you have framing, when youhave politics, you have a
situation where the decision iszero sum You're either going to
(06:55):
reduce those driving subsidiesor you're not.
And so if you introduceautonomous cars into the
discourse, it means you're goingto be demanding action to
reduce those driving subsidiesless.
That's what we see from framingresearch.
So anytime you hear we can justdo both, what that's going to
lead to is less of what you want, less of what's actually really
(07:18):
important.
Jennifer Hiatt (07:20):
So I finished this book about a month and a
half ago and once you read itand you've laid it out so
clearly, it's so hard to be ableto look past the panacea frames
.
Now, Every time somebody startstalking about politics, you can
identify it immediately.
You're like oh, I see what youwere talking about, Grant.
Grant Ennis (07:40):
Yeah, it's very hard to unsee this stuff,
absolutely.
Stephanie Rouse (07:44):
So, speaking of organized political movements,
planners often struggle withpositive change, like Complete
Streets campaigns, because wejust lack the public support,
and it's pretty limited.
How can we combat the dark PRthat's behind much of this
pushback by road lobbyists toshed light on the true issues
and the need for change?
Grant Ennis (08:01):
In order to respond to all of this framing, all
this effort by industry toundercut our efforts for
complete streets or otherefforts, I think we need to do
more to reduce the propagandaout of industry.
I think we need to reduce theamount that these kinds of
narratives are being amplified,and part of that is that right
(08:21):
now we have a lot of stuff legalthat shouldn't be legal.
We have a lot of kind of stufflegal that shouldn't be legal.
We have a lot of kind oflobbying that just shouldn't be
legal.
But we also subsidize thislobbying and we subsidize this
propaganda.
So all of the billboards fromthe automobile industry that are
all around the United Statesand other countries, those are
subsidized, those are beingwritten off as operational
(08:44):
expenses and they're taxdeductible.
It shouldn't be tax deductiblefor people to do PR campaigns
against the public health of,like, the American people or
people in any country.
It's incrediblycounterintuitive and unjust and
just wrong upstream and reallydo more to regulate what is
effectively lobbying, likeindirect lobbying through the
(09:08):
constituency.
We shouldn't allow forpropaganda just to be out there
like that.
Secondly, I think we can do alot more to focus our efforts.
We can focus a lot more ondriving.
I think we focus a lot on cars,but if cars just existed as
something that people drove inraces or something and nothing
(09:29):
more, we wouldn't really have aproblem with it.
The problem is really driving.
Todd Littman, who's up inVancouver, does a really good I
believe he's in Vancouver does areally great job of talking
about vehicle miles traveled orvehicle kilometers traveled
quite a lot and I think we cando a lot more to focus on the
incentives for vehiclekilometers traveled.
And the people that are workingto prevent highway construction
(09:50):
around the world preventinghigh-speed road construction I
think are really doing a greatjob of that.
What is the name of theorganization?
I believe it's the FreewayFighters Network, but there's a
couple of really goodorganizations that are doing
great work to really focus onthe things that will work very
well to achieve change, and Ithink we need to see more of
that.
Jennifer Hiatt (10:09):
One of your examples of shifting the blame
from corporations to individualswas the Keep America Beautiful
campaign.
Obviously, I was very familiarwith the Keep America Beautiful
campaign, but I actually did nothave any idea that that media
campaign was originally financedby some of our biggest single
serving package producers.
And this is just one way thatPR can spin a story, shifting
(10:30):
blame from corporations toindividuals.
And we see it all the time.
You're supposed to be thechange you want to see in the
world, which I'm not saying youshouldn't but that's not really
probably going to fix the rootproblem, as you were talking
about earlier.
We're subsidizing actions thatwe should not be, so why is this
such an effective frame?
Grant Ennis (10:48):
I think that the individualized framing from the
Keep America Beautiful campaignor for the Nut Behind the Wheel
campaign or the carbon footprint, all of these individualized
narratives are probably one ofthe best of the techniques used
by industry to underminepolitical will for meaningful
(11:08):
action.
The lean in the famous lean inthing that we've been telling
women that they need to do.
This narrative has been found,through really good research, to
reduce women's likelihood tofight for political change.
The more we tell women theyjust need to lead in, the less
likely they think we needgovernment action for equality
(11:28):
and the more likely they thinkwomen other women just need to
stand up and speak up louder inmeetings and then, all of a
sudden, we'll have equal pay.
I mean, it's shocking.
And we have the same kinds ofresearch for other issue areas.
We know that the carbonfootprint leads to less support
for political action on climate.
The more people hearindividualized narratives about
(11:52):
road death, the less likely theyare to demand complete streets
or even to think that they'reacceptable.
This framing is excellent andused by almost every industry
for a long time, and it'ssomething we need to do a lot
more to push back on, I think.
Stephanie Rouse (12:08):
Yeah, along those lines.
You say in the book thatcollective action is our ethical
obligation, but that it's notthe same as individual action on
the same issue.
So a bunch of us making thechoice to bike to work rather
than drive isn't actually movingthe needle, and I'd always
thought that, you know, if wecould just get a critical mass
of people cycling to work, thenthat'll raise the issue to our
(12:28):
local governments, who will thenfund more on-street bike
infrastructure and help pushthat forward.
But it's not the case.
Can you expand a little more onwhy individual actions aren't
the way forward?
Grant Ennis (12:41):
Yeah.
So I like to distinguishbetween aggregate action, or
what I call aggregate action,and collective action.
So collective action is whenpeople organize into groups and
then those organized groupsdemand political action.
That's collective action.
It's the idea that groups ofpeople are more than just the
sum of their parts.
Aggregate action is a bitdifferent.
(13:03):
No-transcript.
(13:26):
True.
You imagine a bunch of I don'tknow Germans 2,000 years ago
trying to defend themselvesagainst the Romans and you
imagine they said to themselvesyou know what would be great to
make sure that the Romans don'tconquer us.
Why don't we divide?
We can call it divide anddefend.
You know like that would beridiculous.
You know, obviously, that thefamous catchphrase is divide and
(13:49):
conquer, used by the Romans todivide up the Germans.
When you don't coordinate, whenyou don't organize, when you
don't develop structures to yourorganization in order to then
take that organization forwardto achieve change, you're just a
bunch of isolated actors inaggregate and you're not ever
going to have the power toreally achieve change.
You're just a bunch of isolatedactors in aggregate and you're
not ever going to have the powerto really achieve change.
(14:09):
We know that.
We know.
I think the first critical masswas in San Francisco?
I believe no, I probably havethat wrong, but San Francisco
definitely had a very earlycritical mass and it didn't
really have excellent bikeinfrastructure for a very long
time.
I don't know if it does today.
I don't think it's going to becomparing to the Netherlands or
something like that.
These places where you seecritical mass or where I've seen
(14:32):
it or heard of it, you don'tsee a lot of great bike
infrastructure.
You look at, like theNetherlands, you look at other
places that have reallyexcellent bike infrastructure.
Now Paris, for example, theyhave lots of people riding bikes
which they didn't used to seebefore that infrastructure was
put in place.
Jennifer Hiatt (14:49):
So, and speaking of that collective action, in
the book you identify sevenelements of successful past
movements deployed to createpolitical change.
So can you break down how thatmodel moves from the aggregate
to collective process orcollective action?
Grant Ennis (15:04):
People need to organize.
In order to organize, they needto trust each other.
So that's the first thing thatI say, that people really need
to see.
The second thing that needs tohappen is groups need to form.
So people that trust each otherform these kinds of small,
member-led, self-funded groups.
Those groups fund coalitions.
Those coalitions come togetherin alliances, those alliances
(15:28):
come together in movements andthen those movements have very
subsidies.
And we demand it now, you know,very explicit, very clear, very
(15:51):
concrete In the climate changenow, these kinds of large
demands, while obviously goodthings are not going to lead us
towards anything tangible, it'snot giving us some kind of
immediate way forward.
So then the final seventhelement is political will.
(16:12):
The moment that we can achievethat to use the phrase you used,
stephanie, critical mass ofpolitical will that's when we
really see that change happen.
To kind of put it moreconcretely, I like to just say
that we need to organize anddemand change.
So instead of seven, we couldsay there's two big, high level
items we need to be organizedand we need to be specific in
(16:32):
our political demands.
Jennifer Hiatt (16:35):
I think it's interesting that the core
requirement of that is that wetrust each other, because in
today's society, every actionyou see is meant to diminish
trust, like when you watch avideo on TikTok or whatever you
know.
You hear one side and thenimmediately the next side's like
no, you're a liar, that's notright, this is right.
(16:57):
So how do we push through that,just to get to the trust level?
Grant Ennis (17:02):
I think that's the really big question.
I think in places that are lowdensity and that people don't
walk very much, that people haveto drive to get everywhere,
(17:22):
it's really quite tough dailyand regular basis going to
meetings, getting involved incommunity projects, going to
parties.
More meeting a lot more peoplein conditions that would allow
for friendships to grow.
It's tough.
These kinds of places ruralareas, but even more so suburban
(17:42):
areas fully incentivize peopleto not trust one another, to not
come together.
In those contexts it's reallydifficult.
I think the same recommendationis true, though, even if you're
in a better built environment.
The solution really needs to bemeet more people, interact with
more people, get to know morehuman beings and then, from
(18:03):
there, either allow yourself tobe organized with other people
are pulling you into things, orrope other people into the cause
.
Pull people together to haveregular meetings either around a
certain cause or around acommon concern that you might
have, or just to get togetherand to form a political base to
(18:26):
identify and discuss theseissues, if you want, and then
later take some kind of action.
Stephanie Rouse (18:32):
So I'm wrapping up one of my classes that I
teach here at the University ofNebraska called Community in the
Future, and we basically get inthroughout the course of the
semester into the topic that youjust described of communities
that are spread out, verysuburban, where you're not
interacting with your neighbors,are really poor at creating the
sense of community and you'renot able to bump into your
(18:53):
neighbors as you're walking toget groceries or just wandering
around your neighborhood, thatyou're kind of isolated in your
vehicle and so there's lessopportunity to build those
connections.
And then in the book you pointout that this is a problem
that's little known but has beendocumented for quite a while
(19:21):
now.
Grant Ennis (19:21):
Why do you think that is called the Big Myth?
She'd previously written a bookcalled Merchants of Doubt,
which is very good, veryimportant book, but her new book
, the Big Myth the full title isthe Big Myth how American
Business Taught Us to LoatheGovernment and Love the Free
Market.
Documents how industry effortsover the last, say, 150 years
(19:44):
have worked to promote the ideathat private business is better
for us than a strong government,that libertarian, neoliberal,
right-wing values libertarianismespecially are core to American
identity.
And one of the ways that theydid that was by financing a
(20:06):
television show called LittleHouse on the Prairie, which some
of you may know.
Maybe younger people might notknow about.
It's a show, as the titledescribes, about a family living
alone in a house on a prairie,but the key word is really like
alone and with the prairiearound them, so very low density
(20:28):
.
This is a family that doesn'tneed to call the plumber, it
doesn't need to call anelectrician, they don't need to
buy anything to really get by.
They can grow all their ownfood, they can completely engage
society without the governmentexisting to help them.
And this show, this Little Houseon the Prairie, and other
(20:48):
concurrent efforts that weregoing on in the same time built
up this idea that low densityhousing is good.
I mean, I'm now extending onthe book's arguments, but it
definitely made this seem as agood thing.
So industry used this kind ofwhat I would call post-denialist
framing to show low densityliving as really healthy and
(21:09):
happy.
I don't know to what extent itwas invented by industry, but
I'm sure it was amplified by it.
The idea of the American dreamof being the low density house,
the low density neighborhood,the single family home with the
white picket fence, later withthe car, of course, I think in
this kind of context car, ofcourse, I think in this kind of
(21:32):
context where low density living, the single family, one story
home, is being promoted as thisfantastic, wholesome thing, it's
really hard to identify it andfight back against it as
something that could be aproblem, let alone even
understand that we don't have achoice.
Like the entire time LittleHouse on the Prairie was
happening, zoning codes werebeing written around the United
(21:54):
States and in other countriesIreland, canada, australia, new
Zealand.
They don't always call itzoning codes, but effectively it
acts like zoning codes aroundthe world.
These kinds of policies werebeing put in place which
basically made it so.
The single family home is theonly way to live.
It's illegal, for example, inthe United States, most cities
in the United States, over 70%of land.
(22:16):
It's illegal to build anapartment there.
And so I think, because zoningcodes are so opaque and
difficult to understand thateven many planners don't really
get them, and because singlefamily zoning and single family
homes have been promoted in themedia as some kind of wonderful,
wholesome thing, it's quitedifficult to identify that
(22:38):
they're a problem and then,secondly, to fight back against
it.
Jennifer Hiatt (22:42):
I think it's very funny that you bring up
Little House on the Prairie,because Stephanie and I are in
Lincoln, nebraska, and I grew upin the middle of rural Nebraska
.
So, stephanie, I don't know ifyou were forced to read Little
House on the Prairie starting inthe third grade.
Well, we were, so between thirdand fourth grade we read all of
the books and it kind of becamea little passion project for me
.
And it turns out that thosebooks were never the reality in
(23:06):
the first place.
They were written by LauraIngalls Wilder, but they were
actually co-authored andprobably more strongly written
now by her daughter, rose Wilder, who was an independent little
family out on the prairie.
(23:28):
We didn't rely on anyone, nogovernment intervention, which
could not have actually beenfurther from the truth of what
was really happening at thatpoint.
Because if you think about howthe American West was built, it
was on the promise of governmentland that the government was
going to give you land, andthere were so many subsidies
being provided to the farmers togo out and settle that land.
(23:50):
So I think it's veryinteresting that we're basing
this concept of this idyllic wayto live in this single family,
kind of away from everybody, ona myth that never really
actually happened.
How can we un-teach that lesson?
I guess Go back and be like no,you guys are wrong, we're
always wrong.
Grant Ennis (24:10):
Definitely.
I mean it's shocking.
I remember watching that TVshow as a kid and thinking, wow,
it looks so nice.
It sounds like a great way forthis little kid to grow up.
And then reading this book, theBig Myth.
I might be remembering it wrong, but I think you would know
more than me.
But I think that in fact theoriginal drafts of the story
(24:32):
were quite horrific and most ofthose elements were written out,
like the family, many of thechildren died of dysentery or
snake bite or something, but allof that was written out to
create this idyllic house on aprairie experience.
Is that right?
Jennifer Hiatt (24:45):
Yes, so the oldest daughter went blind from
dysentery and it's touched on.
But then she's a heroiccharacter that's built through
that adversity right, like theydidn't need a doctor, they
didn't whatever.
And so there are a lot ofstories that were cut out of
what it was actually like tolive on a prairie farm at the
time, so they're not evensharing the reality of it.
(25:07):
It's very interesting.
Grant Ennis (25:08):
Shocking.
Stephanie Rouse (25:09):
So a lot of your book is making the case
that this is an issue andpointing out all of the
different myths that go behinddark PR.
And then you, at the end of thebook, give some recommendations
for readers to check out ofwhat to do next and how to fight
back on this issue.
And our last question is alwayswhat you would recommend for
our listeners.
So, whether it's books fromthat list for taking the next
(25:30):
steps to combat dark PR or whatother books have you found
helpful that our listenersshould check out?
Grant Ennis (25:37):
So one of the books that I recommended at the end
of the dark PR I would stronglyrecommend to anybody interested
in organizing.
It's called no ShortcutsOrganizing for Power in the New
Gilded Age by Jane McAlveyExcellent, excellent book.
She covers the ways that weneed to get together and
organize.
It's mainly focused on unionorganizing but it covers a
(25:59):
really broad discussion aboutorganizing principles and the
way that large scale change canreally happen.
A follow up that I didn'trecommend in the books I hadn't
read it yet was If we Burn byVincent Bevins, and similarly it
talks about organizing but itlooks at the last, I think, 15
years of global social movementsand it looks at how many of
(26:23):
them have been organized inusing the term he calls
horizontally.
So rather than having ahierarchy, they follow this kind
of like libertarian, anarchistprinciple of we don't need to
have any leaders, we can be kindof leaderless networked groups,
and he shows how over the last15 years all these social
(26:45):
movements that engaged in thatmethod really failed and the
organizers themselvesacknowledged like if we were to
do this again, we would organizemore vertically, having clearer
hierarchies.
The last book I would recommendreally strongly is the one I
mentioned before Naomi Watts'book the Big Myth.
It really changed my thinkingon the effort by the business
(27:06):
community around the world toinfluence the way that we think
about business and the way thatwe think about business's role
in guiding our lives, and in theway that subsequently, we
believe that we don't needgovernment to do anything.
Stephanie Rouse (27:21):
All right, well , grant, thank you so much for
joining us on Booked on Planningto talk about your book Dark PR
how Corporate DisinformationUndermines Our Health and the
Environment.
Grant Ennis (27:31):
Thanks for having me, stephanie.
Thanks Jennifer.
Jennifer Hiatt (27:35):
We hope you enjoyed this conversation with
Grant Ennis on his book Dark PRhow Corporate Disinformation
Undermines Our Health and theEnvironment.
You can get your own copythrough the publisher or click
the link in the show notes totake you directly to our
affiliate page.
Remember to subscribe to theshow wherever you listen to
podcasts, and please rate,review and share the show.
Thank you.
you're listening to the booked on
planning podcast, a project ofthe nebraska chapter of the
american planning association.
In each episode we dive intohow cities function by talking
with authors on housing,transportation and everything in
between.
Join us as we get Booked onPlanning.
(00:36):
Welcome back, bookworms, toanother episode of Booked on
Planning.
In this episode we talk withGrant Ennis about his book Dark
PR (00:46):
How Corporate Disinformation Undermines Our Health and the
Environment.
This book was an eye-openingread into the tricks and
smokescreens put in place bycompanies that trickle down and
impact how planners are able tocreate thriving communities.
Jennifer Hiatt (00:55):
Yes, it certainly was eye-opening, and
once you learn about thesedifferent frames, you can't stop
seeing them in everyday life.
Unsurprisingly, corporationsreally know how to use these
frames to distract the generalpublic from advocating for real
change, and it's pretty amazinghow effective they are.
Stephanie Rouse (01:10):
Grant shows the nine devious frames through
three areas transportationissues, diabetes and climate
change.
In each of these areas, hemakes the argument that starting
at the bottom, picking away atsmall changes or individually
working towards change, is noteffective.
We need to work together and gofor changing policy at the top
level.
This may seem like more work,with many individuals working
(01:30):
together.
It has more potential thanindividuals changing their own
habits.
Jennifer Hiatt (01:34):
Just like anything, though right, we have
to come together to let ourgovernments know that we are no
longer okay subsidizingcorporate activities that
actually hurt us.
So let's get into ourconversation with author Grant
Ennis on his book Dark PR howCorporate Disinformation
Undermines Our Health andEnvironment.
Grant, welcome to the Booked onPlanning podcast.
We're happy to have you on totalk about your book, dark PR
(01:57):
how Corporate DisinformationUndermines Our Health and the
Environment.
Grant Ennis (02:01):
Thank, you very much for having me, Jennifer.
Very good to be here with you.
Health and the environment.
Jennifer Hiatt (02:04):
Thank you very much for having me, jennifer.
Very good to be here with you.
You start out your book bylaying out the nine devious
frames that corporations use todistract the general public.
Can you start by explainingwhat a frame is in this context
and how that impacts politicalaction or, ultimately, inaction,
potentially?
Grant Ennis (02:19):
Corporations use framing and frames in order to
shape our discourse and the waywe talk about things.
So a very famous example ofthat could be like pro-choice or
pro-life, accident versus crashor collision, climate change or
global warming or any number ofdifferent kind of ways of
talking about a given issue.
So corporations will focus,group and actually get people to
(02:44):
discuss and talk about thesekinds of different ways of
presenting information andnarratives and then see which
ways of talking about thingslead to less or more political
support for what they want ordon't want, which allows them
and enables them to influenceour politics.
Because if they can influencepeople the voters, the
(03:06):
constituents to be lesssupportive and more supportive,
that's going to shape then whatpoliticians do in turn.
Stephanie Rouse (03:12):
So your first three set of frames are the big
lies denialism, post-denialismand normalization.
While reading these, itreminded me of the Vision Zero
movement, especially because oneof the three example issues is
road safety.
Under normalization, you note,the big lie is the
transportation field framingroad deaths as accidents, which
you just mentioned, and thislanguage is shifting, with the
(03:34):
Vision Zero movement and thecampaigns calling out this as
being a misframing of the issueand instead using the term
crashes.
Do you see this as a step inthe right direction or are we
still missing the mark?
Grant Ennis (03:50):
I think it's a great step in the term crashes.
Do you see this as a step inthe right direction or are we
still missing the mark?
I think it's a great step inthe right direction.
It's probably one of the bestexamples we have, not just in
planning and in road safety andin looking at cars, but across
all different kinds of areas.
It's probably the best examplewe have of an activist movement
really shaping the narrative.
For the most part, the wordaccident is disappearing from
the way that people that work inthis space talk about crashes
because we now call them crashes.
(04:10):
We know from research frompeople like Peter Norton that
the word accident was somethingthat was introduced into the way
we talk about crashes in theearly 1900s by the automobile
industry.
At the time people were callingthem motor murderers and all of
these other kind of reallyextreme names for crashes, and
the automobile industry workedwith newspapers around the
(04:31):
country to get people to callthem accidents to make them
normalized.
We've seen that when people usethe word accident rather than
crash, people are less likely tobe politically involved.
So the campaign to get peopleto stop saying accident, to
start saying crash more oftenhas really been very successful.
I know many people still callthem accidents, of course, but
(04:53):
we've done a really reallypretty good job in this
community of changing ourlanguage and, yeah, I think it
is a really good step in theright direction.
Jennifer Hiatt (05:00):
The second set of frames you discuss you label
as the panacea frames silverboomerangs, magic and the
treatment trap.
These are all somewhat moresolutions-oriented frames that
are supposed to make people feellike we can do both.
We can both advocate for changeand cure diabetes.
But you point out thatpolitical will is a zero-sum
(05:21):
game and we can't normally justdo both.
So can you explain what theseframes are and how they limit
our ability to impact thepolitical change?
Grant Ennis (05:29):
Yeah.
So take, for example,autonomous cars versus reducing
subsidies for driving.
Many people don't know, but wesubsidize driving to an enormous
extent.
I don't have the numbers infront of me right now, but it
sometimes reaches up to like 50%of the cost of driving is
subsidized by government.
And if you're thinking, how dowe influence policies to end
(05:52):
those driving subsidies, how dowe get government to stop doing
that?
Well, we need an organizedpolitical movement and we need
that movement to really focus onthat change that we want to see
.
We need that movement to reallyfocus on that change that we
want to see.
Now, if the automobile industryor the road lobby recognized
that, what they would then do istry to undermine that right.
(06:12):
They wouldn't want thispolitical movement to be
undercutting their businessmodel so they might introduce
some kind of magical frame solike don't worry about subsidies
for driving, we can make it sothat driving won't be a problem,
you know it won't kill as manypeople because we're going to
introduce autonomous cars, youknow.
So autonomous cars would belike the, what I would call the
(06:34):
magic framing for reducing roaddeath, and the automobile
industry would really, reallypromote it in order to undermine
an effort to reduce thosedriving subsidies.
Now you might have somebody saywell, why can't we do both?
When you have framing, when youhave politics, you have a
situation where the decision iszero sum You're either going to
(06:55):
reduce those driving subsidiesor you're not.
And so if you introduceautonomous cars into the
discourse, it means you're goingto be demanding action to
reduce those driving subsidiesless.
That's what we see from framingresearch.
So anytime you hear we can justdo both, what that's going to
lead to is less of what you want, less of what's actually really
(07:18):
important.
Jennifer Hiatt (07:20):
So I finished this book about a month and a
half ago and once you read itand you've laid it out so
clearly, it's so hard to be ableto look past the panacea frames
.
Now, Every time somebody startstalking about politics, you can
identify it immediately.
You're like oh, I see what youwere talking about, Grant.
Grant Ennis (07:40):
Yeah, it's very hard to unsee this stuff,
absolutely.
Stephanie Rouse (07:44):
So, speaking of organized political movements,
planners often struggle withpositive change, like Complete
Streets campaigns, because wejust lack the public support,
and it's pretty limited.
How can we combat the dark PRthat's behind much of this
pushback by road lobbyists toshed light on the true issues
and the need for change?
Grant Ennis (08:01):
In order to respond to all of this framing, all
this effort by industry toundercut our efforts for
complete streets or otherefforts, I think we need to do
more to reduce the propagandaout of industry.
I think we need to reduce theamount that these kinds of
narratives are being amplified,and part of that is that right
(08:21):
now we have a lot of stuff legalthat shouldn't be legal.
We have a lot of kind of stufflegal that shouldn't be legal.
We have a lot of kind oflobbying that just shouldn't be
legal.
But we also subsidize thislobbying and we subsidize this
propaganda.
So all of the billboards fromthe automobile industry that are
all around the United Statesand other countries, those are
subsidized, those are beingwritten off as operational
(08:44):
expenses and they're taxdeductible.
It shouldn't be tax deductiblefor people to do PR campaigns
against the public health of,like, the American people or
people in any country.
It's incrediblycounterintuitive and unjust and
just wrong upstream and reallydo more to regulate what is
effectively lobbying, likeindirect lobbying through the
(09:08):
constituency.
We shouldn't allow forpropaganda just to be out there
like that.
Secondly, I think we can do alot more to focus our efforts.
We can focus a lot more ondriving.
I think we focus a lot on cars,but if cars just existed as
something that people drove inraces or something and nothing
(09:29):
more, we wouldn't really have aproblem with it.
The problem is really driving.
Todd Littman, who's up inVancouver, does a really good I
believe he's in Vancouver does areally great job of talking
about vehicle miles traveled orvehicle kilometers traveled
quite a lot and I think we cando a lot more to focus on the
incentives for vehiclekilometers traveled.
And the people that are workingto prevent highway construction
(09:50):
around the world preventinghigh-speed road construction I
think are really doing a greatjob of that.
What is the name of theorganization?
I believe it's the FreewayFighters Network, but there's a
couple of really goodorganizations that are doing
great work to really focus onthe things that will work very
well to achieve change, and Ithink we need to see more of
that.
Jennifer Hiatt (10:09):
One of your examples of shifting the blame
from corporations to individualswas the Keep America Beautiful
campaign.
Obviously, I was very familiarwith the Keep America Beautiful
campaign, but I actually did nothave any idea that that media
campaign was originally financedby some of our biggest single
serving package producers.
And this is just one way thatPR can spin a story, shifting
(10:30):
blame from corporations toindividuals.
And we see it all the time.
You're supposed to be thechange you want to see in the
world, which I'm not saying youshouldn't but that's not really
probably going to fix the rootproblem, as you were talking
about earlier.
We're subsidizing actions thatwe should not be, so why is this
such an effective frame?
Grant Ennis (10:48):
I think that the individualized framing from the
Keep America Beautiful campaignor for the Nut Behind the Wheel
campaign or the carbon footprint, all of these individualized
narratives are probably one ofthe best of the techniques used
by industry to underminepolitical will for meaningful
(11:08):
action.
The lean in the famous lean inthing that we've been telling
women that they need to do.
This narrative has been found,through really good research, to
reduce women's likelihood tofight for political change.
The more we tell women theyjust need to lead in, the less
likely they think we needgovernment action for equality
(11:28):
and the more likely they thinkwomen other women just need to
stand up and speak up louder inmeetings and then, all of a
sudden, we'll have equal pay.
I mean, it's shocking.
And we have the same kinds ofresearch for other issue areas.
We know that the carbonfootprint leads to less support
for political action on climate.
The more people hearindividualized narratives about
(11:52):
road death, the less likely theyare to demand complete streets
or even to think that they'reacceptable.
This framing is excellent andused by almost every industry
for a long time, and it'ssomething we need to do a lot
more to push back on, I think.
Stephanie Rouse (12:08):
Yeah, along those lines.
You say in the book thatcollective action is our ethical
obligation, but that it's notthe same as individual action on
the same issue.
So a bunch of us making thechoice to bike to work rather
than drive isn't actually movingthe needle, and I'd always
thought that, you know, if wecould just get a critical mass
of people cycling to work, thenthat'll raise the issue to our
(12:28):
local governments, who will thenfund more on-street bike
infrastructure and help pushthat forward.
But it's not the case.
Can you expand a little more onwhy individual actions aren't
the way forward?
Grant Ennis (12:41):
Yeah.
So I like to distinguishbetween aggregate action, or
what I call aggregate action,and collective action.
So collective action is whenpeople organize into groups and
then those organized groupsdemand political action.
That's collective action.
It's the idea that groups ofpeople are more than just the
sum of their parts.
Aggregate action is a bitdifferent.
(13:03):
No-transcript.
(13:26):
True.
You imagine a bunch of I don'tknow Germans 2,000 years ago
trying to defend themselvesagainst the Romans and you
imagine they said to themselvesyou know what would be great to
make sure that the Romans don'tconquer us.
Why don't we divide?
We can call it divide anddefend.
You know like that would beridiculous.
You know, obviously, that thefamous catchphrase is divide and
(13:49):
conquer, used by the Romans todivide up the Germans.
When you don't coordinate, whenyou don't organize, when you
don't develop structures to yourorganization in order to then
take that organization forwardto achieve change, you're just a
bunch of isolated actors inaggregate and you're not ever
going to have the power toreally achieve change.
You're just a bunch of isolatedactors in aggregate and you're
not ever going to have the powerto really achieve change.
(14:09):
We know that.
We know.
I think the first critical masswas in San Francisco?
I believe no, I probably havethat wrong, but San Francisco
definitely had a very earlycritical mass and it didn't
really have excellent bikeinfrastructure for a very long
time.
I don't know if it does today.
I don't think it's going to becomparing to the Netherlands or
something like that.
These places where you seecritical mass or where I've seen
(14:32):
it or heard of it, you don'tsee a lot of great bike
infrastructure.
You look at, like theNetherlands, you look at other
places that have reallyexcellent bike infrastructure.
Now Paris, for example, theyhave lots of people riding bikes
which they didn't used to seebefore that infrastructure was
put in place.
Jennifer Hiatt (14:49):
So, and speaking of that collective action, in
the book you identify sevenelements of successful past
movements deployed to createpolitical change.
So can you break down how thatmodel moves from the aggregate
to collective process orcollective action?
Grant Ennis (15:04):
People need to organize.
In order to organize, they needto trust each other.
So that's the first thing thatI say, that people really need
to see.
The second thing that needs tohappen is groups need to form.
So people that trust each otherform these kinds of small,
member-led, self-funded groups.
Those groups fund coalitions.
Those coalitions come togetherin alliances, those alliances
(15:28):
come together in movements andthen those movements have very
subsidies.
And we demand it now, you know,very explicit, very clear, very
(15:51):
concrete In the climate changenow, these kinds of large
demands, while obviously goodthings are not going to lead us
towards anything tangible, it'snot giving us some kind of
immediate way forward.
So then the final seventhelement is political will.
(16:12):
The moment that we can achievethat to use the phrase you used,
stephanie, critical mass ofpolitical will that's when we
really see that change happen.
To kind of put it moreconcretely, I like to just say
that we need to organize anddemand change.
So instead of seven, we couldsay there's two big, high level
items we need to be organizedand we need to be specific in
(16:32):
our political demands.
Jennifer Hiatt (16:35):
I think it's interesting that the core
requirement of that is that wetrust each other, because in
today's society, every actionyou see is meant to diminish
trust, like when you watch avideo on TikTok or whatever you
know.
You hear one side and thenimmediately the next side's like
no, you're a liar, that's notright, this is right.
(16:57):
So how do we push through that,just to get to the trust level?
Grant Ennis (17:02):
I think that's the really big question.
I think in places that are lowdensity and that people don't
walk very much, that people haveto drive to get everywhere,
(17:22):
it's really quite tough dailyand regular basis going to
meetings, getting involved incommunity projects, going to
parties.
More meeting a lot more peoplein conditions that would allow
for friendships to grow.
It's tough.
These kinds of places ruralareas, but even more so suburban
(17:42):
areas fully incentivize peopleto not trust one another, to not
come together.
In those contexts it's reallydifficult.
I think the same recommendationis true, though, even if you're
in a better built environment.
The solution really needs to bemeet more people, interact with
more people, get to know morehuman beings and then, from
(18:03):
there, either allow yourself tobe organized with other people
are pulling you into things, orrope other people into the cause
.
Pull people together to haveregular meetings either around a
certain cause or around acommon concern that you might
have, or just to get togetherand to form a political base to
(18:26):
identify and discuss theseissues, if you want, and then
later take some kind of action.
Stephanie Rouse (18:32):
So I'm wrapping up one of my classes that I
teach here at the University ofNebraska called Community in the
Future, and we basically get inthroughout the course of the
semester into the topic that youjust described of communities
that are spread out, verysuburban, where you're not
interacting with your neighbors,are really poor at creating the
sense of community and you'renot able to bump into your
(18:53):
neighbors as you're walking toget groceries or just wandering
around your neighborhood, thatyou're kind of isolated in your
vehicle and so there's lessopportunity to build those
connections.
And then in the book you pointout that this is a problem
that's little known but has beendocumented for quite a while
(19:21):
now.
Grant Ennis (19:21):
Why do you think that is called the Big Myth?
She'd previously written a bookcalled Merchants of Doubt,
which is very good, veryimportant book, but her new book
, the Big Myth the full title isthe Big Myth how American
Business Taught Us to LoatheGovernment and Love the Free
Market.
Documents how industry effortsover the last, say, 150 years
(19:44):
have worked to promote the ideathat private business is better
for us than a strong government,that libertarian, neoliberal,
right-wing values libertarianismespecially are core to American
identity.
And one of the ways that theydid that was by financing a
(20:06):
television show called LittleHouse on the Prairie, which some
of you may know.
Maybe younger people might notknow about.
It's a show, as the titledescribes, about a family living
alone in a house on a prairie,but the key word is really like
alone and with the prairiearound them, so very low density
(20:28):
.
This is a family that doesn'tneed to call the plumber, it
doesn't need to call anelectrician, they don't need to
buy anything to really get by.
They can grow all their ownfood, they can completely engage
society without the governmentexisting to help them.
And this show, this Little Houseon the Prairie, and other
(20:48):
concurrent efforts that weregoing on in the same time built
up this idea that low densityhousing is good.
I mean, I'm now extending onthe book's arguments, but it
definitely made this seem as agood thing.
So industry used this kind ofwhat I would call post-denialist
framing to show low densityliving as really healthy and
(21:09):
happy.
I don't know to what extent itwas invented by industry, but
I'm sure it was amplified by it.
The idea of the American dreamof being the low density house,
the low density neighborhood,the single family home with the
white picket fence, later withthe car, of course, I think in
this kind of context car, ofcourse, I think in this kind of
(21:32):
context where low density living, the single family, one story
home, is being promoted as thisfantastic, wholesome thing, it's
really hard to identify it andfight back against it as
something that could be aproblem, let alone even
understand that we don't have achoice.
Like the entire time LittleHouse on the Prairie was
happening, zoning codes werebeing written around the United
(21:54):
States and in other countriesIreland, canada, australia, new
Zealand.
They don't always call itzoning codes, but effectively it
acts like zoning codes aroundthe world.
These kinds of policies werebeing put in place which
basically made it so.
The single family home is theonly way to live.
It's illegal, for example, inthe United States, most cities
in the United States, over 70%of land.
(22:16):
It's illegal to build anapartment there.
And so I think, because zoningcodes are so opaque and
difficult to understand thateven many planners don't really
get them, and because singlefamily zoning and single family
homes have been promoted in themedia as some kind of wonderful,
wholesome thing, it's quitedifficult to identify that
(22:38):
they're a problem and then,secondly, to fight back against
it.
Jennifer Hiatt (22:42):
I think it's very funny that you bring up
Little House on the Prairie,because Stephanie and I are in
Lincoln, nebraska, and I grew upin the middle of rural Nebraska
.
So, stephanie, I don't know ifyou were forced to read Little
House on the Prairie starting inthe third grade.
Well, we were, so between thirdand fourth grade we read all of
the books and it kind of becamea little passion project for me
.
And it turns out that thosebooks were never the reality in
(23:06):
the first place.
They were written by LauraIngalls Wilder, but they were
actually co-authored andprobably more strongly written
now by her daughter, rose Wilder, who was an independent little
family out on the prairie.
(23:28):
We didn't rely on anyone, nogovernment intervention, which
could not have actually beenfurther from the truth of what
was really happening at thatpoint.
Because if you think about howthe American West was built, it
was on the promise of governmentland that the government was
going to give you land, andthere were so many subsidies
being provided to the farmers togo out and settle that land.
(23:50):
So I think it's veryinteresting that we're basing
this concept of this idyllic wayto live in this single family,
kind of away from everybody, ona myth that never really
actually happened.
How can we un-teach that lesson?
I guess Go back and be like no,you guys are wrong, we're
always wrong.
Grant Ennis (24:10):
Definitely.
I mean it's shocking.
I remember watching that TVshow as a kid and thinking, wow,
it looks so nice.
It sounds like a great way forthis little kid to grow up.
And then reading this book, theBig Myth.
I might be remembering it wrong, but I think you would know
more than me.
But I think that in fact theoriginal drafts of the story
(24:32):
were quite horrific and most ofthose elements were written out,
like the family, many of thechildren died of dysentery or
snake bite or something, but allof that was written out to
create this idyllic house on aprairie experience.
Is that right?
Jennifer Hiatt (24:45):
Yes, so the oldest daughter went blind from
dysentery and it's touched on.
But then she's a heroiccharacter that's built through
that adversity right, like theydidn't need a doctor, they
didn't whatever.
And so there are a lot ofstories that were cut out of
what it was actually like tolive on a prairie farm at the
time, so they're not evensharing the reality of it.
(25:07):
It's very interesting.
Grant Ennis (25:08):
Shocking.
Stephanie Rouse (25:09):
So a lot of your book is making the case
that this is an issue andpointing out all of the
different myths that go behinddark PR.
And then you, at the end of thebook, give some recommendations
for readers to check out ofwhat to do next and how to fight
back on this issue.
And our last question is alwayswhat you would recommend for
our listeners.
So, whether it's books fromthat list for taking the next
(25:30):
steps to combat dark PR or whatother books have you found
helpful that our listenersshould check out?
Grant Ennis (25:37):
So one of the books that I recommended at the end
of the dark PR I would stronglyrecommend to anybody interested
in organizing.
It's called no ShortcutsOrganizing for Power in the New
Gilded Age by Jane McAlveyExcellent, excellent book.
She covers the ways that weneed to get together and
organize.
It's mainly focused on unionorganizing but it covers a
(25:59):
really broad discussion aboutorganizing principles and the
way that large scale change canreally happen.
A follow up that I didn'trecommend in the books I hadn't
read it yet was If we Burn byVincent Bevins, and similarly it
talks about organizing but itlooks at the last, I think, 15
years of global social movementsand it looks at how many of
(26:23):
them have been organized inusing the term he calls
horizontally.
So rather than having ahierarchy, they follow this kind
of like libertarian, anarchistprinciple of we don't need to
have any leaders, we can be kindof leaderless networked groups,
and he shows how over the last15 years all these social
(26:45):
movements that engaged in thatmethod really failed and the
organizers themselvesacknowledged like if we were to
do this again, we would organizemore vertically, having clearer
hierarchies.
The last book I would recommendreally strongly is the one I
mentioned before Naomi Watts'book the Big Myth.
It really changed my thinkingon the effort by the business
(27:06):
community around the world toinfluence the way that we think
about business and the way thatwe think about business's role
in guiding our lives, and in theway that subsequently, we
believe that we don't needgovernment to do anything.
Stephanie Rouse (27:21):
All right, well , grant, thank you so much for
joining us on Booked on Planningto talk about your book Dark PR
how Corporate DisinformationUndermines Our Health and the
Environment.
Grant Ennis (27:31):
Thanks for having me, stephanie.
Thanks Jennifer.
Jennifer Hiatt (27:35):
We hope you enjoyed this conversation with
Grant Ennis on his book Dark PRhow Corporate Disinformation
Undermines Our Health and theEnvironment.
You can get your own copythrough the publisher or click
the link in the show notes totake you directly to our
affiliate page.
Remember to subscribe to theshow wherever you listen to
podcasts, and please rate,review and share the show.
Thank you.
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History is beautiful, brutal and, often, ridiculous. Join Ben Bowlin and Noel Brown as they dive into some of the weirdest stories from across the span of human civilization in Ridiculous History, a podcast by iHeartRadio.