Hi again Andrzej,
: Yes, it's on http://www.ras.org.uk/press/pn02-06.htm and this is IMO : absolutely OK (whoever stands behind RAS). This is IMHO *not* making : propaganda - I'm sure that there are members of RAS among those 27 people : listed in the masthead of the MNRAS article so RAS has a right to "be : proud" of them and their publication in RAS's own journal and so RAS has a : right to issue a press release on *their* website. By the same token we : we have a right prepare press releases on ours.
I agree that it's more or less OK and that the RAS certainly has a right to publicise the results from MNRAS articles.
However, although they do not *state* that they have the first non-SNe-Ia evidence for a non-zero cosmo constant, their omission of any reference to totally independent results, such as our own, but also others (e.g. weak grav lensing), makes it easy for the non-expert (and/or non-alert) reader to falsely conclude that it *is* the first.
Instead of:
... and many have been reluctant to accept the results of the supernovae teams.
Now, a team of 27 astronomers led by Professor George Efstathiou of the University of Cambridge has published strong evidence for the existence of dark energy using an entirely different technique. They used the clustering...
there should have been something like
< ... and many < have been reluctant to accept the < results of the supernovae teams. < < However, several teams from around the world < have published strong evidence for the < existence of dark energy using entirely different techniques. < < One of these is a team of 27 astronomers led by < Professor George Efstathiou of the < University of Cambridge. They used the clustering...
Wouldn't this have been more honest?
: This is IMHO *not* making : propaganda
Edward Bernays is to the public relations industry something like what Einstein, de Sitter, Friedmann, Lemaitre, et al are to modern cosmology. Bernays' basic 1928 book on the subject was called "Propaganda".
http://www.authentic-breathing.com/propaganda_in_a_democracy.htm
When Edward Bernays, proclaimed by many as the father of public relations, published his book Propaganda in 1928, few people realized the far reaching influence that the new discipline of public relations would have on society. Propaganda, Bernays claims, is not something pernicious that one government or group inflicts on another, but is rather an integral part of democracy itself.
...
Of course, one could easily say that we in the west are better off than people living in communist countries or under dictatorships, because their propaganda is far more rigid and insidious than our own. This argument is a misleading one, however, for the simple reason that their propaganda is more visible and easier to perceive than our own. By its very nature, a democratic society offers so many choices to its citizens that we would have neither the time nor the energy to narrow them down without a whole industry of communications professionals dedicated to just that. Our propagandists do not use rope, barbed wire, mental hospitals, and the militia to make their point; no-they use the latest communication techniques disseminated through the print and electronic media in the guise of ?giving us what we really want.?
What is truly pernicious about much of the propaganda that surrounds us in the west is the very ?reasonableness? of it-the way in which we are taught to believe that it somehow represents our real needs. For the goal of a propagandist-no matter what his or her stripe-is to make a sale of some kind by seeking to convince us that they understand our inner or outer needs and goals and are responding to them. In this regard, a newspaper editor or TV anchorman trying to tell the news in a way that will attract readers or watchers is no better or worse than a public relations professional attempting to improve the public?s perception of a company or product.
And here are google's favorite sites on the keywords "advertising propaganda":
http://www.sonic.net/~gic/articles/adv.html
Advertising is propaganda whose purpose is to develop allegiance to a product or corporation instead of a government.
http://members.aol.com/MrDonnUnits/Propaganda.html
The word propaganda refers to any technique that attempts to influence the opinions, emotions, attitudes, or behavior of a group, in order to benefit the sponsor. The purpose of propaganda is to persuade. That pretty much takes in the entire advertising community, since that is their job.
You had some other comments:
Why spaceflightnow.com reposts RAS PRs? - is a good question.
Ah well, I think that's way beyond the scope of what I have time to study quantitatively. But my guess is that it's related to propaganda/advertising in the West in general:
http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/articles/z9710-mainstream-media.html
Would spaceflightnow.com repost TCfA PRs? - is even a better question. :-)
Well, I don't know about spaceflightnow.com in particular, but since our research work does not directly threaten any large authoritarian corporations or authoritarian governments or democratic governments, except indirectly because it shows that people in a non-US/UK country do good science, I think that if one or more people were willing to spend the time talking to journalists and explaining stuff to them, e.g. via cosmo-media, then there's actually a fairly good chance they would publish stuff.
E.g., you would be most welcome to use cosmo-media to prepare a press release on your young radio galaxy results. You could prepare a draft on the list - and do both po polsku and English versions, but ask journalists to wait until the article is accepted before they use the press release. But it would be a good idea to ask a journalist to work through it with you - and IMHO it would require work... It takes time and thought to explain things to non-astronomers - or even to astronomers ;) ...
One idea for reducing the amount of work and making sure the article is easily understandable - and for getting publicity to people who really *do* want to know what we're doing, who do *not* just want to blindly learn how to repeat words and sentences which are useful for making polite conversation and sounding educated - would be to invite readers of the Usenet group:
http://groups.google.com.pl/groups?hl=pl&group=pl.sci.kosmos
to comment and criticise and draft versions of the press release.
A question to be debated would be whether we want Usenet readers to subscribe and/or post to cosmo-media or to keep the discussion to pl.sci.kosmos. My preference would be the latter.
Cze�� Boud