The Politics of Meaning | Be Careful 'What & How' You Say Things

The Politics of Meaning

Be Careful 'What & How' You Say Things

We all know that there’s PR speak. It is not used exclusively by PR practitioners, but by people over the world attempt to maximise the oversell of their statements, or worse still, to minimise the impact of a negative scenario. But, our audiences are wising up, and that PR speak will no longer solve the problem the way it used to. People read between the lines, and we as professionals have to stop taking our audiences for granted that they will accept our modified, “aligned” version of facts.

Words are political. By that, I mean, each and every word chosen in a dialogue or prose has a political slant – they take on a select and specific meaning in the context they are used, and are chosen to enhance or water-down the statement being made. They include, just as they exclude; and they embrace, just as they show disinterest. 

The “Politics of Meaning” is a workshop I used to teach to graduate students at the University of Auckland in the mid to late 90’s. It was about understanding words in their various perspectives – the obvious meanings, the hidden meanings, and the construed and constructed meanings that both authors and audiences take on them. It also includes the emotionality of words – the situation when we choose certain words to evoke emotion from a receptive audience, and use that emotion to sway their thinking. 

The problem here, as society and language develop, and with thanks to social media disseminating information so much faster on the time-space continuum than ever before, our audiences are beginning to see through the façade of PR speak, and realise the real meaning of the words being used – the terms “cover-up” or “whitewash” come to mind.

We regularly see many examples of this. I won’t touch specifically on investment reports or the actions of some of those “voted” into a position of trust – there are a few PhD dissertations in there alone; I will instead touch on a suitable example – courtesy of a well-known bread and cake chain from Singapore.

You may remember the “misaligned presentation” of soy milk impacting a popular brand in Singapore (with considerable presence in Malaysia too). This brand took a competitors product, repackaged it to appear as their own, and once called out for the practice, then tried to defend its position via both social and traditional media. In fact, the chain did well to respond to the issue quickly, and to effectively control it from getting too far out of hand. But the choice of words “misaligned presentation” is insincere PR speak, and as such, does little to reinforce their position or to reassure customers. 

Here, the choice of words – slightly bombastic – in their delivery to the audience – may come back to bite them. We as professionals know what it really means – but so do our tech-savvy customers who see it as a bit of a slap on the face. Better terminology would have been to have admitted making the mistake; instead they chose to try and put it on the customer for not fully understanding. 

Misaligned presentation is their fault – they packaged it wrongly, and did nothing to explain the reality. In using misaligned presentation, it suggests that the customer misunderstood the situation – but hey, the onus is not on the customer to question every product that is clearly labelled; it is on the organisation responsible to clearly spell out to the customer when something is not as it is presented. Misaligned also implies potentially by accident – we know this was not the case. They claim the empty bottles were left over stock to clear – no issue to make use of them – ethical presentation would have been to get a marker pen and cross out the offending “misaligned” words, and be sure to let the customer know when they hit the checkout.

Closer to home, and just last week, a partial building collapse in Kuala Lumpur had the developer writing the following as their official statement via social media: " We note your concern on the [collapse] … we acknowledge of the occurance of the incident … We will spare no effort in ensuring our obligations under the SPA are fulfilled … have our assurance on that". Ignoring the poor English, the tone of the communication was flatter than the building portion that collapsed, and done in such a monotone style as to come across as cursory and perfunctory - absolutely no emotion or concern involved. I may add that no mention of the staff members trapped, and/or potentially injured was made, despite media highlighting this way prior to the developers communique. All up, the meaning conveyed was one of arms length interest, "just another industrial accident", and no genuine empathy for any stakeholder involved, least the injured staff. Trying to sound cool, calm, and collected, in fact backfired, as they come across callous and unconcerned. Perception, not words, is everything; and the perception provided was not a positive one. 

So my point is – in dealing with the aftermath of an issue with the public, don’t try to outsmart your audience with big words or PR speak – be humble, down to earth, and admit the mistake. People appreciate honesty far more than being subtly told that they contributed to the misunderstanding (which really, is plainly a form of deceit), or that an investigation will happen in due course.

The question now – how do brands recover? 

For the soy, some speculate that their response, reasonably swift as it may have been, is not quite enough. But, in my opinion, it will die down, and the brand in the medium to long term (anything past a month) will not be adversely affected. Customers have been going to this chain for years because of their core products, and I don’t think such an incident will affect this. It may, however, affect the consumption of beverages. The best solution; perhaps remove the particular beverage from the shelves, so as not to remind customers of this bump in the road.

For the developer; it may be a harder road to recovery. With human lives being involved, the stakes have been upped, and the internet, and their detractors, have a long memory. We shall see what unfolds in the coming weeks ….

Simply, be careful with your tone and your words!