Persuasion and Power: The Art of Strategic Communication.

• Author: O'Hollaren, Ryan
• Position: Book review

Persuasion and Power, The Art of Strategic Communication

James P. Farwell

Georgetown University Press

2012, 304 pages, $27

Farwell approaches the topic of strategic communication from many angles, historically chronicling tactics and stratagems from author to recipient, and analyzing the concepts and policies that helped shape some of the best, and worst, communications in history. Persuasion and Power addresses the "art of strategic communication" by examining its elements and principles through historical anecdotes.

STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION

The book begins by outlining the different forms of strategic communication, carefully detailing the subtle differences between psychological operations, propaganda, public affairs, and public diplomacy. Farwell is careful to note the large grey areas that have always existed between these designations, for both public figures and countries. The author uses historical examples that highlight relevant scenarios in recent history and the tactics individuals and states employ to influence and manipulate (a key term Farwell uses throughout the book) the opinions and attitudes of others. Examples from Liberia, the Korean war, Iraq, and the U.S. Congress bring color to the vague Pentagon doctrines that set standards for U.S. public communications.

Farwell cites Abu Ghraib prison and the consequent communications between the Bush administration and the media as a carefully shaped, thoughtfully articulated message aimed at minimizing damage done to U.S. credibility. In press conferences and official statements from the White House, the campaign theme quickly and drastically evolved into "the U.S. army is committed to ensuring all soldiers live up to the army values and the laws of land warfare regardless of the environment or circumstance." The official purpose was to "inform and educate our internal and external audiences," but as Farwell insists, the real purpose was to influence and expedite the diffusion of the controversy entirely. Farwell also notes that Donald Rumsfeld's assistant secretary of public affairs castigated editorial writers who suggested that Abu Ghraib was more than a rare and tragic aberration of U.S. moral standing, The inconsistency between "informing" and "influencing" is a common motif in the first section of the book, and the subject is developed more fully in later sections.

WORDS, IMAGES, AND DEEDS

The second part of the book focuses on the words and specific rhetoric that has...