THE SPECTACLE OF ANALYSIS: ANALYTICS AS ORGANIZATIONAL PROPAGANDA

Variously situated at points between rigor and relevance, analysts attempt to convince decision-makers that analytic insights should form the basis of organizational understanding and subsequent action. At its best, analysis informs ignorance. At its worst, analysis justifies and perpetuates a given...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inEtc. Vol. 73; no. 4; pp. 355 - 371
Main Author Jackson, Ross
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Concord Institute of General Semantics, Inc 01.10.2016
Institute of General Semantics
Subjects
Analysis
Associations, institutions, etc
Audiences
Data analysis
Decision making
Insight
Methods
Ontology
Organizations
Political aspects
Pragmatics
Propaganda
Public relations
Semantics
Semiotics
Social construction
Social psychology
Truth
United States
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Summary:Variously situated at points between rigor and relevance, analysts attempt to convince decision-makers that analytic insights should form the basis of organizational understanding and subsequent action. At its best, analysis informs ignorance. At its worst, analysis justifies and perpetuates a given regime of truth of those in power. In this basest application, analysis devolves into an activity through which organizations establish only those subsets of facts that support management's preconceived notions or desired outcomes. Through the process, analysis can come to function as a form of organizational propaganda (OP). In this context, the target audience envisioned by those responsible for its creation distinguishes OP from public relations. For the purpose of this study, documents of public relations are those created for external consumption and OP is those documents created for audiences internal to the organization. Not much of value comes from questioning if analysis can be appropriated for purposes of OP. Given the spectacle of our times, the answer is clear--it can.
ISSN:0014-164X
2168-9245