The discussion revolving around the question, “What was (were) the most notable PR/marketing social media trend(s) or event(s) in 2006 and why?” is worth a comment, though I know I’m several weeks late in giving my non-answer. I don’t have much in the way of PR-speak to say. But in terms of media, trends are long-term.

Dan Greenfield’s comment — that GM’s little spat with Thomas Friedman is the most notable development — was kind of interesting. Greenfield explained it as significant because:

1) It elevates the importance of corporate blogs as a communications platform for PR departments.
2) It demonstrates that corporations are no longer beholden to mainstream media to convey their message.
3) Subsequently, it redefines the power relationship between the media and corporate communications departments.

For quite some time now, journalist organizations committed to journalism have warned the MSM (mainstream media) about the credibility problem. Most notable was the publication of The Elements of Journalism back in 2001. The book came out of the Committee of Concerned Journalists, whose Statement of Shared Purpose may seem idealistic to many practitioners, but is worth pursuing for the sake of credibility.

After all, without credibility an MSM organization does not have much of a future. And that runs at the heart of the value of both New Media and MSM. They both need credibility if they’re going to survive as mediums.

Between GM and Friedman, who won the argument? The New York Times carries a fair amount of credibility, just speaking in a general sense of the term. While their internal fact-checking system isn’t perfect, it’s certainly more trustworthy than a PR machine. At the New York Times, every article (including the op-eds) must go through a rigorous fact-checking process. At a typical PR firm, the process is optimized toward creating a message that’s advantageous to the messenger.

GM’s tactic in this particular case was to neutralize Tom Friedman’s argument by playing a little dirty politics: make a seemingly private email exchange public.

James Wolcott pointed out in his appearance on Outfoxed:

See, one of the things that Fox does and conservatives do is they don’t have to win every argument. But if they can muddy the argument enough — if they can turn it into a draw — that, to them, is a victory. Because it denies the other side a victory.

It’s always up to viewers to be discerning, and viewers don’t have 24 hours a day to be discerning. But those who get paid to muddy the arguments have all the time in the world they need. This gets to where current trends are going: where they’ve always gone, and where they’ll always go.

Truthiness may now outweigh hard fact (if you believe it didn’t before), but the sophistication of the general public should not be underestimated. An Emory University study last year showed that partisans tend to ignore hard, incontrivertable fact. They don’t just “feel the truth” at you — they “feel the truth” at themselves, too. It’s nothing new that people (including me and you) will believe what they want to believe.

But it’s also nothing new that bullshit gets smelly after a while (if you’ve gotten this far, your monitor should certainly smell like it by now). The pendulumns of politics, public opinions, and economies tend to swing for a reason. Any philosophy taken to its logical conclusion will ultimately fail — and civilizations tend to hold on to philosophies because they’ve worked in the past, even when there’s ample evidence that they won’t work in the future.

As far as PR or marketing trends go, the most significant news item is simply the continued rise of the Internet. There’s nothing particularly flashy about that, of course. It just takes a good PR spinmeister to turn individual developments into “trends,” or signs of them. The technology makes it easier for people to communicate with one another without meeting face-to-face, or even knowing one another. It makes it easier for both radicals like me and radical PR professionals to have an audience they’ve never had before.

The GM/Friedman story is, therefore, hardly a major breakthrough by any stretch of the imagination. What else is not new is that no matter the medium, the communicator will always have the challenge of keeping credibility on his or her side. Going around and neutralizing unwinnable arguments, meanwhile, has a limited shelf life. And ideologies can only live as long as D * M * P is too low for a society to do anything about it.