Dark Public Relations as a strategy to discredit citizen activism. The case of the city of Malaga: from urban forest to gentrification
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.51698/tripodos.2025.57.08Keywords:
Citizen activism, dark public relations, tourism, political communication, sustainable developmentAbstract
Dark Public Relations strategies constitute an unethical practice aimed at diverting attention, damaging competition or establishing narratives of individual responsibility for public issues, among other issues. This paper explores this practice as a way to discredit citizen activism through the case of the city of Malaga. Through an analysis of the associative movements, their demands, interviews with collectives, experts and a media analysis, the aim is to analyse citizen activist practices developed in the city of Malaga and their relationship with institutions, companies and the media. The results show the problems the city faces due to tourist development, gentrification, rising house prices and the loss of local heritage, as well as the reactions of the different collectives that have come together to fight for ‘A Malaga to live in’. The conclusions point out the way in which the authorities develop strategies aimed at undervaluing and overshadowing the demands of the local residents with the argument of the economic and tourist development of the city.
-----------------------
Las estrategias de Dark Public Relations constituyen una práctica poco ética enfocada a desviar la atención, dañar a la competencia o establecer narrativas de responsabilidad individual sobre asuntos públicos, entre otras cuestiones. Este trabajo explora esta práctica como vía para desacreditar el activismo ciudadano a través del caso de la ciudad de Málaga (España). Mediante un análisis del movimiento asociativo, sus demandas, entrevistas a colectivos, expertos y un análisis de medios, se pretenden analizar las prácticas activistas ciudadanas desarrolladas en la ciudad de Málaga y su relación con las instituciones, empresas y medios de comunicación. Los resultados plasman el problema que la ciudad tiene debido a la turistificación, la gentrificación, el aumento del precio de la vivienda y la pérdida de patrimonio local, así como las reacciones de los distintos colectivos que se han unido para luchar por “Una Málaga para vivir”. Las conclusiones señalan cómo las autoridades desarrollan estrategias encaminadas a minusvalorar y opacar las demandas vecinales con el argumento del desarrollo económico y turístico de la ciudad.
Downloads
References
Agostini, Maximilian and Zomeren, Martijn van (2021). Toward a comprehensive and potentially cross-cultural model of why people engage in collective action: A quantitative research synthesis of four motivations and structural constraints. Psychological Bulletin, 147(7), 667. https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000256
Bakan, Joel (2020). Charming psychopaths: The modern corporation. Trans National Institute (TNI). https://longreads.tni.org/stateofpower/charming-psychopaths-the-modern-corporation
Bennett, W. Lance (2003). Communicating global activism. Information, Communication & Society, 6(2), 143-168. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118032000093860a
Bernays, Edward L. (2013). Public relations. University of Oklahoma Press.
Boisen, Martin; Terlouw, Kees; Groote, Peter, and Couwenberg, Oscar (2018). Reframing place promotion, place marketing, and place branding-moving beyond conceptual confusion. Cities, 80, 4-11. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2017.08.021
Boman, Courtney D. (2021). Examining characteristics of prebunking strategies to overcome PR disinformation attacks. Public Relations Review, 47(5), 102105. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2021.102105
Carroll, Archie B. and Shabana, Kareem (2010). The business case for corporate social responsibility: A review of concepts, research and practice. International Journal of Management Reviews, 12(1), 85-105.
Castro-Higueras, Antonio and Pérez-Rufí, José Patricio (2021). Cultura, tecnología y urbanismo: Las bases para construir una ciudad global. El caso Málaga. Revista Mediterránea de Comunicación, 12(1), 65-76. https://www.doi.org/10.14198/MEDCOM000022
Castro-Martínez, Andrea and Pérez Ordóñez, Cristina (2019). Arte urbano vecinal: El caso del barrio malagueño de Lagunillas. De la revitalización social al artivismo a través de la comunicación social y el grafiti. In Ana M. Sedeño Valdellós (coord). Arte, activismo y comunicación en el ámbito académico (pp. 203-226). Dykinson.
Chamizo-Nieto, Francisco José; Nebot-Gómez de Salazar, Nuria; Rosa-Jiménez, Carlos, and Castro-Martínez, Andrea (2023). The representation of touristification in media through mapping: The case of Malaga. Transinformação, 35, e237258. https://doi.org/10.1590/2318-0889202335e237258
Cisneros-Caicedo, Alicia Jacqueline; Guevara-García, Axel Fabián; Urdánigo-Cedeño, Johnny Jesús, and Garcés-Bravo, Julio Emmanuel (2022). Técnicas e instrumentos para la recolección de datos que apoyan a la investigación científica en tiempo de pandemia. Dominio de las Ciencias, 8(1), 1165-1185. https://doi.org/10.23857/dc.v8i1.2546
Coombs, W. Timothy and Holladay, Sherry J. (2013). It’s not just PR: Public relations in society. John Wiley & Sons.
Eco, Umberto (2015). Número cero. Lumen.
Edwards, Lee (2021). Organised lying and professional legitimacy: Public relations’ accountability in the disinformation debate. European Journal of Communication, 36(2), 168-182. https://doi.org/10.1177/0267323120966851
Ennis, Grant (2023). Dark PR: How corporate disinformation harms our health and the environment. Daraja Press.
Esser, Frank; Reinemann, Carsten, and Fan, David (2001). Spin doctors in the United States, Great Britain, and Germany: Metacommunication about media manipulation. Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics, 6(1), 16-45. https://doi.org/10.1177/1081180X01006001003
European Commission (2020). Report on the quality of life in European cities, 2020. European Commission. https://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/sources/docgener/work/qol2020/quality_life_european_cities_en.pdf
Freire, Paulo (2002). Pedagogía del oprimido. Siglo XXI.
Friedman, Milton (1970, September 13). A friedman doctrine: The social responsibility of business is to increase its profits. The New York Times. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/56b7a300356fb06478dcea5a/t/5fb99036957a3511df281e4a/1605996599044/A+Friedman+doctrine%E2%80%90-+The+Social+Responsibility+Of+Business+Is+to+Increase+Its+Profits+-+The+New+York+Times.pdf
Gerrits, André W. (2018). Disinformation in international relations: How important is it? Security and Human Rights, 29(1-4), 3-23. https://brill.com/view/journals/shrs/29/1-4/article-p3_3.xml
Hospers, Gert-Jan (2011). City branding and the tourist Gaze. In Keith Dinnie (ed.), City branding. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230294790_4
INE (2024). Cifras oficiales de población de los municipios españoles en aplicación de la Ley de Bases del Régimen Local (Art. 17). Instituto Nacional de Estadística. https://www.ine.es/jaxiT3/Datos.htm?t=2882
Jacobsen, Björn P. (2009). Investor-based place brand equity: A theoretical framework. Journal of Place Management and Development, 2(1), 70-84. https://doi.org/10.1108/17538330910946029
Kavaratzis, Mihalis (2017). The participatory place branding process for tourism: Linking visitors and residents through the city brand. In Nicola Bellini and Cecilia Pasquinelli (eds.), Tourism in the city. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26877-4_6
Khazraee, Emad and Novak, Allison (2018). Digitally mediated protest: Social media affordances for collective identity construction. Social Media + Society, 4(1), 2056305118765740. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305118765740
Kou, Yubo; Kow, Yong; Ming, Gui, Xinning, and Cheng, Waikuen (2017). One social movement, two social media sites: A comparative study of public discourses. Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), 26, 807-836. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10606-017-9284-y
Lauretto, Marcelo; Nakano, Fabio, Pereira, Carlos, and Stern, Julio M. (2012). Intentional sampling by goal optimization with decoupling by stochastic perturbation. AIP Conf. Proc. 1490, 189-201. American Institute of Physics. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4759603
Méndez, Isabel (2020, 10 November). Málaga, entre las mejores ciudades europeas para vivir, según la revista Forbes. Diario Sur. https://www.diariosur.es/malaga-capital/malaga-mejores-ciudades-vivir-forbes-20201110164741-nt.html?ref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F
Moravčíková, Erika (2020). Media manipulation and propaganda in the post-truth era. Media Literacy and Academic Research, 3(2), 23-37. https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=917055
Ortiz Galindo, Rocío (2016). Social cybermovements: A review of the concept and theoretical framework. Communication & Society, 29(4), 165-181. https://doi.org/10.15581/003.29.35813
Prentice, Deborah and Paluck, Elizabeth Levy (2020). Engineering social change using social norms: Lessons from the study of collective action. Current Opinion in Psychology, 35, 138-142. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2020.06.012
Reguillo, Rossana (2017). Paisajes insurrectos. NED Ediciones.
Reitan, Ruth (2006). Global activism (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/
Rodríguez Fernández, Leticia (2023). Desinformación y relaciones públicas. Aproximación a los términos Black PR y Dark PR. ICONO 14. Revista Científica de Comunicación y Tecnologías Emergentes, 21(1). https://doi.org/10.7195/ri14.v21i1.1920
Sedgwick, Philip (2013). Convenience sampling. Bmj, 347, f6304. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.f6304
Sierra, Francisco (2018). Ciberactivismo y movimientos sociales. El espacio público oposicional en la tecnopolítica contemporánea. Revista Latina de Comunicación Social, (73), 980-990. https://doi.org/10.4185/RLCS-2018-1292
Siltaoja, Marjo (2006). Value priorities as combining core factors between CSR and Reputation - A qualitative study. J Bus Ethics, 68, 91-111. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-006-9042-4
Thomas, Llewellyn. D. and Ritala, Paavo (2022). Ecosystem legitimacy emergence: A collective action view. Journal of Management, 48(3), 515-541. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206320986617
Turismo y Planificación Costa del Sol Málaga (2024). Análisis de competitividad en la cuota de mercado de la Conectividad Aérea de la Costa del Sol 2023/22, Turismo y Planificación Costa del Sol Málaga. https://www.costadelsolmalaga.org/base/descargas/432815/analisis-competitividad-por-pais-y-ciudad-2023
Verwey, Sonja and Muir, Clarissa (2019). Bell Pottinger and the dark art of public relations: Ethics of individuality versus ethics of communality. Communicare: Journal for Communication Studies in Africa, 38(1), 96-116, https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC-173da3f023
Wilcox, Dennis L. (2019). Dialogic communication theory in the age of corporate activism: A postmodern perspective. Communication and Media in Asia Pacific (CMAP), 2(1), 1-10. https://so01.tci-thaijo.org/index.php/CMAP/article/view/163778
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Tripodos
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Once an article has been approved for publication in Tripodos, the exclusive right to publish the work becomes the property of Blanquerna School of Communication and International Relations of Ramon Llull University. These rights can be granted to a third party with the agreement of the author(s).
Until the articles have been approved for publication, Blanquerna School of Communication and International Relations of Ramon Llull University has no rights over them.
The submission of articles is understood to represent explicit consent to these conditions of publication.
