The Halcion Affair: Public Relations and the Construction of Ideological World View

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
This study conceptualizes organizational public relations as attempts to construct ideological world view. Three aspects of ideological world view—distortion, legitimation, and terrain of struggle—are elaborated and then grounded in a case study of the public relations practices of The Upjohn Company, a pharmaceutical manufacturer and researcher, during the Halcion(R) (sleeping pill) crisis in the 1980s. The case study reveals how such practices helped create a supportive scientific world view for Halcion, which may have contributed to the product's steady growth in sales and profits during the decade, despite intense media scrutiny and criticism and the restrictive actions of health authorities in some countries.