It's not shocking to label higher education as a commodity, especially when examining the long and debated history of its marketing. The University’s conception as a product is directly credited to the expansion of “commodity” from tangible goods to abstract desires (Fairclough 2001: 29). While the shock of being able to purchase knowledge may have worn off years ago, there are still consequences from placing a premium on and marketing it; the inevitable externalities of living in a promotional and consumer culture. The embedded discourses of social structures have mostly become a vehicle for selling and peddling (Fairclough 1993: 141).
Market-driven economies have fostered this complex culture and shaped what choices are available for us to make. Packaging higher education has a history and a context that has been analyzed on varying levels. Research in this field first defined the fuzzy edges of public relations, marketing and the basic concepts of higher education. Studies have since evolved as analyses of the tiny grammatical and structural elements of educational discourse, both in its marketing and its consumer-based expectations. Fairclough (2001:42) determined that relationship between the producers of a text and its intended interpreters is what gives discourse the nature of a commodity. Higher education marketing evolved alongside their mainstream practices, and a brief history situates the implications of Fairclough’s claim.
Philip Harriman (1936) formulates an abstract value for higher education in his brief history of the bachelor's degree. The baccalaureate, which partly originated seven centuries ago at the
Education eventually changed from being a mark of culture to carrying a tangible and vocational value; this transformation was expressed in the kinds of alternative degrees created.
Most of these “new” degrees sprouted alongside the birth of the industrial revolution, when ideas of what a business was and what a business could be shaped social institutions. Education was one of the major organizations to eventually be transformed by these ideas and molded as a social good. In his analysis of higher education, Boyd Keenan (1961: 513) could not conceive of another way of keeping such an institution sustainable on its own, other than running it on the business model. For this model, as with any economic and social investment, profit-making is supreme. The institution has actors with counterparts in the business world. Keenan tags the president as a chief executive, with promoting the spirit of the university is his primary duty, and fundraising designated to other departments (Keenan 1961: 514). The nature of the business venture sparks a deep connection with the creation of public relations. Presidents have a greater role as men of business rather than of “scholarly insights,” who cultivate parts of the university which bring notoriety and build reputation (Rodintzky 1968: 336). They direct the school and assign cheerleaders for it. This was the fertile territory available for the birth of public relation organisms.
Universities make every possible effort to keep themselves in the mind of prospective students and family (Wood 1939: 412). Any other action would push it into obscurity and be considered irresponsible. Advertising involved the use of numerous resources already available, or easy to establish, such as an alumni association or athletics. Every department functions as a part of university network, and is carved into an organization Wood (1939: 411) explicitly labels a propaganda machine. As public relations departments moved into an era that Norman Fairclough (1993: 133) describes as postmodern and 'late capitalist,' their practices became much more sophisticated and precise. Each area would have its own compartments working to sustain the institution. Magda Piezcka (2002: 319) deconstructed the expertise of public relations and found that a large part of its production is possible through an established repertoire of tools: corporate literature, speech writing, and a department of reputation management.
Complex practices stemming from refining these tools made it possible to not only target the reader, but also write texts based on the way they are supposed to be read. Glossy packets are specifically designed with the knowledge that they will be flipped through rather than read carefully, so the creators format information to fit this genre (Fairclough 1993: 156) This process indicates the importance of negotiating relationships from a distance. Most of the time, resources were not available at less-prestigious schools, a challenge called the "recruiting problem" (Wood 1939: 413). What colleges ended up doing was send out field scouts to talk to students personally and gained momentum this way. As marketing practices evolved, this voice was canonized into a familiar and friendly voice from a distance, which Fairclough (2001: 52) refers to as “synthetic personalization.”
Synthetic personalization is strategic in all aspects of university maintenance. Schools create language that appeals to a collective and self-identity, promoting a social cohesion (Swales 224). The authority of the language is as much a management tool as it is a reputation management tool. Having the university as a friendly and autonomous figure establishes a strong priority between internal and external self-promotion. This process keeps morale high from inside and composes a better image to the outside (Connell 460).
A major duty of internal and external university discourse is distinguishing social actors in the relationship. The university is often not meant to be shorthand for the people within it, but an independent social actor, with the power to establish and determine relationships. Such a separation between the institution and its population creates an authorless discourse (Connell 465). The identity that is articulated in genres such as mission statements and catchphrases may not draw serious attention, but action isn't always the primary motivation. Aphorisms aren't part of a genre that "gets things done," but a genre that carries culture and ideology (Swales 19595: 231). They just appear as abstractions and empty promotion on the surface. These sentiments are often expressed as mnemonics and catchphrases, which have to be repeated for full effect (Swales 1995: 225).
The proliferation of these message through multiple mediums makes it possible to determine the meaning of that particular discourse genre. A single text on its own is insignificant, the meaning is in the repetition of causality, agency, and establishing relationships (Fairclough 2001: 45). A company motto can serve this purpose in the case of the university, or even a concise and brief mission statement. The process of fostering identity and affiliation is part of an "elitist discourse" apart from the everyday, created to inspire commitment to a constructed discourse community (Swales 1995: 235).
When Connell analyzed many of the public relations materials, he found that the beneficiary of the relationship was usually the institution itself (Connell 1998: 472). Students' success and academic progress feed into a self-reproducing excellence, but this is primarily for a functional reason. That these features are university-centered, and makes them enduring, as opposed to just belonging to a transient community (Connell 1998: 476). The reality is that people create this institution, while the perception is that the institution is autonomous and people are ancillary. Piezcka (2002: 316) distinguishes between perception and reality, and considers them two key public relations tools. Even though reality is based on facts, perception has the power to manipulate into facts representing a desired reality. It is perception that makes it possible to establish credibility and legitimacy among public opinion.
