The Paradox of Polarization… Division Makes PR More Valuable

There’s a booming business in divisiveness. And PR is caught right in the thick of it.

Recorded at the June 2026 IABC conference in Toronto, Doug Downs speaks with Fred Cook about A Quiet Shift, a report exploring how polarization is reshaping public relations. Cook explains why division is damaging society, mental health, and business while making thoughtful communications counsel more valuable. 

They examine echo chambers, outrage as a political and media strategy, the possibility that AI reinforces existing beliefs, and the disappearance of productive dialogue. Cook also outlines how PR education must evolve, emphasizing crisis management, finance, government relations, public affairs, ethics, and responsible technology use. Ultimately, the conversation challenges communicators to adapt without contributing to the very divisions that create demand for their expertise.

Listen For

2:33 How Is Polarization Changing Public Relations?

5:38 Why Can Polarization Make PR More Valuable—and More Vulnerable?

6:25 Is AI Reinforcing Bias and Deepening Polarization?

9:01 Which Skills Will Future PR Professionals Need Most?

12:00 Why Does Calling the Other Side “Stupid” Destroy Dialogue?

Guest: Fred Cook, Director USC USC Annenberg Center for Public Relations

Fred bio

Doug Downs

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Transcript

Lady Emily (00:01): The angrier and more polarized society becomes, the better business gets for somebody. That somebody just might be communications professionals. That's the core narrative to this story.

Doug Downs (00:16): In November 2024, Fox News had its highest rated month in the network's history. Sixty two percent of the entire cable news audience was watching one channel. A year later, in November 2025, it happened again. Different network this time. MSNBC drew its largest prime time audience of the year on election night, right as it was prepared to rebrand entirely and separate from NBC News.

None of us were actually celebrating any of this. Pew Research has tracked cable news audiences shrinking for years. Trust in media keeps falling. You know that. Families keep arguing at dinner. Nobody polled says polarization is good for the country, but somebody is cashing a check.

Every spike happens the same way. A bruising debate, a contested election, a president that most people love or hate, with nothing in between. The angrier the moment, the bigger the audience. Fox surged 86% year over year in the key demo right after the 2024 election.

(01:17): CNN posted triple digit growth in the same demo during the following year's contest. And it isn't only the networks. The same division that creates viewers for news programs is filling boardrooms with a different kind of demand.

When one wrong sentence can end a career, when every audience is already primed to take offense, companies need someone who knows exactly what to say and when to stay quiet. That work used to be a nice to have. Now it's survival.

Now, nobody would say division is healthy. They would just tell you their business has never been busier. Today on Stories and Strategies, the smoke isn't good for anybody except the people selling fire insurance.

My name is Doug Downs. My guest this week is Fred Cook, who's the director for the USC Annenberg Center for Public Relations. Fred, it's good to see you in person. You and I have been together virtually, but not in person.

Fred Cook (02:24): That's right. Hi, Doug. How are you doing? We're here in Toronto at the IABC conference.

Doug Downs (02:28): Right. Hence all the noise

Fred Cook (02:30): That you might

Doug Downs (02:30): Hear in the background.

Fred Cook (02:32): Excited participants.

Doug Downs (02:33): Okay. And they are partly excited because your new report, which you're calling A Quiet Shift, is focusing this year on polarization, world polarization's impact on public relations. What are your key takeaways about that?

Fred Cook (02:50): Well, one is that it's probably going to be here for a while. Polarization's not going anywhere anytime soon. The second thing is that polarization is bad for society. It's bad for mental health. It's bad for business, but it happens to be very good for the PR profession.

Doug Downs (03:07): Because each camp needs somebody to develop their voice and develop their strategy for communications. Is that why?

Fred Cook (03:12): Because polarization makes communications very complex, and the potential for retribution and damage by saying or doing something right now has never been higher. So public relations counsel, thoughtful counsel, has become very valuable. So what's bad for the country and bad for individuals happens to be good for the PR industry.

Doug Downs (03:37): If it enrages, it engages, I suppose.

Fred Cook (03:39): Yes.

Doug Downs (03:40): When you say polarization, it's not like there's just a north and a south pole, really. There are a million different camps, a million different communities. Some are geographically based, but some of them aren't even geographically based. It's like we're checkerboarded now.

Fred Cook (03:54): Well, it's true. And if you look at the globe, there are a lot of places that are polarized. Probably the US is one that's near the top in terms of our polarization. And it's a more bilateral kind of thing. It's like the left and the right.

And what's happened over the years is they've sort of hardened in their positions. So there's really no conversation anymore between the two. It's just a vilification of either side, and that makes it difficult.

And people, politicians, and media are using polarization as a marketing strategy because they realize that if they can be on the extremes, they can get votes, they can raise money, and they can get more viewers by focusing on a core target audience that agrees with them.

Doug Downs (04:34): There was someone in one of the sessions that I was speaking with. And, of course, the voice is about how do we unite? How do we discover those of like identity to us so that we can come closer together?

And we together kind of observed that the way we tend to unite is by observing those we can criticize, those we can attack, and say, I'm like you because I'm not like them. And we're so focused on whom we're not like or whom we don't deem to fit in our tribe, so to speak.

Fred Cook (05:05): We identify by echo chambers, and we live inside those echo chambers, and the media feeds us information that we want to reinforce our existing views. And that creates even more polarization.

And there's no looking outside of that echo chamber, looking over the wall to see what the other people think. Those conversations aren't happening anymore.

Doug Downs (05:23): How do you feel about that, that this is ironically a positive, I guess, from an opportunity standpoint for public relations pros? I appreciate that it's good for comms

Fred Cook (05:34): Because I

Doug Downs (05:34): Support comms, but I don't appreciate the context in which it's happening.

Fred Cook (05:38): Well, I think PR has always found its importance in times of crisis. Communication becomes critically important.

What I worry about is, over time, if we remain in a polarized environment for the next five years and people aren't speaking out about anything, they won't, whether PR is going to become less important over time. Because I think, to some degree, CEOs now can't talk about some of these controversial issues.

And I think some of them are happy about it, and they say, I don't have to deal with this stuff anymore. And maybe I don't need as many people to help me communicate if I don't need to communicate as much.

That's my concern longer term. Right now, we're more important, but over time, if communications is less of a priority, then we may become less of a priority too.

Doug Downs (06:25): One of the first comments I heard at the conference was a senior leader who says she's in the C suite, but the problem is her CEO also has an adviser known as ChatGPT. And if their adviser, ChatGPT, says go left, and she's saying, we really ought to be leaning to the right here, the CEO goes with ChatGPT, and it's sycophantic, right?

Fred Cook (06:49): Because it reinforces what you already believe.

Doug Downs (06:51): Yeah. How big a problem is that going to be? Is that just causing more divide? The sycophancy of AI is capable of dividing us even further.

Fred Cook (06:59): Well, somebody asked a question in my session just now about whether AI was contributing to polarization. And I honestly don't know the answer. It's a very good question.

But if it is contributing to what people already think and reinforcing their views sycophantically, if that's a word, then that's a problem. But I don't know that AI is creating a bias.

If it's unbiased and giving me information that's not leaning toward one side or another, that would be a good thing. But I'm not sure what impact it's having on this issue.

Doug Downs (07:28): Okay. Where can we go to seek the unbiased? Because, I'm sorry, I'm convinced it's not the mainstream media.

Fred Cook (07:34): No single one. They've all taken sides.

Doug Downs (07:36): Right. I love podcasting, but the truth is I trust the podcasters I trust, and maybe they're all triangles and I need to hear about more circles

Fred Cook (07:47): Kind of thing. And people in this polarized environment, they trust way fewer media outlets. And the ones that they do trust are the traditional media and the business press. Those are the ones that they believe in.

Doug Downs (07:59): How do you encourage people? One of the most positive things I've heard really smart people say is they spend at least a half hour a day reading things that they disagree with. You like that.

Fred Cook (08:11): Yeah, that's a good idea.

Doug Downs (08:13): How do we encourage more people to do that? Why would I raise my agitation meter when I get plenty of agitation at work? I don't need to go seek it in my reading time.

Fred Cook (08:23): Well, unfortunately, most people don't spend a half an hour a day reading anything. So I think they should start by immersing themselves in these stories to form their own opinion, as opposed to just taking the opinion of somebody that they already believe in.

And I think a little more self reflection would be good, whether it's your own news that you agree with or whether it's someone else's, because the truth actually doesn't exist anymore. It's like everybody has their own truth, and people believe it no matter what.

So you can't base everything on what you think is true or what's not true. You've got to be open to other points of view.

Doug Downs (09:01): How important is it for educational institutions, the ones that are teaching communication strategy and public relations, to acknowledge that while this is a growth opportunity for PR to further polarize the world, there's still an ethical standard under which we all need to operate, that we all need to agree upon and then operate?

Fred Cook (09:20): Yes. And that's part of what we teach. We have ethics courses about public relations. And I think that's part of the function of a school, to teach people how to use their skills properly and in accordance with ethical rules and guidelines.

But what also is happening is that polarization is changing the role of public relations because we're not talking about DEI, we're not talking about sustainability, we're not talking about purpose. All those things have been taken off the menu.

And right now, I think what's going to have to happen is PR people are going to have to be trained more in crisis management, more in government relations, and also in finance, because we're going to have to be much more aligned with the business in terms of the kind of information we're releasing and talking about than in telling stories about the good things the companies are doing.

(10:07): So it changes the criteria for what a PR person needs to be good at. And technology is a big part of that. AI is such a force in our industry that we have to train people on how to use the technology in the right way too.

So finance, technology, public affairs, government relations, and crisis management become the core skills that you need to teach young PR people.

Doug Downs (10:31): I know you feel this in the US. I think we feel this in Canada too, that half the time there's a government that's elected that feels like it represents me. And the other half of the time, it feels like there's a government that's elected that doesn't represent me even in the slightest, which in and of itself is like a polarized kind of feeling.

Ultimately, I should feel Canadian and you should feel American, right? Unified under our common values. It's so difficult these days because communicators are leading the way or contributing to a divisiveness that's permeating.

Fred Cook (11:07): And it's because it's a marketing strategy. People use polarization to build votes, and they rile people up on issues that are polarizing, like immigration.

And they use those when they need to raise money, when they need to get votes, or when they're trying to get viewers, because they know that that's a hot button for people.

So that's why it's increasing. It's not going away anytime soon because people realize that's a great way to build their brand by polarizing people and achieving that through building a base of core people who believe exactly what you believe.

Doug Downs (11:37): Do you take any solace in that? When I talk to people one to one, there's so much we have in common. It's astounding that we focus on the things that make us different.

And this kind of communication is appealing to the amygdala, the very primitive part of the brain, to try to stir emotions. Do you take solace in that ultimately, when we think it through, we are deeper thinking individuals and we're not stupid?

Fred Cook (12:00): No. And I think people tend to identify the people with opposite beliefs as stupid. And I think that's a mistake because they're not stupid. They just happen to think something different than you, and that doesn't make them stupid.

And when you start with that stupidity as the baseline, it's hard to have a conversation with somebody that you think is just dead wrong and stupid. And that's what's happened. We've vilified the opposition, and there's no way to find any kind of middle ground.

Doug Downs (12:27): I know PRSA was launching a campaign a couple of years ago to do more listening, get more feedback. I think that's actually the answer.

Fred Cook (12:36): It is the answer, but it's just not happening. And it happened during Donald Trump's first administration. There were a lot of efforts by different organizations to have people come together and have conversations with differing points of view, but that has stopped.

Nobody's even trying to do that anymore because they realize that it's so hard core, it's so permanent, fixed on either side, that the conversations have become almost impossible.

Doug Downs (13:02): I really appreciate your time. It's sad news that you, well, sad, bittersweet news, because the job opportunities might see an increase here, but it's under a tough climate.

Fred Cook (13:13): Well, it makes our job more important, makes it more thoughtful, but we've got to adapt with this scenario because we can't... The pendulum has swung one way for a long time, and now it's swinging back the other way. And who knows where it's going to end up? We'll have to wait and see.

But I think PR people need to adapt to whatever happens in order to provide the kind of counsel that their clients and their bosses are looking for.

Doug Downs (13:35): Perfect. Thanks again, Fred.

Fred Cook (13:36): You're welcome. Thanks. Good to see you.

Doug Downs (13:39): Here are three takeaways I got from Fred that you could bring up in conversation with someone at a get together later today or tomorrow.

Number one, polarization is good for PR and bad for everybody else. The same forces eroding trust and mental health are making thoughtful counsel more valuable than it's ever been.

Number two, echo chambers aren't an accident. They're a strategy. Politicians, media, and brands lean into division on purpose because it raises money. It builds loyalty and drives engagement.

Fred's point is that until people stop rewarding the extremes, nobody has any real incentive to walk back toward the middle.

And number three, the skill set for PR professionals is quietly shifting. Less storytelling about the good things a company does and more crisis management, government relations, and financial communications.

Fred says the practitioners who adapt to that shift are the ones who are going to matter the most over the next five years.

(14:39): If you'd like to send a message to Fred, we've got his contact information in the show notes. Stories and Strategies, a production of Stories and Strategies Podcasts. Core producers, Emily Page and Jocelyn Floralldy.

And hey, why not sign up for our Substack newsletter? It comes out every Tuesday, just like new episodes. It's a way of keeping in touch with one another. Thanks for listening.