Library:Propaganda
| Propaganda | |
|---|---|
| Author | Edward Bernays |
| First published | 1928 |
| ISBN | 978-0-9703125-9-5 |
| Role | Primary source |
| Domains | Business, Finance & Scams Politics & Elections |
| Tactics | Propaganda Technique |
Propaganda is a 1928 book by Edward Bernays.
Summary
Edward Bernays, often called the father of public relations, published this short book in 1928. A nephew of Sigmund Freud, Bernays had worked for the US government's propaganda effort during the First World War and then applied those methods to commerce and politics. The book is a primary source: not a study of manipulation from the outside but a practitioner's open defence of it.
The argument
Bernays opens with a striking claim: the deliberate and intelligent manipulation of the public's organized habits and opinions is an essential element of democratic society. Modern societies, he argues, are too complex for every citizen to evaluate every question, so an "invisible government" of people who shape opinion is both inevitable and necessary. He presents this not as a confession but as a professional credo, and he positions the public relations counsel as the expert who performs that function responsibly.
Methods
The book explains how to work on groups rather than individuals: identify the leaders whose opinions others follow, create events and circumstances that make news, and attach products or causes to desires and fears rather than to their merits. Instead of telling people to buy something, the propagandist rearranges the world so that buying it seems natural. Bernays applies these ideas to business, politics, women's causes, education, science and the arts.
The record
His own campaigns illustrate the method. He promoted bacon for breakfast by gathering doctors' endorsements of a hearty morning meal, and in 1929, shortly after the book appeared, he staged a parade of women smoking cigarettes in New York, presented to the press as a protest for equality, on behalf of the American Tobacco Company. In the 1950s he worked for the United Fruit Company in campaigns that helped prepare American opinion for the US-backed overthrow of Guatemala's elected government.
The shadow
Bernays later wrote that he had been told by a journalist that Joseph Goebbels kept his earlier book on public opinion in his library and used it in campaigns against German Jews. Whether or not that account is accurate, the techniques Bernays described were plainly available to any cause.
Relevance to Bullshitopedia
This is the founding text of modern professional persuasion, written by its chief architect, and it is filed here as a primary source. It shows that the line between public relations and propaganda was blurred from the start, and it is essential for understanding the Propaganda Technique tactic.