I decided to list some quotes from Edward Bernays who is considered the "Father of Public Relations". Back in the day Public Relation was called Propaganda. It wasn’t until the Nazis demonized the word that it got its facelift. In fact, Joseph Goebbels, the Nazis Propaganda Minister was a fan of Edward Bernays. In 1933, Bernays stated that:
Goebbels had shown Weigand his propaganda library, the best Weigand had ever
seen. Goebbels, said Weigand, was using my book Crystallizing
Public Opinion as a basis for his destructive campaign against the Jews of
Germany. This shocked me. ... Obviously the attack on the Jews of Germany was no
emotional outburst of the Nazis, but a deliberate, planned campaign.
Bernays worked for the United Fruit Company and helped them influence the United States government into overthrowing the democratically elected president of Guatemala. Check out the Declassified Documents.
Link 1
He also helped propagate myths like "cigarette smoking is good for you" and other nonsense. What Bernays did was set up a front group with a professional sounding name. For instance when he worked for the American Tobacco Company he set up the a front group called the Tobacco Institute and hired "professionals scientist" to do "research". They concluded that cigarette smoking is not harmful. Basically the American Tobacco Company paid professionals to manipulate science for them. Many of these front groups still exist today. Check out Center for Consumer Freedom who was originally set up by the "tobacco industry as well as hotels, beer distributors, taverns, and restaurant chains." They claim that the health effects of obesity are over hyped.
Here are a couple of other front groups.
Group 1: National Endowment for Democracy
This group is particularly sick since they are funded to influence the politics of other countries to fit their constituents needs. I will say that they do some good. But why are we using taxpayer dollars to promote certain candidate in other countries. Imagine China pouring millions of dollars into advertising procommunist politicians.
This group is particularly sick since they are funded to influence the politics of other countries to fit their constituents needs. I will say that they do some good. But why are we using taxpayer dollars to promote certain candidate in other countries. Imagine China pouring millions of dollars into advertising procommunist politicians.
Group 2: Consumer Credit Research Foundation
These guys teach the public that payday loans are actually good for your economic life. When I was really poor these thugs made sure to charge me 30 percent interest for a two week $200 loan.
These guys teach the public that payday loans are actually good for your economic life. When I was really poor these thugs made sure to charge me 30 percent interest for a two week $200 loan.
Group 3: American Beverage Institute
This group calls MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) a Neo-Projectionist group. They also fight lowering the legal blood alcohol limit and indoor smoking at restaurants. Needless to say, they are funded by the "restaurant, alcoholic beverage and tobacco industries."
This group calls MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) a Neo-Projectionist group. They also fight lowering the legal blood alcohol limit and indoor smoking at restaurants. Needless to say, they are funded by the "restaurant, alcoholic beverage and tobacco industries."
What I find interesting about these groups is that they all claim to be doing a selfless service for the public and humanity. They spend so much time telling us that their intentions are good, pure, and totally altruistic.
Oh yea, I should say that Edward Bernays work was extremely regarded by the most powerful people of his day. Compared to today his theories are child’s play. His work was ground breaking for the time but marketing and PR have advanced by leaps and bounds. Here are those quotes from Edward Bernays 1928 classic Propaganda.
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The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.
We are governed, our minds molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society.
Our invisible governors are, in many cases, unaware of the identity of their fellow members in the inner cabinet.
They govern us by their qualities of natural leadership, their ability to supply needed ideas and by their key position in the social structure. Whatever attitude one chooses toward this condition, it remains a fact that in almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons-a trifling fraction of our hundred and twenty million-who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind, who harness old social forces and contrive new ways to bind and guide the world.
It is not usually realized how necessary these invisible governors are to the orderly functioning of our group life. In theory, every citizen may vote for whom he pleases. Our Constitution does not envisage political parties as part of the mechanism of government, and its framers seem not to have pictured to themselves the existence in our national politics of anything like the modern political machine. But the American voters soon found that without organization and direction their individual votes, cast, perhaps, for dozens of hundreds of candidates, would produce nothing but confusion. Invisible government, in the shape of rudimentary political parties, arose almost overnight. Ever since then we have agreed, for the sake of simplicity and practicality, that party machines should narrow down the field of choice to two candidates, or at most three or four.
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Who are the men, who, without our realizing it, give us our ideas, tell us whom to admire and whom to despise, what to believe about the ownership of public utilities .. about immigration who tell us how our houses should be designed, what furniture we should put into them, what menus we should serve at our table, what kind of shirts we must wear, what sports we should indulge in, what plays we should see, what charities we should support, what pictures we should admire, what slang we should affect, what jokes we should laugh at?
Who are the men, who, without our realizing it, give us our ideas, tell us whom to admire and whom to despise, what to believe about the ownership of public utilities .. about immigration who tell us how our houses should be designed, what furniture we should put into them, what menus we should serve at our table, what kind of shirts we must wear, what sports we should indulge in, what plays we should see, what charities we should support, what pictures we should admire, what slang we should affect, what jokes we should laugh at?
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A presidential candidate may be "drafted" in response to "around popular demand," but it is well known that his name may be decided upon by half a dozen men sitting ... around a table in a hotel room.
A presidential candidate may be "drafted" in response to "around popular demand," but it is well known that his name may be decided upon by half a dozen men sitting ... around a table in a hotel room.
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The systematic study of mass psychology revealed t7 students the potentialities of invisible government of society by manipulation of the motives which actuate man in the group. Trotter and Le Bon, who approached the subject in a scientific manner, and Graham Wallas, Walter Lippmann, and others who continued with searching studies of the group mind, established that the group has mental characteristics distinct from those of the individual, and is motivated by impulses and emotions which cannot be explained on the basis of what we know of individual psychology. So the question naturally arose. If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, is it not possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing about it.
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If you can influence the leaders, either with or without their conscious cooperation, you automatically influence the group which they sway. But men do not need to be actually gathered together in a public meeting or in a street riot, to be subject to the influences of mass psychology. Because man is by nature gregarious he feels himself to be member of a herd, even when he is alone in his room with the curtains drawn. His mind retains the patterns which have been stamped on it by the group influences.
If you can influence the leaders, either with or without their conscious cooperation, you automatically influence the group which they sway. But men do not need to be actually gathered together in a public meeting or in a street riot, to be subject to the influences of mass psychology. Because man is by nature gregarious he feels himself to be member of a herd, even when he is alone in his room with the curtains drawn. His mind retains the patterns which have been stamped on it by the group influences.
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But when the example of the leader is not at hand and the herd must think for itself, it does so by means of clichés, pat words or images which stand for a whole group of ideas or experiences. Not many years ago, it was only necessary to tag a political candidate with the word interests to stampede millions of people into voting against him, because anything associated with "the interests" seemed necessary corrupt. Recently the word Bolshevik has performed a similar service for persons who wished to frighten the public away from a line of action.
But when the example of the leader is not at hand and the herd must think for itself, it does so by means of clichés, pat words or images which stand for a whole group of ideas or experiences. Not many years ago, it was only necessary to tag a political candidate with the word interests to stampede millions of people into voting against him, because anything associated with "the interests" seemed necessary corrupt. Recently the word Bolshevik has performed a similar service for persons who wished to frighten the public away from a line of action.
By playing upon a old cliché, or manipulating a new one, the propagandist can sometimes swing a whole mass group emotions. Check out this LINK.
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No serious sociologist any longer believes that the voice of the people expresses any divine or specially wise and lofty idea. The voice of the people expresses the mind of 3 the people, and that mind is made up for it by the group leaders in whom it believes and by those persons who understand the manipulation of public opinion. It is composed of inherited prejudices and symbols and clichés and verbal formulas supplied to them by the leaders.
No serious sociologist any longer believes that the voice of the people expresses any divine or specially wise and lofty idea. The voice of the people expresses the mind of 3 the people, and that mind is made up for it by the group leaders in whom it believes and by those persons who understand the manipulation of public opinion. It is composed of inherited prejudices and symbols and clichés and verbal formulas supplied to them by the leaders.
Fortunately, the sincere and gifted politician is able, by the instrument of propaganda, to mold and form the will of the people.
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It is not necessary for the politician to be the slave to the public's group prejudices, if he can learn how to mold the mind of the voters in conformity with his own ideas of public welfare and public service. The important thing for the statesman of our age is not so much to know how to please the public, but know how to sway the public.
It is not necessary for the politician to be the slave to the public's group prejudices, if he can learn how to mold the mind of the voters in conformity with his own ideas of public welfare and public service. The important thing for the statesman of our age is not so much to know how to please the public, but know how to sway the public.
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The criticism is often made that propaganda tends make the President of the United States so important that he becomes not the President but the embodiment of the idea of hero worship, not to say deity worship. I quite agree that this is so, but how are you going to stop a condition which accurately reflects the desires of a certain part of the public? The American people rightly senses the enormous importance of the executive's office. If the public tends to make of the President a heroic symbol of that power, that is not the fault of propaganda but lies in the very nature of the office and its relation to the people.
The criticism is often made that propaganda tends make the President of the United States so important that he becomes not the President but the embodiment of the idea of hero worship, not to say deity worship. I quite agree that this is so, but how are you going to stop a condition which accurately reflects the desires of a certain part of the public? The American people rightly senses the enormous importance of the executive's office. If the public tends to make of the President a heroic symbol of that power, that is not the fault of propaganda but lies in the very nature of the office and its relation to the people.
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Also check out declassified document of the US government using propaganda.
