Historiographical Essay:Examination of Secondary Sources to Propaganda

William GriffinHistorical Methods & WritingHIST 30127-OCT-2013

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The global expansion of media and communication technologies over the course of the 20 th

century vastly helped shape the world of the early 21st century. The effects and methods used in the

communication industry have been perfected and is widely abundant. More precisely, the public

relations industry has swept the country, and globe, into a passive-aggressive consuming society of

competitive individuals expressing narcissistic attitudes among one another. Many historians do agree

that the development of the public relations industry is important to understand, as the common man in

today's world is oblivious to the propaganda that surrounds him. “Marshall McLuhan described it

perfectly. If you were to asked a random fish to describe their own environment, the very last thing they

would mention would be water. The most important, powerful, and obvious elements of our own

societies and environments don't get seen by a fish swimming in that water. Americans are God's

Chosen People.”1 The water in the environment of the fish is exactly what propaganda is to a citizen of

the United States of America.

The modern techniques of public relations can be traced back to the early 20 th century. The

Committee on Public Relations (CPI) was created shortly after President Wilson was elected into his

second term of office in 1916. After winning under the policy of American neutrality, six months later

the CPI, or Creel Committee, has shifted an entire nation from an extremely pacifist public into a

population of war interventionists.2 Out of the events that occurred during the Great War, Edward

Bernays was a member of the committee and learned priceless lessons from his involvement. Bernays

recognized the vast potentials of propaganda in a democratic society facing huge changes in the

American fabric. The technological advances of the 1920s developed mass production techniques that

required radical changes in society. As the individual in a mass society faced these changes with

uncertainty of the future, Bernays had been equipped with the proper tools to take advantage of his

1 “Morris Berman.” Psywar. Film. Directed by Scott Noble. S.I.: Metanoia Films, 2010.2 Sproule, J. Michael, Propaganda and Democracy The American Experience of Media and Mass Persuasion. (Cambridge University Press, 1997), 4-10.

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resources and to help exploit the public towards a beneficial direction for all of society. Bernays is the

father of public relations and his techniques are widely used in contemporary business, politics, and

virtually every part of American life.

Historians agree that Edward Bernays had a profound affect on the public relations industry.

The methods Bernays practices in public relations is examined by three sources: Propaganda and

Democracy-The American Experience of Media by J. Michael Sproule, PR! A Social History of Spin

by Stuart Ewen, and Personalities in the Crowd-The Idea of the “Masses” in American Popular Culture

by Steven Smith. The fourth source, Thinking for a Living-Education and the Wealth of Nations by Ray

Marshall and Marc Tucker, will be used to help describe the popular thinking during the early 20 th

century.

Both Smith and Ewen agree that Bernays was influenced by people such as Gustave Le Bon,

E.A Ross, and William Trotter. However, Sproule says it best that Le Bon's theory of “the unconscious

action of crowds” had replaced the “conscious activity of individuals.”3 This concept of the

unconscious public mind helped Bernays develop and practice his public relation counseling in the

1920s. Sproule's “Propaganda and Democracy” is the first comprehensive examination of the

relationship of democracy and propaganda in the 20th century. Sproule, as well as the other three

sources, gathers sources from a wide variety of materials; memorandums, academic journals, books,

interviews, autobiographies, business and government documents, and journalistic articles.

Sproule says that Bernays thought of the public as reserved or reticent. In a time when

technology was speeding up the world through mass production of all sorts of goods and services, a

reticent crowd would react only in chaotic ways. Bernays linked the idea of the reserved crowd and the

appearance of a modern world and perceived both as an opportunity, an opportunity to execute

experiments of propaganda onto the public in order to make the process of change appear manageable

3 Sproule, Propaganda and Democracy, 30.

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and less traumatic.

The vast change that was taking place in the early twentieth century coupled with the idea of

mass society has generated a significant concern between the individual and social participation. People

were in fear of being isolated and alienated as things changed. Bernays sought out to use propaganda to

help reconnect the lost individual with a constantly changing mass society. One idea that helped with

the development of the public relations industry was the promotion of individual 'personality'. The

individual that was able to control one's environment was highly valued and “became an enduring force

in American popular culture.”4

Sproule, Smith, and Ewen all express the importance of change during the 1920s. The

modernity that Americans were adjusting to created fear and anxiety. Smith describes how Bernays

took advantage of this particular situation and viewed the concept of the masses as a key to

democracy's survival into modern life. He says the new scale of things are a “modern salesman's best

friend.”5

One prime example of the techniques of the propagandist that sets himself aside from

advertisers is the process in which Bernays increased the sale of pianos overall. Bernays himself wrote

in his book how he avoided creating competition among piano manufacturers and only executed upon

the sale of pianos overall. Rather than making very true and realistic claims that a piano is inexpensive,

popular, or very sustainable, Bernays created a pseudo-environment in which he shifted popular

thought to accept music rooms inside their own homes. Bernays connected with architects to began

including music rooms inside their newly developed homes for Americans. In addition, Bernays set up

extravagant exhibitions showcasing pianos inside of homes that were designed by the most prestige

decorators of the time.6 Sproule confirms this story by adding that the decorators who helped push the

4 Steven Smith, “Personalities in the Crowd: The Idea of the “Masses” in American Popular Culture,” Prospects 19 (1994): 228.

5 Smith, “Personalities in the Crowd,” 256.6 Bernays, Propaganda, 77-78.

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sale of pianos had a heavy influence on buying groups.7

As propaganda influenced many corporations, the acknowledgement of the critical value of

public analysis grew exponentially. Sproule describes the development of public-opinion measurement

through George Gallup, which has evolved into today's Gallup Polls. The importance of public-opinion

polls to Bernays was so powerful Smith describes it as, “To buy is to vote.”8

Stuart Ewen helps to explain the development of public-analysis. In the 1920s, public-opinion

measurement grew bigger than ever and the public were routinely monitored. The sense that citizens

began to shift into consumers corresponds with the rise of public analysis. “The public was becoming a

commodity; its opinions were being packaged and sold to the highest bidder.”9

All three sources generally agree about the history of the public relations industry and the

effects Bernays had on it. To this day, the concept of the mass in public relations rules over society with

a strong hand. Corporations have dominated the media over the 20 th century. The original question of

all of this is how can an entire nation of people be persuaded to act in irrational and illogical ways?

Bernays answered this question in his book “Propaganda” in 1928,

“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.”10

In addition to all three sources agreeing of Bernays' influences on the public relations industry, the

sources also imply the intentions of Bernays to be innocent and consciously ethical. Bernays wrote in

his book that if public relations were to be accepted as a profession in the future, it must include ideals

and ethics.11 Nonetheless, we have to examine the common type of thought within the early 20 th

century, which might have influenced the wise few who guide the herd.

7 Sproule, Propaganda and Democracy, 35.8 Smith, “Personalities in the Crowd,” 255.9 Stuart Ewen, PR! A Social History of Spin (New York: Basic Books, 1996), 190.10 Edward Bernays, Propaganda (New York: Ig,1928), 37. 11 Bernays, Propaganda, 69.

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The popular thinking of the time was heavily influenced by an American engineer, Fredrick

Winslow Taylor. Taylor developed a system of scientific management that analyzed and synthesized

workflows. Particularly with the assembly line and factory workers, Taylorism was overwhelmingly

adopted by the industrial economy that propelled the US into the global market as the world's leading

exporter in the early 20th century.12 Taylor devised plans for workers that dictated the precise number of

shoveling per hour and even as far as including how many minutes a worker should use to rest. These

ideas were vague prior to Taylor. Taylorism involved a top-down approach of production involving

human labor. The people who conducted the most important business affairs and the people who

engineered the products were the only people paid to think. Everyone else involved in the production

process already had a very detailed process of labor to be produced, a plan already laid out by the

people at the top.13 The worker was only responsible for what he/she was told. Taylor would tell

workers that they were “not supposed to think, there are other people paid for thinking around here.”14

Ray Marshall and Marc Tucker explain how Taylorism was developed. The flow of unskilled or

low-skilled immigrants was growing alongside the factor of people from rural farm areas were also

pushing into cities due to technological advances and for higher wages. In order to deal with the

plentiful resource of low-skilled workers, Taylor devised his plan to create maximum output efficiency

in production factories while simultaneously engaging the low-skilled public into the economy. One

key factor of profitability was the ability to lay off as many workers.15 Just as Taylor was interested in

the profitability of the factory, Bernays was interested in the efficiency of democracy.

The thinking behind Taylorism helps explain the idea of Bernays, and other leading intellectuals

at the time such as Walter Lippmann, one of America's leading intellectuals on the principles of

12 Ray Marshall and Marc Tucker, Thinking for a Living: Education and the Wealth of Nations (New York: Basic Books, 1992) 3.

13 Marshall and Tucker, Thinking for a Living, 5.14 Marshall and Tucker, Thinking for a Living, 5.15 Marshall and Tucker, Thinking for a Living, 6.

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democracy, that “elites must be able to govern without the impediment of an active or participatory

public.”16 Just as Lippmann and Bernays both thought that the majority of the population should not

participate in the decision-making process of society, Taylor believed that the majority of workers in

any factory should not participate in the decision-making process of the firm. Lippmann devised the

ability to “manufacture consent”, to employ techniques that could assemble mass support behind

executive action. Bernays' idea of the “engineering of consent” derived from Lippmann's analogy, but

making it more applicable to the public and in various forms rather than clinging to political theory.

Lippmann, Bernays, and Taylor have a similar approach to their work. All three reflect an elitism of a

small minority of privileged people with the ability to direct the rest of the crowd into their own desired

direction, which their own desired interests supposedly reflected the benefit of society as a whole. This

small minority were the valuable contenders in the important decision-making process of society or a

factory. The top-down approach, whether applied in factory settings or within democratic societies, has

been widely influential throughout the past century of modernity.

Historians seem to have the same general consensus about the history of public relations. The

methods that have been developed nearly a century ago are still in effect throughout all of society. Not

only did the US pioneer the modern public relations industry, but was heavily influenced by a multiple

of factors and ideas. The idea of the mass mind coupled with the new mass production methods

assembled the perfect environment for the psychology of consumerism and scientific management to

materialize. These thoughts have only unfolded into more mediums throughout our world of

globalization. Just as Bernays said, “Propaganda will never die out.”17

16 Ewen, PR!, 147.17 Bernays, Propaganda, 168.

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Bibliography

Bernays, Edward. Propaganda. New York: Ig, 1928.

Ewen, Stuart. PR! A Social History of Spin New York: Basic Books, 1996.

Marshall, Ray and Marc Tucker. Thinking for a Living: Education and the Wealth of Nations New

York: Basic Books, 1992.

Smith, Steven. “Personalities in the Crowd: The Idea of the “Masses” in American Popular Culture.”

Prospects 19 (1994): 225-258.

Sproule, J. Michael. Propaganda and Democracy: The American Experience of Media and Mass

Persuasion. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1997.

Berman, Morris. Psywar. Film. Directed by Scott Noble. S.I.: Metanoia Films, 2010.