Of his many books, Crystallizing Public Opinion (1923) and Propaganda (1928) gained special attention as early efforts to define and theorize the field of public relations. Citing works of writers such as Gustave Le Bon, Wilfred Trotter, Walter Lippmann, and Sigmund Freud (his own double uncle), he described the masses as irrational and subject to herd instinct—and he outlined how skilled practitioners could use crowd psychology and psychoanalysis to control them in desired ways. [4] [5] Bernays later synthesized many of these ideas in his postwar book, Public Relations (1945), which outlines the science of managing information released to the public by an organization, in a manner most advantageous to the organization. He does this by first providing an overview of the history of public relations, and then provides insight into its application. He has adopted the glitter and the ballyhoo of the campaign with sideshow, annual dinners that are a compendium of speeches, flags, stateliness, and pseudo-democracy slightly tinged with paternalism. The non-settler European colonies were not regarded as viable venues for these new markets, since centuries of exploitation and impoverishment meant that few people there were able to pay. In the 1920s, the target consumer market to be nourished lay at home in the industrialised world. There, especially in the US, consumption continued to expand through the 1920s, though truncated by the Great Depression of 1929.

As mentioned in the introduction, Bernays literally wrote the book on an idea he termed “engineering consent.” He presented the argument that democracy could not be left in the hands of the unwashed masses, that the world’s wealthy and powerful must protect those lower on the class rung from themselves. The method of providing this protection was to manipulate their votes by the same kinds of campaigns which Bernays had perfected, all the while promoting the beauty of free election. Curt Olsen (July 2005). "Bernay vs. Ellul: Two views of propaganda". Public Relations Tactics 12(7), p. 28. After graduating from Cornell, Bernays wrote for the National Nurseryman journal. Then he worked at the New York City Produce Exchange, where his father was a grain exporter. He went to Paris and worked for Louis Dreyfus and Company, reading grain cables. By December 1912, he had returned to New York. [12] Medical editor [ edit ]In 1928, Edward Bernays published his famous book, Propaganda, in which he outlined the theories behind his successful “public relations” endeavours. The book provides insights into the phenomenon of crowd psychology and outlines effective methods for manipulating people’s habits and opinions.

This passage, for example, had me thinking that Bernays was way ahead of his time (modified for brevity): The Case for Reappraisal of U.S. Overseas Information Policies and Programs (Incorporating Congressman Fascell's Report), with Burnet Hershey, eds. New York: Praeger (1970). I also tend to agree with him that democracy presents some limitations and that enlightened leaders who can sway the masses with intelligent communication and propaganda can also best position themselves to do the interest of those same masses. Tye (1998), pp. 33–34. "If he began by disguising his role in the battle to get women smoking, Bernays more than made up for that in later years. The parade story in particular became part of his repertoire on the speaking circuit and in scores of interviews until his death in 1995, and with each retelling the tale got more colorful and his claims more sweeping. In his 1965 memoirs, for instance, he discussed the slow process of breaking down conventions like the taboo against women smoking. But by 1971 he was telling an oral historian at Columbia University that 'overnight the taboo was broken by one overt act,' the 1929 Easter Sunday march."

Edward Bernays’ Life As Sigmund Freud’s Nephew

And big businessmen are more and more performing on the public stage not out of genuine beliefs, but to drive sales. Scientific accuracy of results is not to be expected, because many of the elements of the situation must always be beyond his control. Of course, one could easily say that we in the west are better off than people living in communist or Fascist countries, because their propaganda is far more rigid and insidious than our own. This argument is a misleading one, however, for the simple reason that their propaganda is often more visible and easier to perceive than our own. By its very nature, a democratic society offers so many supposed choices to its citizens that we would have neither the time nor the energy to narrow them down without a whole industry of communications professionals dedicated to just that. Our propagandists do not use rope, barbed wire, mental hospitals, and the militia to make their point; no—they use the latest communication techniques disseminated through the print, electronic, and other media in the guise of “giving us what we really want.” In actual fact his judgment is a mélange of impressions stamped on his mind by outside influences which unconsciously control his thought.