Crystallizing Public Opinion

In writing this book I have tried to set down the board principles that govern the profession of public relations. It is certain that the power of public opinion is constantly increasing and will keep on increasing. It is equally certain that it is more and more being influenced, changed, stirred by impulses from below. The danger which this development contains for a progressive ennobling of human society and a progressive heightening of human culture is apparent. The duty of the higher strata of society-the cultivated, the learned, the expert, the intellectual-is therefore clear. They must inject moral and spiritual motives into public opinion. Public opinion must become public conscience.

Famed as "the father of public relations," Edward Bernays pioneered the technique of working to change attitudes rather than just selling products. In this 1923 classic, the first book ever written about the public relations industry, he delineates the approaches that corporations and governments have taken for the past century to influence social tendencies. Crystallizing Public Opinion identifies the techniques employed by public relations professionals, from authoritative-sounding surveys to persuasive endorsements from opinion leaders, celebrities, and experts. Bernays — whose high-profile clients included Procter & Gamble, General Electric, CBS, NBC, and Time, Inc. — cites examples from his successful campaigns, including a physician-endorsed promotion of bacon as a healthy breakfast option. He quotes leading theorists on the role of herd mentality in the minds of the educated as well as the ignorant, and he explains the value of communicating the right facts at the right time to a targeted audience. Although technology has changed in the years since this book's debut, human nature has not, and these principles remain of timeless value to business and marketing professionals, students of public relations, and other readers.

The book "Public Opinion" is a critical assessment of functional democratic government, especially of the irrational and often self-serving social perceptions that influence individual behavior and prevent optimal societal cohesion. The detailed descriptions of the cognitive limitations people face in comprehending their socio-political and cultural environments leading them to apply an evolving catalogue of general stereotypes to a complex reality, rendered Public Opinion a seminal text in the fields of media studies, political science, and social psychology. Walter Lippmann was an American writer, reporter, and political commentator famous for being among the first to introduce the concept of Cold War, coining the term "stereotype" in the modern psychological meaning, and critiquing media and democracy in his newspaper column and several books.

Public relations as described in this volume is, among other things, society’s solution to problems of maladjustment that plague an overcomplex world. All of us, individuals or organizations, depend for survival and growth on adjustment to our publics. Publicist Edward L. Bernays offers here the kind of advice individuals and a variety of organizations sought from him on a professional basis during more than four decades. With such knowledge, every intelligent person can carry on his or her activities more effectively. This book provides know-why as well know-how. Bernays explains the underlying philosophy of public relations and the PR methods and practices to be applied in specific cases. He presents broad approaches and solutions as they were successfully carried out in his long professional career. Public relations is not publicity, press agentry, promotion, advertising, or a bag of tricks, but a continuing process of social integration. It is a field of adjusting private and public interest. Everyone engaged in any public activity, and every student of human behavior and society, will find in this book a challenge and opportunity to further both the public interest and their own interest.

The father of public relations looks back on a landmark life spent shaping trends, preferences, and general opinion A twentieth-century marketing visionary, Edward L. Bernays brilliantly combined mastery of the social sciences with a keen understanding of human psychology to become one of his generation’s most influential social architects. In Biography of an Idea, Bernays traces the formative moments of his career, from his time in the Woodrow Wilson administration as one of the nation’s key wartime propagandists to his consultancy for such corporate giants as Procter & Gamble, General Electric, and Dodge Motors. While working with the American Tobacco Company, Bernays launched his now-infamous Lucky Strike campaign, which effectively ended the long-standing taboo against women smoking in public. With his vast knowledge of the psychology of the masses, Bernays was in great demand, advising high-profile officials and counseling the tastemakers of his generation. His masterful and at times manipulative techniques had longstanding influences on social and political beliefs as well as on cultural trends. Biography of an Idea is a fascinating look at the birth of public relations—an industry that continues to hold sway over American society.

The Father of Spin is the first full-length biography of the legendary Edward L. Bernays, who, beginning in the 1920s, was one of the first and most successful practioners of the art of public relations. In this engrossing biography, Larry Tye uses Bernays's life as a prism to understand the evolution of the craft of public relations and how it came to play such a critical-and sometimes insidious-role in American life. Drawing on interviews with primary sources and voluminous private papers, Tye presents a fascinating and revealing portrait of the man who, more than any other, defined and personified public relations, a profession that today helps shape our political discourse and define our commercial choices.

Walter Lippmann wrote his "Public Opinion" at a time when something like the 'mass media' was coming into existence. Prior to the age of electronic communication, the only mechanism for reaching large numbers of individuals was the newspapers. In World War I, he saw how opportunistic nations used the newspapers to serve their often nefarious aims. Lippmann, however, believed that in the hands of super-intelligent, disinterested, omni-benevelont 'experts, ' the 'mass media' could bring about world peace. The school system, the advent of radio, and of course, the television, were arriving or coming along shortly. Each allowed a small group of people the ability to manage a much larger group, inspiring optimism among liberals and progressives that with the right forumula, the horrors seen in World War I would never occur again. Lippmann wrote "Public Opinion" in 1922, shortly after World War I. In 1924, a certain Adolf Hitler would be spending time in jail. If this merited any mention in any newspaper, it is doubtful that no expert paid it any mind. 1939 was, after all, a long way off.