Historiographical Essay: Examination of Secondary Sources to Propaganda

William Griffin Historical Methods & Writing HIST 301 27-OCT-2013

1 The global expansion of media and communication technologies over the course of the 20 th century vastly helped shape the world of the early 21 st 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.

2 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 20 th 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.

3 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.

4 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 8 9 10 11 Sproule, Propaganda and Democracy, 35. Smith, Personalities in the Crowd, 255. Stuart Ewen, PR! A Social History of Spin (New York: Basic Books, 1996), 190. Edward Bernays, Propaganda (New York: Ig,1928), 37. Bernays, Propaganda, 69.

5 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.

6 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.

7 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.