Edward Bernays and the birth of public relations (2015) | Hacker News Reader

Edward Bernays and the birth of public relations (2015)

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143 pointshaltingproblem65 comments

Bernays' work is certainly important but I think the amount of credit he's typically given for the idea that propaganda could be wielded in peacetime is undeserved. That distinction really belongs to Walter Lippmann, who had begun formulating the idea 5-10 years earlier and articulating it in Public Opinion (1922) and The Phantom Public (1925), well before Propaganda (1928). Propaganda was really more of a formalization of something that was already understood to exist.

Spot on. Besides, W. Lippmann was apparently a lot more sophisticated with capacity to influence wider circles of intellectuals and mandarins. The title of Edward Herman & Noam Chomsky’s book “Manufacturing Consent” was borrowed from Lippmann’s writing where he was making the case for the elites to manage the perception of the meddlesome public.

Yes. However, I don't think it's accurate to characterize Lippmann's assessment of the public as "meddlesome". It's true that he was an elitist, but Lippmann's brand of elitism stemmed from the empirical observation that governing a large population is clearly too complex for even a representative democracy to do well (and is certainly more difficult than proponents of democracy are willing to admit, if not impossible). Unlike most forms of elitism, his view of the public as incapable of governing itself was not rooted in ideas about their moral inferiority but in the acknowledgement that it just isn't functionally possible for them to run the show. This observation led to three conclusions (which IMO are correct): 1) That democracy at scale always regresses to partisanship, 2) The idea that "the people" actually govern themselves in any real democracy is largely a farce, and 3) That a system of "representatives" and bureaucrats running the show is itself elitist.

I think it is very easy for people living in the US to tacitly accept these very dangerous assumptions given the state of our democracy. However, I would posit that the degradation of our democracy is due in part to elite acceptance of the idea that the people are either too dumb or physically incapable of governing themselves and thus governing for their own benefit.

I would strongly push back on these assumptions. The democratic structures outlined in the US constitutions are flawed by design and leads to the specious conclusion that democracy is impossible. Mass participation in the democratic process, smashing old structures, and reconstituting new structures will allow democracy and the public to thrive.

These are not "assumptions" about "the degradation of our democracy". They are factual assertions about the structure of democracy as a system of government.

I encourage you to listen to this podcast: Radical institutional reforms that make capitalism & democracy work better, and how to get them

https://80000hours.org/podcast/episodes/glen-weyl-radically-...

I'm not sure what that would add when his point is that if people were anywhere near rational about this, there would be no need for such a podcast because these would already be features of our democracy, demanded by the people.

They are not at all factual statements. The elite conception of the issue has become so indoctrinated in the population that it has become fashionable to regard them as such. Liberal authors are starting to come out with books that attack the idea of democratic governance. This is a bankruptcy with elites, broken structures, and a failing of liberalism (but not of radicalism).

Which among them are not factual assertions?

The distinction in such specialized brand of elitism lies merely in its sophistication, not in its essential contempt for the citizenry.

The roles of such mandarins as Lippmann accelerate the regression of democracy. Contrast that with the democratically constructive roles of people (whistleblowers, participants in labor/antiwar/civil rights movement etc.). There is no impossibility theorem proving that people cannot socially organize into functioning democracies. Slavery looked like an inevitability at some point, and certainly Lippmanns in that era were enagaged in theorizing about effective slave-ownership rather than about ways to abolish slavery.

The "farce" becomes more farcical as power keeps getting concentrated more and more into the hands of the elites, a trend that is facilitated in no small ways by the mandarins. And farcically, they do not stop calling it a "democracy" even then.

The reps and bureaucrats are meant to be (public) servants. There can be and should be efforts to effectively organize such roles in bottom-up fashions, and to keep them in line with their stated roles. If the supply water is found to have impurity in it (some large ppm), the next step is to improve it, rather than taking sewage line as its alternative.

(unless i'm misreading what she's saying) another view is ".. Lippmann ... was a vehement critic of propaganda .. "

https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/viewFile/1955/907

That may be true but it's not at odds with what I wrote. Lippmann was a critic of what he believed to be the inherently partisan nature of democracy. It would be unsurprising, then, for him to be a critic of wielding partisanship. It would be fair to say that Lippmann figured out the system's structure and how it could be manipulated, and then Bernays wrote the playbook for manipulating it.

The book Propaganda is good, but you can feel the naive vision of capitalism, corporation and power in general. The author seems to genuinely believe the invisible hand will balance things out, that people won't abuse their power and that ethics were a stronger motivator than money in the system.

Also enjoyed reading Bernays and Lippmann.

Please note, though, that recent experimental research has also pushed back a bit on the impact of propaganda and human gullibility [0].

[0]: https://press.princeton.edu/ideas/what-do-you-really-know-ab...

This book is not itself experimental research. At best it appears to engage in some amount of summarizing experimental research. On the other hand, the descriptions or excerpts from the book on the linked page themselves criticize the applicability of various kinds of experimental research. And in other news, these are some pretty radical assertions considering how broad they are. All of this is to say that if the book isn't some kind of meticulous, incredibly well-supported, seminal take-down of what we think we know about a variety of fields, I'm gonna guess it's either chock full of anecdotes a la Gladwell or Brooks, or cherry-picking evidence a la Taleb.

Agreed, it’s a summary of many experimental research studies and the author does make radical assertions.

The fact that we nowadays attribute this to Bernays' shows how he was a master of his trade.

As I understand it Bernays was already working in the field long before publishing his book. His early work as a proto PR agent for the singer Caruso, fabricating myths about his prowess, does lend credence to this, as Caruso died in 1921.

It seems fair to say that there were many early adopters of this type of propaganda.

"... the idea that propaganda could be wielded in peacetime..."

That is to say, what is now known as "PR" came from the military, who had trained people how to do this kind of work, e.g., in the role of "press agent".

It may have existed before the First World War^a but its popular use by the private sector may have happened only after more men had been trained in "PR" and had performed this work for the military.

[a] https://www.coursehero.com/tutors-problems/Accounting/970203...

Yes and no. Bernays was one of the players during WWI propaganda, specifically he was part of Committee on Public Information. If I remember correctly, Lippmann had in mind that particular time period when he wrote about manufacturing consent. A real eye opening account comes from George Creel, organizer of CPI. If you haven't read that yet, look into "How We Advertised America." It's incredible, I wrote a paper on this for my undergrad thesis. Propaganda of that time was so remarkable that you can use their copy as a classic example in advertising today.

Sorry if this is an obtuse question, but which part of your reply is the "no" in "yes and no"?

Well, you're right about Bernays getting too much credit. It's just at the same time he was a major player as well.

After re-reading your comment, I think we are on the same page, more or less. But Lippmann was writing about the very same work and propaganda that Bernays actively participated and "invented" during his time at CPI. Lippmann saw how it played out in 1917-1918, so he wrote about it. Bernays later wrote his book, but it wasn't journalistic work, he wrote from direct experience.

Hah! Funny, I was just talking to my flatmate yesterday about Bernays :)

+1 on the recommendation for Century of the Self by Adam Curtis.

There's a snippet in there about how Bernays was brought in during the creation of easy bake goods ie add 2 eggs and some butter to make some fudge (as I did yesterday)

Anyway, they initially tried to just have no ingredients required but during trials with housewives, found they felt like imposters who lacked agency during the baking process.

The solution? The baker adds one egg, which isn't included in the ready mix ingredients

"The Century Of The Self" by Adam Curtis is a great documentary series on Bernays and the PR industry he invented. Gets scary towards the end when you realize that mainstream political discourse is now managed using the same PR methods that took over the business world a generation before.

For those wishing to watch this, it's all on youtube here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s

While dated by now, it's rather disturbing how clear the lineage is from where the show ends to the current "social media" era. The breadth and efficacy of public manipulation is arguably greater than ever, and it's a clear threat to democracy IMHO.

It is a constant and universal truth that irrationality of the masses exist. And then there are those who think that they can manipulate through propaganda

Given the way they are pushing the systems they control to the breaking point for the sake of ever-more-marginal gains in their already staggering wealth and power, it's harder and harder to view elites as any more rational than the masses.

i think it's less a threat to democracy and more that it's already ended democracy (what little was implemented in the first place) in the u.s. (i'm just repeating your use of the word democracy, as there's an implicit assumption there that democracy is a cherished thing being destroyed.)

adam curtis' other documentaries build upon similar ideas, converging to the (relatively) recent hypernormalization.

I was going to post something similar. AC is where I first learned of Bernays.

This documentary series forever changed my view of the world and how it works. Everyone should see it (and to be thorough, read it's criticisms).

I also recommend his follow-up series "The Power of Nightmares" for the same reason — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTg4qnyUGxg

Great recommendation. His newest long work "HyperNormalisation" (2016) [0][1] is even more timely and covers PR in a modern context, and explores how it fits in with modern hacktivism, international proxy wars, warlords current and former, Occupy movements and Arab Spring, and he even manages to fit in the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Barlow's Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace, and early phreaker culture icons Phiber Optik and Acid Phreak.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HyperNormalisation

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fh2cDKyFdyU (full 166 minute documentary)

This Adam Curtis link now has deleted youtube videos but is still useful for searching episodes by title http://adamcurtisfilms.blogspot.com I've watched everything he's done and flew to NY from the west coast to see Massive Attack vs Adam Curtis which is probably the best live event I've ever been to. https://youtu.be/yv_S8GdylEA

Here's a better source for Adam Curtis's series:

https://thoughtmaybe.com/by/adam-curtis/

  The Century of The Self

https://thoughtmaybe.com/the-century-of-the-self/

  HyperNormalisation

https://thoughtmaybe.com/hypernormalisation/

  All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace

https://thoughtmaybe.com/all-watched-over-by-machines-of-lov...

  The Power of Nightmares

https://thoughtmaybe.com/the-power-of-nightmares/

  It Felt Like a Kiss

https://thoughtmaybe.com/it-felt-like-a-kiss/

Nice set of links. Do you know much about the site thoughtmaybe.com? Seems interesting but I am always wary of sites like these with subscription links and unclear provenance of the videos they use.

For what it's worth, here are some links to Adam Curtis videos on the Internet Archive and a bonus link to Curtis chatting with the director of the Dick Cheney biopic "Vice," Adam McKay.

https://archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A%22Adam%20Cur...

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/jan/18/adam-curtis-and...

You're wary of sites with opt in email list subscription links?

From the site header ABOUT page:

https://thoughtmaybe.com/about/

"Thought Maybe is a 100% independent, autonomous, not-for-profit, self-directed project that exists to inspire action on a whole bunch of issues surrounding modern society, industrial civilisation, globalised dominant culture.

This website does not use nor support corporate “communication networks” such as YouTube, Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc. We think its important to maintain an independent platform for publishing—insofar as it’s possible to do on the Internet of corporate-controlled gateways or ISPs.

We run this project using Open Source Software and embrace the notion of Creative Commons, and supportive sharing.

We don’t run advertising on our site because we find it repugnant, compromising and unwanted!

This project is entirely not-for-profit—an open library funded by a small crew of dedicated media activists throughout the world. This freely accessible library is our labour of love project for positive social and political change. Even though it is a hard job, we don’t get paid.

We don’t receive any outside funds of any type, and we don’t receive nor would we accept money from any corporate or government entities. Our vested interest lays solely with humanity and the natural world, not this culture, not this system.

This library is independent and autonomous. It is a labour of love run by a small crew of dedicated activists throughout the world. We have no affiliations and are not part of any organisation or group, which means no vested interest, which means we can publish what is needed without interference, censorship or vetoing.

We don’t work with any commercial organisations, religious groups, political parties, etc—we’re entirely independent and self-determined in order to remain effective about what we set out to achieve, which is to cultivate and nurture an effective culture of resistance to the pertinent social and political issues outlined in this library. It is why filmmakers make films, it’s why we do what we do to support getting them seen and acted on. Where it goes from here is up to you…"

I’m wary of “countercultural” sites run by a “small crew” not identified soliciting emails with no privacy policy in place. If it isn’t a honeypot it’s indistinguishable from one. Assuming it isn’t, the email list itself is ambiguous regarding GDPR compliance. It seems counter-intuitive to me that the intended audience would sign up for such an email list under such a cloud of uncertainty. With anonymity comes avoidance of accountability. Why would I visit such a site if I have nothing to gain and so much to lose from interacting with a site whose operators have inscrutable and seemingly paradoxical intentions?

I’ll ask more directly since I was vague before. Are you associated with thoughtmaybe.com? I only ask because you seem to be advocating for using it under the guise of a user or fan of the site, and not as operator or staff of the site; to not identify yourself as staff when commenting on the site could be interpreted as commenting in bad faith. If not then please disregard this paragraph.

The threat model you sound concerned about could easily be mitigated in several ways. Use a proxy/VPN/TOR to visit the site, don't sign up for the email list. Maybe use a spare email address? I'd assume the email list is just alerts for new documentaries. News letters and email sign ups are extremely common?

Why does this site look like a honey pot?

Paradoxical intentions? Can you clarify what by visiting a website, you'd have "so much to lose"? That seems excessively paranoid.

I'm not involved with thoughtmaybe.com - if there were any other website hosting Adam Curtis films, please feel free to share.

My threat model is “if the site gets hacked and the user list gets leaked, who benefits and who is harmed? Certainly not the anonymous operators of the site. I only want for the users what the operators want for themselves.”

I do agree with your remediations by the way. It’s not any one thing that makes me suspicious. It’s the subject matter itself. TLAs will MITM and send you a 0day just to find a specific user if they are known to use a site so it’s more of a concern of visiting single purpose sites or niche sites in general as they don’t benefit nearly so much from your signal remaining hidden in the noise of otherwise innocuous traffic to a benign url such as archive.org or youtube.com.

Now that I mention it, it seems that the only indexer blocked by thoughtmaybe.com’s robots.txt is the one for archive.org. Why that may be is curious but I don’t know how common blocking that specific crawler is so I won’t speculate as to the reasons why.

I almost regret watching this documentary 2 years ago because it caused me to question various fundamental assumptions about _who_ I am and as a result triggered an identity crisis that I'm still in the grips of.

Definitely a top doc. It's a good starter, but I'd recommend any viewers to continue exploring adjacent topics further with the primary reference materials mentioned in the doc.

There’s a Mad Men episode where someone asks Don Draper if “all this stuff actually works” and Draper says, “who knows?” (paraphrasing).

Like many, I learned of Bernays through Adam Curtis’ documentary, “The Century of the Self.” But many years later, I wonder — where’s the evidence that Bernays ideas were actually effective? I love Curtis films, and I think there’s a lot of great ideas in them — but it’s also easy to be hypnotized by them and forget to be critical.

Anyway, would be interested if anyone’s found any research that makes a compelling case that Bernays’ ideas actually work, and that he wasn’t just a really good salesman for his own services.

It certainly does work. It worked remarkably well. It changed the whole public perception of war in 1917-1918. If you can find it, read "How We Advertised America" by George Creel. Bernays was involved in that.

Lets not forget Ivy Lee who really founded the modern PR industry.

Ivy Lee rebranded Rockefeller as america's lovable, generous and charitable "grandpa" by having him give money to children on camera and setting up family controlled "charities". Which has been copied by many wealthy people since. Most recently by Bill Gates and his family controlled charities.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivy_Lee

Funnily enough, both bernays and lee were journalists... But then again, newspapers have always been PR and journalists have always been influencers/PR workers.

I first learned about Bernays from attending a live episode of "Stuff You Should Know" in Los Angeles. The full show was about Edward Bernays. Hair nets and Bananas both owe their popularity to Bernays. The "Stuff You Should Know" podcast that eventually posted nicely covers all the points but I couldn't find it on their website since iHeart Radio bought them and removed their website.

Also got more women to smoke cigarettes:

More here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torches_of_Freedom

Sinister! Well, great for the tobacco companies. Humanity overall? Not so much.

He paid women to walk and smoke in an Easter Sunday parade, which to me just seems so vile. (the whole thing is vile, but that particular touch seems to me almost diabolical.)

Yes, it surprises me what some are saying positively in this comment thread about Bernays. In my mind he's always been the epitome of evil. And that mustache... Jeez...

This subject always brings to my mind the old "kill marketers" skit by comedian Bill Hicks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHEOGrkhDp0

"The Attention Merchants" by Tim Wu nicely covers some of Bernays' influence, in the context of advertising and other forms of attention capture from the 19th century through present day. Can't recommend the book enough.

I learned a lot of the techniques pioneered by Bernays in school. It was the basis of a lot of our public communication lessons. I'd always assumed these were just things that had been collectively figured out over time, I never realized there was one person essentially responsive for spreading that kind of manipulation.

I wonder what the world would be like if major corporations, governments and just about everybody trying to convince people of something hadn't latched onto his ideas and built modern society around them.

> I never realized there was one person essentially responsive for spreading that kind of manipulation.

Maybe the others have been forgotten ... Bernays was most probably at managing his own publicity as well.

The book "Men Who Stare at Goats" (no idea about the movie) is a terrifying look at the weaponization of the technique turned on the American public.

You have to read between the lines: most people believe the CIA really was exploring use of ESP against the Soviets. Very, very few understand that it was a successful propaganda operation against the American public. Those few also have a clue how we were collectively convinced that invading Iraq would be a really good idea.

They were studying the human mind, and the esp angle was just a subset. The propaganda techniques are also a subset. Hence it is wrong to say the former was fake and it was just the latter. They were doing it all, and seeing what stuck.(mkultra/artichoke, etc) Maybe I'm misunderstanding your comment, could you elaborate on your meaning?

You only know what was published about it. Guess who decided what would be published about it.

You have been played. You have two possible responses, denial and understanding.

Before deciding, consider how you are still being played. The project was a huge success, and has expanded beyond the dreams of its proponents.

Iraq is proof. They even got people thinking that torturing people was a great idea. To this day nobody has been prosecuted for that.

Recently read this after seeing your recommendation on the Project MKULTRA thread. Very entertaining and eye opening, appreciate you pointing me to it.

Thanks for the note.

I had to read the book three times before I figured out what was going on.

Do you have any recommendations for other books on the subject? I'm planning to read "CHAOS,""Poisoner in Chief," and "Weird Scenes from the Canyon" but always open to more suggestions.

The greatest psyop was that perpetrated against their own disbelievers.

The very same people who were outraged over the CIA fabricating pretext for war against Iraq are completely uncritically accepting of the CIA's pretexts for war against Syria.

It's stunning.

Are there pretexts for war against Syria?

I know they launched cruise missiles, once. Haven't heard of invasion plans.

Robert Evans did two excellent episodes on Bernays on his Behind the Bastards podcast.

Part 1: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236...

Part 2: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236...

Coronavirus has a great PR team

I bet it was a boomer.

https://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-century-of-the-self/

I enjoyed reading Edward Bernay's book title: Propaganda. Some examples resonates so well even in 2020 with advertisement industry.

the documentary about this https://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-century-of-the-self/

An interesting overview of Edward Bernays' life, work, and life's work cementing his position as the creator of modern commercial propaganda is Larry Tye's _The Father of Spin_. It's the source of a hundred little ingenious anecdotes that demonstrate the imagination behind Bernays' campaigns, but one of the most alarming is that of Beech-nut bacon. Here I quote from one of Bernays' own books, 'Biography of an Idea':

"The sales of Beechnut bacon were falling off because people had slimmed down their breakfast to a piece of toast, orange juice and a cup of coffee.[...] Beechnut favoured breakfast habits of a century before, when people started their day with bacon and eggs, doughnuts, pie and coffee. If the trend of breakfasts could be reversed, beechnut, the dominant breakfast bacon, would regain its sales. Physicians confirmed to me [i.e. Bernays] that heavy breakfasts were scientifically desirable. The body needs food replenishment twelve hours after an evening meal. I enlisted a well-known New York phyisican, Dr A L Goldwater, to write to phyisicians thoughout the country for their opinion on heavy verses light breakfasts. Physicians from all over the country gave overwhelming support to the hearty breakfast. Six months after widespread publicity on the survey, Bartlett Arkell, president of Beechnut, announced that Beechnut sales of bacon had increased “enormousely in the past half year. Nothing else did it , except the recommendation of American doctors.”/

Bernays recounts this anecdote in such a way as to minimise the appearance that he himself deliberately sought or bought trusted medical opinions to confirm his campaigns: they simply 'confirmed' things to him. But while the Lucky Strike and soap-carving contests he organised often get the most attention - they're beautiful works of creative showmanship and inventive campaigning - quick portraits of his work tend to obscure just how data-driven he actually was. Rare was the PR stunt he pulled without extremely thorough research behind him.

It's also traditional to comment that either Ivy Lee or Walter Lippmann were in fact the 'real' fathers of public relations. One of Edward Bernays' most interesting commentators was Jacques Ellul, whose work expands and develops the role of propaganda in mass or atomised society. He's not well-known in the Anglophone sphere because he published in French, but his book 'Propaganda' has been translated into English and, despite first being published in 1962, actually remains shockingly relevant. In his estimation, 'public opinion' was infinitely malleable, and any political or commercial system that answered to public opinion, without recognising just how vulnerable that was to anyone with an agenda and a good means of delivering misinformation, was doomed. Both he and Bernays make excellent reading in the context of modern political advertising and 'populism' i.e. when public opinion is led or actively wanders into dangerous territory.

I encourage anyone interested in this topic to listen to this podcast: Radical institutional reforms that make capitalism & democracy work better, and how to get them

https://80000hours.org/podcast/episodes/glen-weyl-radically-....

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