I had a great middle school teacher who would always get us to talk about politics, around the Bush 92 era. She told us about this election being the one where the better looking guy won, because TV existed.

But it sounds like it was mostly an "accident" on both sides, or at least Nixon's, due to not understanding the new medium.

What Bernays did was more sophisticated IMO -- it was intentional "hacking" of public opinion, fueled by money. This includes helping to overthrow a democratically elected government in Guatemala (which BTW people told me about decades ago, but I failed to pay enough attention to)