Crystallizing Public Opinion

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Crystallizing Public Opinion is a book by Edward Bernays published in 1923. In 1961 it was reissued with a new foreword by Bernays. It is regarded as one of the basic works for public relations .

Bernays defines the PR consultant as someone who, far more than a press representative, can create an effective symbolic bond within the crowd. Suitable advertising messages are developed on the basis of group psychology and distributed in a recipient-oriented manner through a special message design in selected channels.

He gives examples from his previous professional activity and cites ideas from Walter Lippmann and Wilfred Trotter .

Summary

Part 1 - Topic and tasks

Bernays presents the successes of his previous consulting work:

  • He fought the rumor that a hotel was going to close by publicly announcing a new contract with a well-known and well-paid maître d'hôtel . (Pp. 14–16)
  • Bacon was promoted as part of healthy eating by commissioning a scientific study that showed that a “hearty” breakfast is particularly healthy when it contains bacon. (Pp. 16–17)
  • Kansas wheat crop labor shortages were addressed by promoting the harvest to war returnees through the Department of Defense and the Associated Press . (Pp. 21–24)
  • Reinforcement of Lithuanian national sentiment through the formation of a Lithuanian National Council, which conveys interesting news to intellectuals, politicians, sports fans and other demographically profiled sections of the population who influence the opinion of other groups, with favorable consequences for Lithuania. (Pp. 24–27)
  • Promotion of the League of Nations through a mixed committee (made up of women's representatives, democrats, republicans, radicals, reactionaries, associations and clubs) which publicly endorsed it. (Pp. 31–32)

According to Bernays, public opinion is becoming more and more important insofar as people want to be better informed and organizations try to convey a better picture of themselves. This is particularly true of the public utilities that are supposed to serve the public interest. (Pp. 41–46)

Part 2 - The group and the herd

According to Bernays, “public opinion” consists of disordered ideas and preconceived judgments that lie side by side in the mind of the average individual. He quotes Wilfred Trotter as saying that this average person has many strong convictions whose origins he cannot explain. The consciousness also has “logic-resistant departments”, which should preferably or exclusively be approached with means beyond the rational. (Pp. 61–68)

After discussing the mutual relationship between the press and the public, Bernays suggests understanding the complexity of established public opinion. He invokes the concept of the “stereotype” described by Walter Lippmann , which explains that stereotypes that people already have determine what new content they can insert as “facts” into the coherent worldview. He quotes from Everett Dean Martin's book The Behavior of Crowds from 1920, how herd mentality can increase people's unconscious urges, lower inhibitions and heighten antagonisms with other groups. Educated people can show this mentality just as much as the ignorant. Bernays quotes Trotter, saying that the herd mentality always affects people, not only when they are part of an actual crowd on the street. (see pp. 98–110)

The practitioner must therefore tap into the "flow of group energy". (see pp. 118–122)

Part 3 - Techniques and Methods

The size and heterogeneity of modern America “make it necessary today for the advocate of a point of view to hire an expert to represent it before society, an expert who knows how to reach groups that differ on ideals and customs and even completely differentiate language. Out of this necessity, the consultancy for public relations has developed. ”The experienced PR employee makes a valuable contribution to overcoming heterogeneity in order to influence millions of people in the same way. Established communication media are used to communicate the “right” facts at the right time. (Pp. 125–138)

People should be addressed as members of "overlapping groups" that affect different aspects of their identity. (139–146) For example, in promoting silk: silk was presented in women's clubs as fashionable, for art lovers as artistic, for schools as historically interesting. These different perspectives could address different aspects of people's identity:

The school teacher was approached in the classroom as a teacher and after finishing school as a member of a women's club. She read the advertisement about silk as a reader of the newspapers, and as a member of the women's group who visited the museums, she saw the silk there. The woman who stayed at home was brought into contact with the silk through her child. (P. 146)

Highlighting the right group identity for a purpose is far more effective than trying to change the attitudes of an individual group. Highlighting changing external conditions such as new technologies is also effective. Universal instincts like self-preservation and sex can also be used meaningfully. Or instinct / feeling pairs like escape – fear, disgust – disgust, fight – anger and others. (Pp. 146–153)

"The public relations counsel sometimes uses the current stereotypes, sometimes combats them, and sometimes creates new ones." (P. 162) "The counselor makes use of the familiar solidified ideas, sometimes by fighting them, sometimes by creating new ones. "

Since the methods of psychological manipulation are diverse, Bernays suggests focusing on the basics. He encourages the PR consultant to introduce himself as a member of the different groups he needs to reach and then plan a campaign that addresses as many different group aspects as possible. For example, a hotel wishing to demonstrate its reputation may hold a public festival with carefully selected guests - including “a senior banker, a society woman, a prominent lawyer, an influential preacher, and so on, until a cross section through the city ”(pp. 166–169). The PR consultant has to generate messages “regardless of the medium in which these messages are broadcast”.

"The PR consultant has to pick out amazing facts from his entire subject and present them as news. He must isolate ideas and develop them into events so that they can be better understood and claim attention as news. "

Once interesting news is created, it will spread through media channels that try to grab the public's attention. (P. 171)

Part 4 - Ethical references

Bernays continues his discussion of the news, noting that journalists view public relations officers as an important source of updated information. He emphasizes the central importance of newspapers for culture and writes that the PR consultant must deliver "truthful, accurate and verifiable news" in order to remain in the favor of journalists. (Pp. 177-183)

The definition of “ news ” is not fixed and varies from newspaper to newspaper. Bernays cites William Henry Irwin's definition that news is "a departure from the established order." He then cites Irwin's list of principles for determining newsworthiness that he believes may contradict the definition:

"We prefer to read about the things we like." ("Power for men, affection for women.")

"Our interest in news grows in direct proportion to our familiarity with its topic, the situation and the people involved."

"Our interest in news increases in direct proportion to the general importance of the people or actions that are affected."

Bernays often quotes Walter Lippmann as saying that an “obvious act” is necessary to clarify a situation so that it can turn into news. According to Lippmann, the press representative stands between the event and the press to control the flow of information. For Bernays, a public relations consultant is not just a simple supplier of news, but creates it. The result must of course be truthful and accurate - and also well written and tailored to the needs of the various media. (Pp. 191–198)

Bernays defends the role of public relations consultant as "special pleaders" and believes that the positions he advocates are not necessarily worse than those he weakens. In reality, the only difference between “propaganda” and “education” is perspective: standing up for what we believe in is education. Standing up for what we don't believe in, propaganda. He quotes Elmer Davis ' remark that "the relativity theory of truth is a matter of course for every newspaper man, even for one who has never studied epistemology". (Pp. 208–213)

"The social value of the public relations counsel lies in the fact that he brings to the public facts and ideas of social utility which would not so readily gain acceptance otherwise." The social significance of the PR consultant lies in the fact that he gives the public facts and brings ideas to mind that would otherwise not be so readily accepted. (P. 216)

Bernays closes with a warning from Ferdinand Tönnies that civilization is in danger. “Higher layers of society” should protect civilization from lower instincts and “inject” moral and spiritual motives into public opinion.

Reactions

Commentators admitted that Bernays was breaking new ground with his book, insofar as the task of a "PR consultant" was defined for the first time. The New York Times called it "the first book entirely devoted to this profession which in time will take on overwhelming national importance." Opinions about its qualities varied. HL Mencken initially called it a "pioneer book", later he expressed his contempt. The future Senator Ernest Gruening asked in a review entitled "Higher Hokum" (higher nonsense) whether it would not be better to convince the public instead of simply "pinning them up" with cruder means (which is what the so-called "To hell" with-the-public approach) - whether the end result would really be very different for the public through conviction, especially since the public does not like to be despised and does not allow themselves to be fooled. Seduction doesn't really appear to be more advantageous than overt abuse.

Critical analysis

Crystallizing Public Opinion appeared one year after Lippmann's Public Opinion and can be understood as the application of Lippman's principles to the active manipulation of public opinion. While Lippmann saw a bigger role for the government in steering public opinion, Bernays focused on the company and its PR agent.

Professor Sue Curry Jansen believes that Bernays distorted Lippman's insights. PR historians such as Stuart Ewen and Larry Tye would have uncritically repeated Bernay's opinion on this point. She writes that Lippmann's public opinion is an analysis of the limitations of rationality that a democratic society is exposed to. Bernays systematically turned Lippmann's justified criticism into an apology for public relations work by citing Lippmann's works selectively and deceptively in support of positions that Lippmann clearly reject. While Lippmann sees the stereotype as a kind of blind spot or an obstacle to rational thinking, Bernays sees it as “a great help for the PR consultant”, although it is “not necessarily true”. She also thinks that Berneys sometimes ascribes quotes to Lippmann in Crystallizing Public Opinion that do not at all match Lippmann's work.

expenditure

  • Crystallizing Public Opinion, New York: Boni and Liveright, 1923, OCLC 215243834
  • Edward Bernays: Crystallizing Public Opinion. LIVERIGHTPUBLISHING CORPORATION, New York 1961.

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See also

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Danie du Plessis (Ed.): Introduction to Public Relations and Advertising ; Lansdowne: Juta Education, 2000
  2. ↑ Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War, p. 36
  3. ↑ Stuart Ewen : PR! A Social History of Spin ; New York: Basic Books (Perseus), 1996; ISBN 0-465-06179-6 ; S. 164. “In 1923, just a year after Lippmann published his tome, Public Opinion , Bernays answered with his own book, Crystallizing Public Opinion. Five years later — again just a year after Lippmann's The Phantom Public appeared — Bernays published a second book on public relations, Propaganda . If Lippmann's prose was intended to sway the thinking of socially cognizant leaders and intellectuals, Bernays's writing style was meant for practitioners in the trenches; his primary interest was to frame the job of public relations counsel in ways that would allow practitioners to take advantage of the insights of modern social and psychological thought. Lippmann's books were filled with intricate ruminations on the processes of human epistemology and theoretical speculations on how these processes might pertain to the project of molding public opinion. Bernays's books were punctuated throughout by vivid narratives — stories of Bernays's earliest campaigns, public relations feats, and commonplace sales situations — each presented to demonstrate how social psychology, and the social scientific approach more generally, might be employed in the everyday work of a publicist . "
  4. ^ César García: Rethinking Walter Lippmann's legacy in the history of public relations . In: PRism 7 (2), 2010; P. 4.
  5. ^ Sue Curry Jansen: Semantic Tyranny: How Edward L. Bernays Stole Walter Lippmann's Mojo and Got Away With It and Why It Still Matters . In: International Journal of Communication 7 (2013), 1094–1111.