This
is a portion of a thesis that I wrote, which I have done my best to
alter into a stand alone piece. If there are references to earlier
chapters or a bizarre amount of assumed knowledge then please let me
know or feel free to ask for greater detail on specific points in the
comments box. Also since this is a later chapter and I am ostensibly a
lazy creature I have kept the shortened form on the footnotes so if you
find a quote or idea to be particularly compelling and want more
information on the source then you know the drill. The language may also
seem truncated in parts because of heavy editing of the bits that say
"in the previous chapter". I have also provided links to people and
works where possible. Enjoy :)
A
REVOLUTION IS TAKING PLACE
COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC INFORMATION (CPI) INNOVATION AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY IN THE POST FIRST WORLD WAR WORLD
“When
by various processes an idea has ended by penetrating into the minds of crowds,
it possesses and irresistible power, and brings about a series of effects,
opposition to which is bootless.”
-GUSTAVE LE BONi
The CPI employed an array of methods
in order to promote the the First World War to the American public; methods such as the oratorical
ubiquity of the Four Minute Men, the emotive imagery of the war that was
disseminated by the Division of Pictorial Publicity and themes of the wartime
motion picture industry.
Here it will be examined how these methods and others originated by the
CPI provided a revolutionary new framework within which propagandists
worked
after the war. These methods left an indelible impact on the operations
and
theories of propagandists that operated throughout the twentieth
century, some
of whom actively participated in the work of the CPI.
At this time, just after
the war though before the Nye Commission,+ there was a
subsidence of criticisms of corporate America, given its role in production
during the war. The combination of the new found friendliness towards
corporations, as well as the increased recognition of the importance of shaping
public attitudes led to what Stuart Ewen identifies as
the animation “of a growing class of American intellectuals as they moved from
war service back into civilian life”.[1] To
these intellectuals whose ideas were informed by their own activities with the
CPI “public opinion became something to be mobilised and managed; while the
public mind was now seen as an entity to be manufactured, not reasoned with”.[2]
The contemporary
awareness of these new trends can be traced back to the prevalent political
analyst Walter Lippmann, who tells us in his 1922 work Public Opinion when
discussing what he terms the “manufacture of consent” that “…with the modern
means of communication, the practice of democracy has turned a corner. A
revolution is taking place, infinitely more significant than any shifting of
economic power”.[3]
This revolution, which began with the CPI, was influential in the evolution of
some of what are now considered the basic principles of effective
communication; principles such as unity of voice, source credibility and
message simplicity.[4]
These developments however, had been showing
their roots, at least in terms of ideation, in the late nineteenth century in
the works of people like Gustave Le Bon; author of The Crowd. Similarly the coming of elite interest in public opinion
as a potentially meddlesome force in elite affairs can be seen to develop in
the work of Lord Bryce in his 1888 work The American Commonwealth. It was World War I however, that provided the
mechanism for jump starting industries of national persuasion. This was so in
terms of practical application; while the ideas of social psychology examined
public opinion in the abstract the CPI provided their first centred and
coherent application to a society. Through the CPI this industry as well as
refining its methods and ideas, became very much at ease with the idea of
guiding the public mind.[5] At
the core of this refinement was Edward Bernays who, although little recognised until
relatively recently, provided the framework through which the business of
advertising and public relations functioned. Though Bernays was not alone in
these innovations, others such as Carl Byoir and Ivy Lee deserve mention; he
was by far the person who wrote the most about the guiding principles of mass
persuasion. Bernays lived to be 103 years old and wrote voluminously throughout
much of his life on the ideas that underpinned the moulding of the public mind.
While Bernays in considered
to be the ‘Father of Spin’[6] it
is evident that he was drawing on ideas that had been percolating for some
time.[7]
Bernays drew ideas not just from the influential social psychologist Gustave LeBon but others who in the intervening years had sought to re-evaluate his work.
With the growth of the field of social psychology and psychoanalysis, the
latter of which was the innovation of Bernays’ uncle Sigmund Freud, there came
efforts to be as scientific as possible about approaches to guiding the
opinions of the public. It was Bernays who utilised the approaches of Le Bon in
The Crowd and of Wilfred Trotter in Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War[8] to
formulate new ways to approach the moulding of public opinion. While he conceded
that: “Mass psychology is as yet far from being an exact science”, he does
recognise Trotter and Le Bon as those “who approached the subject in a
scientific manner” as well as being those “who established that the group has
mental characteristics distinct from those of the individual…”[9]
It is Trotter’s use of the word ‘instinct’
that interests us most here, as in spite of George Creel's assertions that the CPI did
not appeal to the emotional or instinctual reactions of the public to their
campaigns, the legacy of its work was specifically aimed at doing so. Worthy of
note on this point is the work of Graham Wallas, the English social psychologist
who broke from the accepted longstanding belief in rationalism, which he
discusses as an “intellectualist fallacy”.[10]
Instead Wallas contends that: “The empirical art of politics consists largely
in the creation of opinion by the deliberate exploitation of sub-conscious
irrational inference.”[11]
Lippmann was a student of Wallas and a follower of his ideas [12]
and concludes in a similar vein that: “it [public opinion] is an irrational
force”. He goes on to say that: “under favourable institutions, sound
leadership and decent training the power of public opinion might be placed at
the disposal of those who stood for workable law over brute assertion.”[13]
What is witnessed here then
is the confluence of ideas and opportunity. While the ideas of Trotter, Freud,
Le Bon and Wallas were being formulated, the war as well as advances in technology
i.e. radio and cinema, presented the opportunity to employ them in new and
revolutionary ways. While this convergence of ideas and physical realities
emerged in the late 19th/early 20th centuries it still
required individual ingenuity, like that of Bernays and Lippmann, to recognise
and advance the new conditions that had presented themselves. Stuart Ewen tells
us of Lippmann and Bernays that: “Together, the impact of these men on the
shape of twentieth-century American society would be colossal.”[14]
Just as Lippmann recognised that opinion should be guided by ‘favourable
institutions’ Bernays laid down the framework for how this could be done. In
cataloguing the complex and multi-layered approaches of opinion shapers Bernays
tells us at the very beginning of his 1928 work Propaganda that:
“The
conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organised [sic] 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.”[15]
What Bernays set forth in
his extensive literature on propaganda and public relations (a term he coined)
was a map for how elites, be they industrial or political, could manipulate the
opinions of the majority. This was conducted with a view to winning them around
to a certain point of view or to an awareness of the virtues of a particular
product. Bernays himself viewed these new techniques not simply as a product of
modern democratic society but as vital to its proper functioning. On this point
he wrote in 1928 that:
“The
innovator, the leader, the special pleader for new ideas, has through necessity
developed a new technique-the psychology of public persuasion. Through the
application of this new psychology he is able to bring about changes in public
opinion that will make for the acceptance of new doctrines, beliefs, and habits.”[16]
It was the belief of Lippmann and
Bernays that democracy could properly function through the intelligent utilisation
of these ideas alone, because as the latter tells us: “only by mastering the
techniques of communication can leadership be exercised fruitfully in the vast
complex that is modern democracy in the United States.”[17] Bernays
further contended in 1942 that: “the engineering approach to public
relations…can be carried out on a democratic basis of suggestion and
persuasion”.[18]
While for government the
‘conscious and intelligent manipulation’ of opinion was, in Bernays’ and
Lippmann’s eyes at least, a necessity business had other concerns. The chief
concern of business was the threat of mass production leading to
overproduction. While Bernays scolded political elites for being the “slowest
in modifying its propaganda methods to meet the changed conditions of the
public mind” he applauded business as it “continually improved those methods in
the course of its competitive struggle”.[19] It
was imperative for business to maintain production while staving off the threat
of overproduction. It was the prospect of this becoming a reality that owed
itself to the fact that business adapted to new methods of propaganda with far
greater aplomb than politics. As Bernays tells us: “Mass production is
profitable only if its rhythm can be maintained.” As a consequence of this the
mode that previously dominated the economic relationship between seller and
consumer was reversed. Whereas previously “demand had created the supply” it
was now the reality that “supply must actively seek to create its corresponding
demand.”[20]
What this amounted to in essence was the utilisation of ‘propaganda’ to
transfer the focus of the American market based capitalist society from a need
to a desire based culture.
Perhaps the best known of
Bernays’ many campaigns in the service of business and politics fused
contemporary elements of both, and sought to drive at least half of America
towards a new desire; the cigarette. This was the now legendary ‘Torches of
Freedom’ campaign, which sought to lift the taboo on women smoking in the late
1920s. During this period Bernays counted among his many prestigious clients
the American Tobacco Corporation, who were naturally eager to challenge this taboo
and in effect double the market for their product. In investigating this taboo Bernays consulted
one of the leading psychoanalysts in the United States at the time, Dr. A.A.Brill, who informed Bernays that “cigarettes, which were equated with men,
become torches of freedom”.[21]
Examining the political climate Bernays was aware of the on-going struggles for
women’s rights. These fed naturally into his idea that: “A public relations
campaign must take into consideration the group relationships of society and
the dominant instincts of people”.[22] Furthermore
he wrote that the goal of a campaign must “reconcile the actual objective with
the preconceptions, the preoccupations, and the existing attitudes of the many
sections of the public.”[23]
In a similar vein Harold Lasswell explains that: “we may say that it
[propaganda] involves the presentation of an object in a culture in such a manner
that certain cultural attitudes will be organized toward it.”[24]
What Bernays did with this
information was organise during the Easter Sunday Parade in New York (a holiday
that symbolised freedom of the spirit) for approximately thirty debutantes and
prominent women to light cigarettes as a protest against male imposed standards
and prejudices. Within days of the event that Bernays himself had orchestrated
national and local newspapers were broadcasting reports of women taking to the
streets and smoking in Boston, Detroit and San Francisco.[25]
What he had achieved through his appeal to the emotions was to make an
erroneous connection between cigarettes and greater equality for women, yet it
was one for which all the symbolism worked.»
For example the reference to ‘torches of liberty’ clearly echoed Lady Liberty’s
torch, which given the setting of New York took on its own significance. Indeed
Lady Liberty had already provided a rich source for emotive
appeals in the wartime propaganda posters of the CPI. It is difficult however,
to make the case that the lifting of the taboo on women smoking in public gave
women any substantial or substantive degree of equality. It is this component
of public relations and propaganda methods, which originated in the activities
of the CPI that is its most long-lasting legacy. Such appeals to emotions and
not reason, which are often erroneous and irrational, form connections for the
public between products, political figures or political ideas and links them
with certain ideals; either the ideals of the society or the ideals of the
self. In this instance Bernays utilised the abstract idea of freedom and gave
it a physical presence; the cigarette.
What this campaign also
did, which was a recurring theme of CPI activities during the war, was not
merely to create news events but also to create conversations. In creating news
events the ‘propagandist’, or to use Bernays’ favoured term the public
relations counsel,[26]
sought to create the centrepiece of people’s conversation after the event. As
with the Four Minute Men, which formed the keystone of the strategy to enter
people’s daily lives, the shapers of opinion were men of stature within their
community.[27]
In lieu of the existence of the Four Minute Men it was the press that became
the primary instigator of conversation, and it was the editors of the same
press that took on the mantle of the man of stature. As sociologist Edward Ross
points out: “The public can receive suggestions through the columns of its
journal, the editor of which is like the chairman of a mass meeting, for no one
can be heard without his recognition.”[28]
As radio and television entered the spectrum of daily American life in more
substantial ways over time it was the editors of these media that were also
charged with providing the pervading topic of conversation. Again these ideas
can be traced to the work of social psychologists at the turn of the century.
As French social psychologist Gabriel Tarde pointed out in 1898:
“newspapers
have transformed…unified in space and diversified in time, the conversations of
individuals, even those who do not read papers but who, talking to those who
do, are forced to follow the groove of their borrowed thoughts. One pen
suffices to set off a million tongues”[29]
Having discussed above how the ideas and
methods of propaganda developed after the war, as well as ideas about its role
in democracy, we shall now turn to the debate that ensued over this role. In
this discussion we will highlight some of the debates and criticisms of the
ideas of Bernays and Lippmann and will chart their increasingly trenchant
nature as the 20th century progressed.
iv Le Bon, The Crowd, 52-53
+ The Nye Commission,
officially known as the Special
Committee on Investigation of the Munitions Industry was a US Senate
investigation chaired by Senator Gerald Nye (R- North Dakota). The Committee
examined the link between the US entry into World War I and financial and
banking interests.
[1]
Ewen, PR!, 126
[2] Ewen,
PR!, 127
[3]
Lippmann, Public Opinion, 231
[4] Bruce
Pinkleton, ‘The Campaign of the Committee
on Public Information: Its Contributions to the History and Evolution of Public
Relations’, in Journal of Public Relations Research 6, No. 4 (1994):
p.229
[5]
Ewen, Captains of Consciousness, 11-12
[6]
For Example Larry Tye’s biography of Bernays utilises this title.
[7]
Stuart Ewen, ‘Introduction’, in Bernays, Crystallizing
Public Opinion, 14
[8]
Wilfred Trotter, Instincts of the Herd in
Peace and War, (London, 1921) –Originally Published 1916
[9]
Bernays, Propaganda, 71
[10]
Graham Wallas, Human Nature in Politics,
(London, 1908), p.25, 28 See also Ewen, PR!,
136
[11]
Wallas, Human Nature, xi
[12]
Ewen, PR!, 136
[13]
Lippman, Phantom Public, 59
[14]
Ewen, PR!, 146
[15]
Bernays, Propaganda, 37
[16]
Edward Bernays, ‘Manipulating Public Opinion: The Why and The How’, in The
American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 33, No. 6 (May, 1928): p.959
[17]
Bernays, ‘The Engineering of Consent’, in Annals
of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 250, (Mar., 1947):
p. 113
[18]
Edward Bernays, ‘The Marketing of National Policies: A Study of War
Propaganda’, The Journal of Marketing 6, No. 3 (1942), 241
[19]
Bernays, Propaganda, 110
[20]
Bernays, Propaganda, 84
[21]
quoted in Tye, The Father of Spin, 28
[22]
Edward Bernays, ‘Molding Public Opinion’, Annals of the American Academy of
Political and Social Science 179, (1935): p.84
[23]
Bernays, ‘Molding Public Opinion’, 86
[24]
Lasswell, ‘The Theory of Political
Propaganda’, 629
[25]
Tye, The Father of Spin, 28-31
» For video of Bernays
discussing the ‘Torches of Freedom’ campaign see: http://www.prmuseum.com/bernays/bernays_video_torches.html
[26]
For Bernays discussing the origins and ‘necessity’ of this profession see
Edward Bernays, ‘Emergence of the Public Relations Counsel: Principles and
Recollections’, in The Business History Review, Vol. 45, No. 3 (Autumn, 1971): pp.
296-316
[27]
Ewen, PR!, 117-119
[28]
Edward Ross, Social Psychology: An
Outline and Source Book, (New York, 1908), p.64
[29]
Gabriel Tarde, ‘Opinion and Conversation’, (1898), in Terry N. Clark, (ed.) Gabriel Tarde: On Communication and Social
Influence Selected Papers, (Chicago, 1969), p.304
