I’ve been reading through Edward Bernays‘ 1928 book “Propaganda” and I’ve really been enjoying it. Now, the word “propaganda” has been given a bad reputation, but really it’s what PR, marketing, politics, and the world is all about. As old Edward says, “The mechanism by which ideas are disseminated on a large scale is propaganda, in the broad sense of an organized effort to spread a particular belief or doctrine.” Of course when you’re trying to promote a person,. product, company, or brand you’re working in propaganda.
Bernays would have been right at home in the digital era, working to influence the top bloggers. Even in 1928 he pointed out, “If you can influence the leaders, either with or without their conscious cooperation, you automatically influence the group which they sway.”
The business world may have forgotten it for a while, but what Bernays wrote so long ago still rings true, “Business realizes that its relationship to the public is not confined to the manufacture and sale of a given product, but includes at the same time the selling of itself and of all those things for which it stands in the public mind.” A company or brand has to sell itself to the public before it can hope to sell its product.
It seems that Bernays would have loved the social media revolution that the business world is taking part in. As he said, “Business must express itself and its entire corporate existence so that the public will understand and accept it.” What better way for a business to do that than to reach out in the most direct and social ways possible.
The father of modern PR is still kicking around and still completely relevant.
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Chris, I disagree.
I knew I wanted to study communication / public relations the day I learned about the men behind some of the most successful propaganda and persuasive campaigns of all time — Joseph Goebbels and Ed Bernays (no, we’re not “tight”). Bernays was particularly fascinating to me because his clients were not Adolf Hitler; they were more innocent-looking, for lack of a better term, than that. And by successful I mean effective, not good or bad.
But that is precisely the problem. No individual or organization should just aim for effective. When I decided to pursue a career in public relations I did so in hopes that I would learn ways to be *more* successful than Bernays by doing the same thing AND be able to sleep at night. Communicating with your public to sell yourself and/or your business before you can sell your product is inherently unethical. The problem is we often mistake that sort of communication for a relationship when really, it’s not two-way or fairly balanced in any way.
I see the social media revolution as the solution to this problem. It has given businesses the opportunity to open up to publics and share more information about themselves, transparently, and it given people a way to let businesses know what information they would like to know or understand. And, while businesses *can* reach out to influential people (bloggers, media, etc.) using social media channels, people can use social media to unite around issues and influence businesses *back*.
I think Bernays would’ve hated these times. I think social media is less like propaganda and persuasion a more like symmetrical and ethical communication.
A) As it says next to “by” I’m Phillip not Chris.
B) If you can’t sell yourself you will never sell your product. Your product can be far superior to the competition, but without that personal attachment that proper PR and marketing bring, people simply will not choose your product. . . You have to sell the public on your company before you can sell them the product. See Apple Computers.
C) Social media is still (like all of human society) based on group structure and patterns. Bernays would have loved it because it’s a new form of things as they’ve always been.
D) People paint Bernays in such a dark light. A light that he doesn’t really deserve. He had a job. He did it well. He had an understanding of human nature. He used that understanding to his advantage.
Bernays 1928 book “Propaganda”: http://sandiego.indymedia.org/media/2006/10/119695.pdf
Le Bon, Gustave. The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (One of the works that Bernays based his work on): http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/BonCrow.html
Also, I have a feeling that Joseph Goebbels slept fine at night. I used to believe that these puppet masters were doing things “just because” with no moral introspection, but what I have discovered is that that men like Joseph Goebbels were neither amoral nor immoral in their own minds, they were “doing God’s work.” Joseph Goebbels probably believed very strongly that he was preserving a German way of life and that we was doing a Very Ugly Thing for the betterment of man and of Germany and of Western Culture. There was a sort of religion here and I hate to compare Goebbels’ WWII messaging with the anti-Obama Tea Party movement, but there are quite a bit of similarities if you look back at the founding days of the National Socialist Program (the Nazi party). Too many parallels, actually, and the same goals and vision with the prime immediate goal of undermining a legitimate, standing, government in the name of “rot” and “corruption” and “incompetence” — anti-immigrants, anti-foreigners, anti-government, anti-spending, pro-war, etc… It is a perfect time to be in the space, especially if you can see the emerging patterns and are willing to explore the tools of the past and see they none of them have become obsolete — in fact they have just been cultivated and expanded and grown into more effective tools and techniques using much more effective platforms and media.
Phillip, my apologies. I clicked on the link Chris tweeted and didn’t even think to double-check the byline.
I don’t think businesses shouldn’t sell themselves, but I think that back in Bernays’ days, the approach was to learn enough about the public so as to persuade them. Relationships as we have come to know and love them, involve a a give-and-take dynamic based on more respect and a deeper understanding of those with whom you seek to build relationships. I don’t think social media is a new iteration of how things have always been… I think it has effectively changed the status quo by empowering publics by making it easier for them to seek, process and share information and become influencers in their own right.
Chris, the other day you tweeted “PR is post-war for propaganda. What’s happening on Fox and AM Talk Radio is messaging an alternate narrative. PR ppl get that.” Though, clearly, I disagree with your first statement … what I do believe is that PR people understand the concept of propaganda, influence, and persuasion and they get that those paths can only take them so far down the road. But to actually build a bridge and form relationships … that is what I think makes for a truly ethical practice of public relations.
Note, I find the “good vs. bad” definition of what it means to be ethical to be limited and not very actionable for our field. As far as public relations goes, I think of ethics in terms of how much professionals actually put into building relationships with publics that are two-way and, more importantly, symmetrical — and that has nothing to do with being good or bad (not to say that it isn’t important, but for argument’s sake). Because I agree with both of you. Bernays and Goebbels were both successful / effective at their jobs. When I say “unethical” I don’t mean it in terms of religious or moral values… but the values of the practice of building relationships in PR.
If “ethical” just means “speaking to what your public believes and wants to hear” then I don’t know if you have thought this through. Transparent doesn’t need to be ethical. Engaged doesn’t need to be ethical. Having a relationship doesn’t have to be ethical. Consistency and responsiveness does not demand ethics…
Some of the most horrific, destructive, regimes in history have been engaged in community, based on “honor” and “integrity” and yet their goals have been antithetical to the rule of law, the rule of man, or even concepts of civil rights and enlightenment — things we in America like to brag are our True Religion.
So, again, I say, to quote Princess Bride, “you keep using that work. I don’t think that word means what you think it means.”
However, I want to be clear, I am not trying to be an ass, I am just engaging in yummy debate.
Right. It absolutely doesn’t mean “speaking to what your public believes and wants to hear.” That would be condescending to your public.
I agree. Nothing is inherently ethical. Transparency is not. Indiscriminately disclosing information about your organization, simply for the sake of putting it all out there, for example, seems unethical to me (and unrealistic too, actually). That’s how some businesses have managed to hide actual, relevant information from their publics… by burying it under a pile of more information and then claiming that they were being transparent. Engaged is not ethical when it’s manipulative. Relationships are not ethical when the people involved in them don’t enjoy the same rights. Consistency and responsiveness are not ethical if they are simply means to ends.
I think public relations (we’re still talking about that right?) operates at one level of society, but when it practices the things you listed above ethically (that word again!) then it can help organizations and businesses rise up to the greater standards of society.