PROPAGANDA di Edward Bernays

Propaganda (1928)

by Edward Bernays

(Walter Lippmann era il socio)

Ne avrete sentito parlare nei miei due precedenti lavori e molto ne parleremo in questa terza parte della ricerca sul pensiero di McLuhan, quindi ho deciso di mettere on line “extra libris” questo lavoro del nipote di Freud (non era psicologo ma giornalista) che tanta fortuna ebbe nella comunicazione totalitaria del Nazifascismo.

Metto on line la mia traduzione in italiano e il testo originale in inglese (che si trova facilmente on line) ad uso di coloro che conoscono la lingua meglio di me.

Ricordo inoltre che questo lavoro è preceduto da PSICOLOGIA DELLE FOLLE un lavoro di Gustave Le Bon del 1895, meno famoso ma non certo meno importante.

CHOMSKY:

“Questo è il principale manuale di pubbliche relazioni. Bernays è una specie di guru. Era un autentico Roosevelt / liberale Kennedy. Egli ha anche costruito delle pubbliche relazioni dietro il colpo di stato appoggiato dagli Usa, che rovesciò il governo democratico del Guatemala.
     Il suo colpo maggiore, quello che veramente lo spinse alla fama nella fine degli anni 1920, fu quello di spingere le donne a fumare. Le donne non fumavanio in quei giorni e lui fece una campagna enorme per Chesterfield. Tu avrai visto tutte le tecniche, - modelli e stelle del cinema con le sigarette che escono dalle loro bocche, e altro genere di cose-. Ha ottenuto la lode enorme per questo. Così è diventato una figura di spicco del settore, e il suo libro è stato un vero e proprio manuale. “-Noam Chomsky
(Da Chomsky, "What Makes Mainstream Media
Mainstream ": un discorso alla Z Media Institute, giugno 1997)

Sommario del libro:
I. ORGANIZZARE IL CHAOS
II. LA NUOVA PROPAGANDA
III. I NUOVI PROPAGANDISTI
IV. LA PSICOLOGIA DELLE RELAZIONI PUBBLICHE
V. LE IMPRESE E IL PUBBLICO
VI. PROPAGANDA POLITICA E LEADERSHIP
VII. ATTIVITA 'DELLA DONNA E PROPAGANDA
VIII. PROPAGANDA PER L'EDUCAZIONE
IX. PROPAGANDA NEI SERVIZI SOCIALI
X. ARTE E SCIENZA
XI. I MECCANISMI DELLA PROPAGANDA

This is the main manual of the public relations industry. Bernays is kind of the guru. He was an authentic Roosevelt/Kennedy liberal. He also engineered the public relations effort behind the U.S.-backed coup which overthrew the democratic government of Guatemala.

His major coup, the one that really propelled him into fame in the late 1920s, was getting women to smoke. Women didn't smoke in those days and he ran huge campaigns for Chesterfield. You know all the techniques—models and movie stars with cigarettes coming out of their mouths and that kind of thing. He got enormous praise for that. So he became a leading figure of the industry, and his book was the real manual.

—Noam Chomsky

(From Chomsky's "What Makes Mainstream Media

Mainstream": a talk at Z Media Institute, June 1997)

Contents

I. ORGANIZING CHAOS

II. THE NEW PROPAGANDA

III. THE NEW PROPAGANDISTS

IV. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PUBLIC RELATIONS

V. BUSINESS AND THE PUBLIC

VI. PROPAGANDA AND POLITICAL LEADERSHIP

VII. WOMEN'S ACTIVITIES AND PROPAGANDA

VIII. PROPAGANDA FOR EDUCATION

IX. PROPAGANDA IN SOCIAL SERVICE

X. ART AND SCIENCE

XI. THE MECHANICS OF PROPAGANDA

PROPAGANDA

[The] American business community was also very impressed with the propaganda effort. They had a problem at that time. The country was becoming formally more democratic. A lot more people were able to vote and that sort of thing. The country was becoming wealthier and more people could participate and a lot of new immigrants were coming in, and so on.

So what do you do? It's going to be harder to run things as a private club. Therefore, obviously, you have to control what people think. There had been public relation specialists but there was never a public relations industry. There was a guy hired to make Rockefeller's image look prettier and that sort of thing.

But this huge public relations industry, which is a U.S. invention and a monstrous industry, came out of the first World War. The leading figures were people in the Creel Commission. In fact, the main one, Edward Bernays, comes right out of the Creel Commission. He has a book that came out right afterwards called Propaganda. The term "propaganda," incidentally, did not have negative connotations in those days. It was during the second World War that the term became taboo because it was connected with Germany, and all those bad things. But in this period, the term propaganda just meant information or something like that. So he wrote a book called Propaganda around 1925, and it starts off by saying he is applying the lessons of the first World War. The propaganda system of the first World War and this commission that he was part of showed, he says, it is possible to "regiment the public mind every bit as much as an army regiments their bodies." These new techniques of regimentation of minds, he said, had to be used by the intelligent minorities in order to make sure that the slobs stay on the right course. We can do it now because we have these new techniques.

Il mondo del business americano fu molto colpito dalla forza della propaganda. Avevano problemi in quel momento: Il paese stava diventando formalmente più democratico. Molte più persone hanno potuto votare, e cose così. Il paese stava diventando più ricco, molte persone hanno potuto partecipare e un sacco di nuovi immigrati che arrivavano e così via.
  D'ora in poi sarà più difficile seguire le cose come in un club privato.  Allora cosa fare?

Ovviamente, si deve controllare quello che la gente pensa.

Vi erano stati specialisti di pubbliche relazioni, (c'era un tizio ingaggiato per rendere l'immagine di Rockefeller con un look migliore e cose del genere) ma non c'è mai stato una industria di pubbliche relazioni. Ma questa enorme industria di pubbliche relazioni, che è una invenzione degli Stati Uniti ed è un' industria mostruosa, si formò con la prima guerra mondiale.

I protagonisti erano persone in seno alla Commissione Creel. In effetti, la figura principale, Edward Bernays, esce dalla Commissione Creel. Scrisse un libro che uscì subito dopo chiamato Propaganda. Il termine "propaganda", per inciso, non aveva connotazioni negative in quei giorni. E 'stato durante la seconda guerra mondiale che il termine è diventato un tabù, perché era connesso con la Germania, e tutte quelle cose cattive. Ma in questo periodo, la propaganda era unj termine coniato solo per dire informazione o qualcosa di simile.

Così ha scritto un libro intitolato Propaganda intorno al 1925, e si inizia dicendo che applicherà gli insegnamenti della prima guerra mondiale. Il sistema di propaganda della prima guerra mondiale e questa commissione che ne era parte lo ha dimostrato, egli dice, è possibile "reggimentare la mente del pubblico tanto quanto l'esercito sappia reggimentare i loro corpi." Queste nuove tecniche di reggimentazione delle menti, ha detto, doveva essere usata da minoranze intelligenti, al fine di assicurarsi che gli sfaccendati (slobs) rimanessero sulla strada giusta.

Possiamo farlo ora perché ci sono queste nuove tecniche.

 

CHAPTER I

ORGANIZING CHAOS

THE conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized 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.

We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society.

Our invisible governors are, in many cases, unaware of the identity of their fellow members in the inner cabinet.

They govern us by their qualities of natural leadership, their ability to supply needed ideas and by their key position in the social structure. Whatever attitude one chooses to take toward this condition, it remains a fact that in almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons—a trifling fraction of our hundred and twenty million—who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind, who harness old social forces and contrive new ways to bind and guide the world.

CAPITOLO I
ORGANIZZATORE CHAOS

La manipolazione consapevole e intelligente delle abitudini organizzate e delle opinioni delle masse è un elemento importante nella società democratica. Coloro che manipolano questo meccanismo invisibile della società costituiscono un governo invisibile che è il vero potere dominante del nostro paese.
      Siamo governati, le nostre menti vengono plasmate, i nostri gusti formati, le nostre idee suggerite, in gran parte da uomini di cui non abbiamo mai sentito parlare. Questa è una logica conseguenza del modo in cui la nostra società democratica è organizzata. Un gran numero di esseri umani deve cooperare in questa maniera se si vuole vivere insieme come una società ben funzionante.
      I nostri invisibili governanti, in molti casi, ignorano l'identità dei loro collaboratori nel governo stesso.
      Essi ci governano con la loro qualità di leadership naturale, la loro capacità necessita di idee e necessarie per mantenere la loro posizione chiave nella struttura sociale. Qualunque cosa si sceglie di adottare verso questa condizione, resta il fatto che in quasi ogni atto della nostra vita quotidiana, sia nella sfera della politica o di affari, nella nostra condotta sociale o il nostro pensiero etico, siamo dominati dal numero relativamente piccolo di persone-una frazione insignificante del nostro centoventi milioni - che comprendono i processi mentali e i modelli sociali delle masse. Sono loro che tirano i fili che controllano la mente del pubblico, per sfruttare le vecchie forze sociali e escogitano nuovi modi per legare e guidare il mondo.

It is not usually realized how necessary these invisible governors are to the orderly functioning of our group life. In theory, every citizen may vote for whom he pleases. Our Constitution does not envisage political parties as part of the mechanism of government, and its framers seem not to have pictured to themselves the existence in our national politics of anything like the modern political machine. But the American voters soon found that without organization and direction their individual votes, cast, perhaps, for dozens or hundreds of candidates, would produce nothing but confusion. Invisible government, in the shape of rudimentary political parties, arose almost overnight. Ever since then we have agreed, for the sake of simplicity and practicality, that party machines should narrow down the field of choice to two candidates, or at most three or four.

      Generalmente non ci rendiamo conto di quanto siano necessario questi governatori invisibili per il corretto funzionamento della nostra vita di gruppo. In teoria, ogni cittadino può votare per chi gli pare e piace. La nostra Costituzione non prevede partiti politici come parte del meccanismo di governo, e i suoi autori non sembrano aver immaginato l'esistenza nella nostra politica nazionale di qualcosa come la macchina politica moderna.

Ma gli elettori americani hanno ben presto scoperto che senza l'organizzazione e la direzione, i loro voti individuali, per decine o centinaia di candidati, non producono nulla, ma la confusione. Il governo invisibile, nella forma rudimentale dei partiti politici, è nato da un giorno all'altro. Da allora abbiamo deciso, per ragioni di semplicità e praticità, che le macchine di partito dovrebbe restringere il campo di scelta a due candidati, o al massimo tre o quattro.

In theory, every citizen makes up his mind on public questions and matters of private conduct. In practice, if all men had to study for themselves the abstruse economic, political, and ethical data involved in every question, they would find it impossible to come to a conclusion about anything. We have voluntarily agreed to let an invisible government sift the data and high-spot the outstanding issues so that our field of choice shall be narrowed to practical proportions. From our leaders and the media they use to reach the public, we accept the evidence and the demarcation of issues bearing upon public questions; from some ethical teacher, be it a minister, a favorite essayist, or merely prevailing opinion, we accept a standardized code of social conduct to which we conform most of the time.

In theory, everybody buys the best and cheapest commodities offered him on the market. In practice, if every one went around pricing, and chemically testing before purchasing, the dozens of soaps or fabrics or brands of bread which are for sale, economic life would become hopelessly jammed. To avoid such confusion, society consents to have its choice narrowed to ideas and objects brought to its attention through propaganda of all kinds. There is consequently a vast and continuous effort going on to capture our minds in the interest of some policy or commodity or idea.

In teoria, ogni cittadino si concentra su questioni pubbliche e in materia di condotta privata. In pratica, se tutti gli uomini dovessero studiare da soli gli astrusi dati economici, politici, etici e farsi coinvolgere in ogni questione, avrebbero trovato l'impossibilità di giungere ad una conclusione su niente. Abbiamo volontariamente deciso di lasciare che un governo invisibile analizzi i dati e si concentri sulle questioni in sospeso in modo che il nostro campo di scelta è ristretta a proporzioni pratiche. Dai nostri leader e dai media che utilizzano per raggiungere il pubblico, noi accettiamo le prove e la delimitazione delle questioni portanti su questioni pubbliche; da qualche insegnante etico, sia esso un ministro, un saggista preferito, o semplicemente la prevalente opinione, si accetta una forma standardizzata Codice di condotta sociale a cui conformarsi la maggior parte del tempo.
      In teoria, tutti acquistano prodotti migliori e più economici offerti sul mercato. In pratica, se prima dell' acquisto, tutti andassero in giro a verificare i prezzi e le proprietà chimiche delle decine di saponi o di tessuti o marchi di pane che sono in vendita, la vita economica sarebbe diventato irrimediabilmente inceppata. Per evitare confusione e consentire alla società di praticare le proprie scelte si sono ridotti gli oggetti a idee, sottoposte all' attenzione del pubblico attraverso la propaganda di tutti i tipi. Di conseguenze c'è quindi un grande sforzo continuo per andare a catturare le nostre menti, nell'interesse di alcuni politici o merci o un'idea.

It might be better to have, instead of propaganda and special pleading, committees of wise men who would choose our rulers, dictate our conduct, private and public, and decide upon the best types of clothes for us to wear and the best kinds of food for us to eat. But we have chosen the opposite method, that of open competition. We must find a way to make free competition function with reasonable smoothness. To achieve this society has consented to permit free competition to be organized by leadership and propaganda.

Some of the phenomena of this process are criticized—the manipulation of news, the inflation of personality, and the general ballyhoo by which politicians and commercial products and social ideas are brought to the consciousness of the masses. The instruments by which public opinion is organized and focused may be misused. But such organization and focusing are necessary to orderly life.

As civilization has become more complex, and as the need for invisible government has been increas ingly demonstrated, the technical means have been invented and developed by which opinion may be regimented.

      
      Potrebbe essere meglio avere, invece di propaganda e di speciali imposizioni, comitati di saggi, che avrebbero scelto i nostri governanti, dettato i nostri comportamenti pubblici e privati, e che decida i migliori tipi di vestiti per noi da indossare e il tipo migliore di cibo per noi da mangiare. Ma noi abbiamo scelto il metodo opposto, quello della libera concorrenza. Dobbiamo trovare un modo per far funzionare la libera concorrenza con dolcezza ragionevole. Per raggiungere questo obiettivo la società che ha acconsentito di permettere la libera concorrenza deve essere organizzata dalla leadership e dalla propaganda.
      Alcuni dei fenomeni di questo processo sono criticati, comela manipolazione delle notizie, l'inflazione della personalità, e il clamore generale con la quale politici o prodotti commerciali e idee sociali vengono portati alla coscienza delle masse. Gli strumenti con cui l'opinione pubblica è organizzata e mirata possono essere usati impropriamente. Ma tale organizzazione e la messa a fuoco sono necessari alla vita ordinata.
      Che la civiltà sia diventata più complessa, e come urga la necessità di un governo invisibile è stato progressivamente dimostrato, mezzi tecnici sono stati inventati e sviluppati con i quali qualsiasi parere può essere irreggimentato.

With the printing press and the newspaper, the railroad, the telephone, telegraph, radio and airplanes, ideas can be spread rapidly and even instantaneously over the whole of America.

H. G. Wells senses the vast potentialities of these inventions when he writes in the New York Times:

"Modern means of communication—the power afforded by print, telephone, wireless and so forth, of rapidly putting through directive strategic or technical conceptions to a great number of cooperating centers, of getting quick replies and effective discussion—have opened up a new world of political processes. Ideas and phrases can now be given an effectiveness greater than the effectiveness of any personality and stronger than any sectional interest. The common design can be documented and sustained against perversion and betrayal. It can be elaborated and developed steadily and widely without personal, local and sectional misunderstanding."

What Mr. Wells says of political processes is equally true of commercial and social processes and all manifestations of mass activity. The groupings and affiliations of society to-day are no longer subject to "local and sectional" limitations. When the Constitution was adopted, the unit of organization was the village community, which produced the greater part of its own necessary commodities and generated its group ideas and opinions by personal contact and discussion directly among its citizens. But to-day, because ideas can be instantaneously transmitted to any distance and to any number of people, this geographical integration has been supplemented by many other kinds of grouping, so that persons having the same ideas and interests may be associated and regimented for common action even though they live thousands of miles apart.

      Con la stampa e il giornale, la ferrovia, il telefono, telegrafo, radio e gli aeroplani, le idee possono essere diffuse rapidamente, e anche istantaneamente su tutta l'America.
      HG Wells sentì la vasta potenzialità di queste invenzioni quando scrisse sul New York Times: "I moderni mezzi di comunicazione, il potere offerto dalla stampa, telefono, wireless e così via, la rapidità del mettere direttive strategiche o concezioni tecniche a disposizione di un gran numero di centri che collaborano tra loro e di ottenere risposte rapide ed efficaci discussioni, hanno aperto un nuovo mondo ai processi politici. Idee e frasi possono ora essere di maggiore efficacia rispetto alla efficacia di ogni personalità e più forte di qualsiasi interesse trasversale. Il progetto comune può essere documentato e sostenuto contro la perversione e il tradimento. Esso può essere elaborato e sviluppato in modo costante e ampiamente senza malinteso personale, locale e sezionali ".
      Quello che dice il signor Wells dei processi politici è altrettanto vero dei processi commerciali e sociali e di tutte le manifestazioni di attività di massa. I raggruppamenti e le affiliazioni della società di oggi non sono più soggetti a limitazioni"locali o di sezione". Quando la Costituzione venne adottata, l'unità di organizzazione è stata la comunità del villaggio, che ha prodotto la maggior parte delle proprie materie prime necessarie e ha generato le sue idee e le opinioni del gruppo di contatto personale e la discussione diretta tra i suoi cittadini. Ma oggi, perché le idee possono essere trasmesse istantaneamente a qualsiasi distanza e per un numero qualsiasi di persone, questa integrazione geografica è stata completata da molti altri tipi di raggruppamento, in modo che le persone che hanno le stesse idee e gli stessi interessi possono essere associati e irreggimentati per una azione comune, anche se vive a migliaia di chilometri di distanza.

It is extremely difficult to realize how many and diverse are these cleavages in our society. They may be social, political, economic, racial, religious or ethical, with hundreds of subdivisions of each. In the World Almanac, for example, the following groups are listed under the A's:

The League to Abolish Capital Punishment; Association to Abolish War; American Institute of Accountants; Actors' Equity Association; Actuarial Association of America; International Advertising Association; National Aeronautic Association; Albany Institute of History and Art; Amen Corner; American Academy in Rome; American Antiquarian Society; League for American Citizenship; American Federation of Labor; Amorc (Rosicrucian Order); Andiron Club; American-Irish Historical Association; Anti-Cigarette League; Anti-Profanity League; Archeological Association of America; National Archery Association; Arion Singing Society; American Astronomical Association; Ayrshire Breeders' Association; Aztec Club of 1847. There are many more under the "A" section of this very limited list.

The American Newspaper Annual and Directory for 1928 lists 22,128 periodical publications in America. I have selected at random the N's published in Chicago. They are:

Narod (Bohemian daily newspaper); Narod-Polski (Polish monthly); N.A.R.D. (pharmaceutical); National Corporation Reporter; National Culinary Progress (for hotel chefs); National Dog Journal; National Drug Clerk; National Engineer; National Grocer; National Hotel Reporter; National Income Tax Magazine; National Jeweler; National Journal of Chiropractic; National Live Stock Producer; National Miller; National Nut News; National Poultry, Butter and Egg Bulletin; National Provisioner (for meat packers); National Real Estate Journal; National Retail Clothier; National Retail Lumber Dealer; National Safety News; National Spiritualist; National Underwriter; The Nation's Health; Naujienos (Lithuanian daily newspaper); New Comer (Republican weekly for Italians); Daily News; The New World (Catholic weekly); North American Banker; North American Veterinarian.

The circulation of some of these publications is astonishing. The National Live Stock Producer has a sworn circulation of 155,978; The National Engineer, of 20,328; The New World, an estimated circulation of 67,000. The greater number of the periodicals listed—chosen at random from among 22,128—have a circulation in excess of 10,000.

The diversity of these publications is evident at a glance. Yet they can only faintly suggest the multitude of cleavages which exist in our society, and along which flow information and opinion carrying authority to the individual groups.

Here are the conventions scheduled for Cleveland, Ohio, recorded in a single recent issue of "World Convention Dates"—a fraction of the 5,500 conventions and rallies scheduled.

The Employing Photo-Engravers' Association of America; The Outdoor Writers' Association; the Knights of St. John; the Walther League; The National Knitted Outerwear Association; The Knights of St. Joseph; The Royal Order of Sphinx; The Mortgage Bankers' Association; The International Association of Public Employment Officials; The Kiwanis Clubs of Ohio; The American Photo-Engravers' Association; The Cleveland Auto Manufacturers Show; The American Society of Heating and Ventilating Engineers.

Other conventions to be held in 1928 were those of:

The Association of Limb Manufacturers' Associations; The National Circus Fans' Association of America; The American Naturopathic Association; The American Trap Shooting Association; The Texas Folklore Association; The Hotel Greeters; The Fox Breeders' Association; The Insecticide and Disinfectant Association; The National Association of Egg Case and Egg Case Filler Manufacturers; The American Bottlers of Carbonated Beverages; and The National Pickle Packers' Association, not to mention the Terrapin Derby—most of them with banquets and orations attached.

If all these thousands of formal organizations and institutions could be listed (and no complete list has ever been made), they would still represent but a part of those existing less formally but leading vigorous lives. Ideas are sifted and opinions stereotyped in the neighborhood bridge club. Leaders assert their authority through community drives and amateur theatricals. Thousands of women may unconsciously belong to a sorority which follows the fashions set by a single society leader.

.

      È estremamente difficile rendersi conto di come molte e diverse sono le spaccature nella nostra società. Essi possono essere sociale, politica, economica, razziale, religiosa o etica, con centinaia di suddivisioni di ciascuna. Nel World Almanac, per esempio, i seguenti gruppi sono elencati sotto la A's:
La Lega di abolire la pena capitale; associazione per abolire la guerra, American Institute of Accountants; Actors 'Equity Association; Actuarial Association of America, International Advertising Association, National Aeronautic Association; Albany Istituto di Storia e Arte, Amen Corner, American Academy in Rome; American Antiquarian Society; Lega per la cittadinanza americana, American Federation of Labor; AMORC (Ordine dei Rosacroce); Alare Club, American-Irish Historical Association; Anti-Cigarette League; Anti-Profanity League; Archeologico Association of America, Associazione Nazionale Tiro con l'arco; Arion Singing società; American Astronomical Association, associazione Ayrshire Breeders '; Aztechi Club del 1847. Ci sono molti di più secondo la "sezione" di questa lista molto limitata.
      L'americano di giornali e di repertorio annuale per il 1928 gli elenchi 22.128 pubblicazioni periodiche in America. Ho scelto a caso la N pubblicato a Chicago. Essi sono:
Narod (quotidiano Bohemian al giorno); Narod-Polski (Polish mensili); Nard (farmaceutico); National Corporation Reporter; National Culinary Progress (per cuochi hotel); National Dog ufficiale; National Drug Clerk; National Engineer; Nazionale Alimentari; National Hotel Reporter; National Income Tax Magazine, National Jeweler, National Journal of Chiropractic; Nazionale Live produttore di scorta; Nazionale Miller; Nazionale Nut News, National Pollame, Burro e Egg Bollettino; Provisioner Nazionale (per le carni confezionatori); National Real Estate ufficiale; National Retail Clothier; National Retail Lumber Dealer; National Safety News, National spiritista, National Underwriter; la salute della nazione; Naujienos (giornale lituano al giorno); New Comer (repubblicano settimanale per gli italiani); Daily News, The New World (settimanale cattolico); North American Banker, North American veterinario.
      La circolazione di alcune di queste pubblicazioni è stupefacente. Nazionale Live Producer di scorta ha una tiratura di 155.978 giurato, l'ingegnere nazionale, di 20.328; The New World, una circolazione di circa 67.000. Il maggior numero di periodici di cui-scelto a caso tra i 22.128-hanno una tiratura superiore a 10.000.
      La diversità di queste pubblicazioni è evidente a colpo d'occhio. Però, che può solo debolmente suggerire la moltitudine di divisioni che esistono nella nostra società, e lungo la quale il flusso di informazione e di opinione che trasportano il potere di singoli gruppi.
      Qui ci sono le convenzioni previste per Cleveland, Ohio, ha registrato in un singolo numero recente di "World Convention Date", una frazione dei 5.500 convegni e manifestazioni in programma.
      Utilizzando il Photo-Associazione Incisori 'd'America; L'Outdoor Writers' Association, i Cavalieri di San Giovanni, la Lega Walther, il National maglia Outerwear associazione; I Cavalieri di San Giuseppe, il regio decreto del Sfinge; La Mortgage Bankers ' Association, l'associazione internazionale dei pubblici funzionari per l'occupazione; I Clubs Kiwanis della Ohio; The American Photo-Associazione Incisori '; The Cleveland Show Auto Manufacturers, The American Society of Heating and Engineers di ventilazione.
      Altre convenzioni che si terrà nel 1928 sono stati quelli di:
L'Associazione delle Associazioni Limb Manufacturers '; associazione Il Fan National Circus' d'America, The American Association Naturopatica; L'American Trap Shooting Association; The Texas Folklore Association; Il Greeters Hotel, The Breeders Association Fox ', l'insetticida e disinfettante associazione; L' Associazione Nazionale delle Case e Egg Egg, causa Produttori Filler; gli imbottigliatori americano di bevande gassate, e I Packers Nazionale Pickle 'Associazione, per non parlare del Derby Terrapin-la maggior parte di essi, con banchetti e orazioni in allegato.
      Se tutte queste migliaia di organizzazioni formali e le istituzioni potrebbero essere elencate (e non l'elenco completo è mai stato fatto), si sarebbero, ma rappresentano ancora una parte di quelli esistenti in modo meno formale, ma che conducono una vita vigorosa. Le idee sono vagliate e le opinioni stereotipate nel club ponte di quartiere. I leader affermare la loro autorità attraverso le unità della comunità e recite. Migliaia di donne possono inconsciamente appartenere ad una comunità di donne che segue le mode impostato da un leader unico della società.

"Truth is mighty and must prevail, and if any body of men believe that they have discovered a valuable truth, it is not merely their privilege but their duty to disseminate that truth. If they realize, as they quickly must, that this spreading of the truth can be done upon a large scale and effectively only by organized effort, they will make use of the press and the platform as the best means to give it wide circulation. Propaganda becomes vicious and reprehensive only when its authors consciously and deliberately disseminate what they know to be lies, or when they aim at effects which they know to be prejudicial to the common good.

" 'Propaganda' in its proper meaning is a perfectly wholesome word, of honest parentage, and with an honorable history. The fact that it should to-day be carrying a sinister meaning merely shows how much of the child remains in the average adult. A group of citizens writes and talks in favor of a certain course of action in some debatable question, believing that it is promoting the best interest of the community. Propaganda? Not a bit of it. Just a plain forceful statement of truth. But let another group of citizens express opposing views, and they are promptly labeled with the sinister name of propaganda. . . .

" 'What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander,' says a wise old proverb. Let us make haste to put this fine old word back where it belongs, and restore its dignified significance for the use of our children and our children's children."

The extent to which propaganda shapes the progress of affairs about us may surprise even well informed persons. Nevertheless, it is only necessary to look under the surface of the newspaper for a hint as to propaganda's authority over public opinion. Page one of the New York Times on the day these paragraphs are written contains eight important news stories. Four of them, or one-half, are propaganda. The casual reader accepts them as accounts of spontaneous happenings. But are they? Here are the headlines which announce them: "TWELVE NATIONS WARN CHINA REAL REFORM MUST COME BEFORE THEY GIVE RELIEF," "PRITCHETT REPORTS ZIONISM WILL FAIL," "REALTY MEN DEMAND A TRANSIT INQUIRY," and "OUR LIVING STANDARD HIGHEST IN HISTORY, SAYS HOOVER REPORT."

Take them in order: the article on China explains the joint report of the Commission on Extraterritoriality in China, presenting an exposition of the Powers' stand in the Chinese muddle. What it says is less important than what it is. It was "made public by the State Department to-day" with the purpose of presenting to the American public a picture of the State Department's position. Its source gives it authority, and the American public tends to accept and support the State Department view.

The report of Dr. Pritchett, a trustee of the Carnegie Foundation for International Peace, is an attempt to find the facts about this Jewish colony in the midst of a restless Arab world. When Dr. Pritchett's survey convinced him that in the long run Zionism would "bring more bitterness and more unhappiness both for the Jew and for the Arab," this point of view was broadcast with all the authority of the Carnegie Foundation, so that the public would hear and believe. The statement by the president of the Real Estate Board of New York, and Secretary Hoover's report, are similar attempts to influence the public toward an opinion.

These examples are not given to create the impression that there is anything sinister about propaganda. They are set down rather to illustrate how conscious direction is given to events, and how the men behind these events influence public opinion. As such they are examples of modern propaganda. At this point we may attempt to define propaganda.

Modern propaganda is a consistent, enduring effort to create or shape events to influence the relations of the public to an enterprise, idea or group.

This practice of creating circumstances and of creating pictures in the minds of millions of persons is very common. Virtually no important undertaking is now carried on without it, whether that enterprise be building a cathedral, endowing a university, marketing a moving picture, floating a large bond issue, or electing a president. Sometimes the effect on the public is created by a professional propagandist, sometimes by an amateur deputed for the job. The important thing is that it is universal and continuous; and in its sum total it is regimenting the public mind every bit as much as an army regiments the bodies of its soldiers.

So vast are the numbers of minds which can be regimented, and so tenacious are they when regimented, that a group at times offers an irresistible pressure before which legislators, editors, and teachers are helpless. The group will cling to its stereotype, as Walter Lippmann calls it, making of those supposedly powerful beings, the leaders of public opinion, mere bits of driftwood in the surf. When an Imperial Wizard, sensing what is perhaps hunger for an ideal, offers a picture of a nation all Nordic and nationalistic, the common man of the older American stock, feeling himself elbowed out of his rightful position and prosperity by the newer immigrant stocks, grasps the picture which fits in so neatly with his prejudices, and makes it his own. He buys the sheet and pillow-case costume, and bands with his fellows by the thousand into a huge group powerful enough to swing state elections and to throw a ponderous monkey wrench into a national convention.

In our present social organization approval of the public is essential to any large undertaking. Hence a laudable movement may be lost unless it impresses itself on the public mind. Charity, as well as business, and politics and literature, for that matter, have had to adopt propaganda, for the public must be regimented into giving money just as it must be regimented into tuberculosis prophylaxis. The Near East Relief, the Association for the Improvement of the Condition of the Poor of New York, and all the rest, have to work on public opinion just as though they had tubes of tooth paste to sell. We are proud of our diminishing infant death rate—and that too is the work of propaganda.

Propaganda does exist on all sides of us, and it does change our mental pictures of the world. Even if this be unduly pessimistic—and that remains to be proved—the opinion reflects a tendency that is undoubtedly real. In fact, its use is growing as its efficiency in gaining public support is recognized. This then, evidently indicates the fact that any one with sufficient influence can lead sections of the public at least for a time and for a given purpose. Formerly the rulers were the leaders. They laid out the course of history, by the simple process of doing what they wanted. And if nowadays the successors of the rulers, those whose position or ability gives them power, can no longer do what they want without the approval of the masses, they find in propaganda a tool which is increasingly powerful in gaining that approval. Therefore, propaganda is here to stay.

It was, of course, the astounding success of propaganda during the war that opened the eyes of the intelligent few in all departments of life to the possibilities of regimenting the public mind. The American government and numerous patriotic agencies developed a technique which, to most persons accustomed to bidding for public acceptance, was new. They not only appealed to the individual by means of every approach—visual, graphic, and auditory—to support the national endeavor, but they also secured the cooperation of the key men in every group —persons whose mere word carried authority to hundreds or thousands or hundreds of thousands of followers. They thus automatically gained the support of fraternal, religious, commercial, patriotic, social and local groups whose members took their opinions from their accustomed leaders and spokesmen, or from the periodical publications which they were accustomed to read and believe. At the same time, the manipulators of patriotic opinion made use of the mental cliches and the emotional habits of the public to produce mass reactions against the alleged atrocities, the terror and the tyranny of the enemy. It was only natural, after the war ended, that intelligent persons should ask themselves whether it was not possible to apply a similar technique to the problems of peace.

As a matter of fact, the practice of propaganda since the war has assumed very different forms from those prevalent twenty years ago. This new technique may fairly be called the new propaganda.

It takes account not merely of the individual, nor even of the mass mind alone, but also and especially of the anatomy of society, with its interlocking group formations and loyalties. It sees the individual not only as a cell in the social organism but as a cell organized into the social unit. Touch a nerve at a sensitive spot and you get an automatic response from certain specific members of the organism.

Business offers graphic examples of the effect that may be produced upon the public by interested groups, such as textile manufacturers losing their markets. This problem arose, not long ago, when the velvet manufacturers were facing ruin because their product had long been out of fashion. Analysis showed that it was impossible to revive a velvet fashion within America. Anatomical hunt for the vital spot! Paris! Obviously! But yes and no. Paris is the home of fashion. Lyons is the home of silk. The attack had to be made at the source. It was determined to substitute purpose for chance and to utilize the regular sources for fashion distribution and to influence the public from these sources. A velvet fashion service, openly supported by the manufacturers, was organized. Its first function was to establish contact with the Lyons manufactories and the Paris couturiers to discover what they were doing, to encourage them to act on behalf of velvet, and to help in the proper exploitation of their wares. An intelligent Parisian was enlisted in the work. He visited Lanvin and Worth, Agnes and Patou, and others and induced them to use velvet in their gowns and hats. It was he who arranged for the distinguished Countess This or Duchess That to wear the hat or the gown. And as for the presentation of the idea to the public, the American buyer or the American woman of fashion was simply shown the velvet creations in the atelier of the dressmaker or the milliner. She bought the velvet because she liked it and because it was in fashion.

The editors of the American magazines and fashion reporters of the American newspapers, likewise subjected to the actual (although created) circumstance, reflected it in their news, which, in turn, subjected the buyer and the consumer here to the same influences. The result was that what was at first a trickle of velvet became a flood. A demand was slowly, but deliberately, created in Paris and America. A big department store, aiming to be a style leader, advertised velvet gowns and hats on the authority of the French couturiers, and quoted original cables received from them. The echo of the new style note was heard from hundreds of department stores throughout the country which wanted to be style leaders too. Bulletins followed despatches. The mail followed the cables. And the American woman traveler appeared before the ship news photographers in velvet gown and hat.

The created circumstances had their effect. "Fickle fashion has veered to velvet," was one newspaper comment. And the industry in the United States again kept thousands busy.

The new propaganda, having regard to the constitution of society as a whole, not infrequently serves to focus and realize the desires of the masses. A desire for a specific reform, however widespread, cannot be translated into action until it is made articulate, and until it has exerted sufficient pressure upon the proper law-making bodies. Millions of housewives may feel that manufactured foods deleterious to health should be prohibited. But there is little chance that their individual desires will be translated into effective legal form unless their halfexpressed demand can be organized, made vocal, and concentrated upon the state legislature or upon the Federal Congress in some mode which will produce the results they desire. Whether they realize it or not, they call upon propaganda to organize and effectuate their demand.

But clearly it is the intelligent minorities which need to make use of propaganda continuously and systematically. In the active proselytizing minorities in whom selfish interests and public interests coincide lie the progress and development of America. Only through the active energy of the intelligent few can the public at large become aware of and act upon new ideas.

Small groups of persons can, and do, make the rest of us think what they please about a given subject. But there are usually proponents and opponents of every propaganda, both of whom are equally eager to convince the majority.

"La verità è potente e deve prevalere, e se qualche corpo di uomini credono di aver scoperto una verità preziosa, non è solo il loro privilegio, ma il dovere di diffondere la verità. Se si accorgono che, come ben presto si deve, che questa diffusione di la verità può essere fatto su larga scala e in modo efficace solo con lo sforzo organizzato, che si avvarrà della stampa e della piattaforma, come il mezzo migliore per dare ampia circolazione. Propaganda diventa vizioso e reprehensive solo quando i suoi autori coscientemente e deliberatamente diffondere ciò sanno di essere compreso, o quando lo scopo di effetti che sanno di essere pregiudizievole per il bene comune.
      " 'Propaganda' nel suo significato proprio è una parola perfettamente sana, di parentela onesta, e con una storia d'onore. Il fatto che essa dovrebbe oggi essere trasportano un significato sinistro si limita a indicare quanta parte del bambino rimane in un adulto medio. Un gruppo di cittadini scrive e parla in favore di una determinata linea di condotta in alcuni discutibili questione, ritenendo che si tratta di promuovere l'interesse della comunità. Propaganda? non è un po 'di essa. Basta una dichiarazione semplice forza della verità. Ma un altro gruppo di cittadini esprimono opinioni opposte, e sono prontamente etichettato con il nome sinistro di propaganda....
      " 'Che cosa è per il sugo d'oca è salsa per il maschio', dice un proverbio vecchio e saggio. Facciamo in fretta a mettere la parola fine vecchio back cui appartiene, e ripristinare il suo significato dignitosa per l'uso dei nostri figli e dei nostri figli i bambini. "
      La misura in cui le forme di propaganda il progresso delle cose su di noi può sorprendere le persone, anche ben informato. Tuttavia, è necessario solo per guardare sotto la superficie del giornale per un suggerimento di autorità di propaganda è finita l'opinione pubblica. Pagina uno del New York Times il giorno questi punti sono stati scritti contiene otto racconti di notizie importanti. Quattro di loro, o la metà, sono propaganda. Il lettore occasionale li accetta come i conti di eventi spontanei. Ma sono? Ecco i titoli dei giornali che annunciano la loro: "dodici nazioni WARN CINA vera e propria riforma deve venire prima di ESSE dare sollievo", "RELAZIONI PRITCHETT sionismo fallirà", "REALTY UOMINI DELLA DOMANDA A RICHIESTA DI TRANSITO", e "LA NOSTRA VITA alti standard nella storia, dice HOOVER rapporto ".
      Prendere in ordine: l'articolo sulla Cina, spiega la relazione congiunta della Commissione in materia di extraterritorialità in Cina, presenta un'esposizione di stand potenze 'in confusione cinese. Ciò che dice è meno importante di quello che è. E 'stato "reso pubblico dal Dipartimento di Stato a-day" con lo scopo di presentare al pubblico americano un quadro della posizione del Dipartimento di Stato. La sua fonte gli dà l'autorità e il pubblico americano tende ad accettare e sostenere la vista del Dipartimento di Stato.
      La relazione del dottor Pritchett, un fiduciario della Fondazione Carnegie per la Pace Internazionale, è un tentativo di trovare i fatti su questa colonia ebraica in mezzo a un mondo inquieto arabo. Quando sondaggio Dr. Pritchett convinto che nel lungo periodo, il sionismo dovrebbe "portare più amarezza e infelicità maggiore sia per l'Ebreo e per l'arabo," questo punto di vista è stato trasmesso con tutta l'autorità della Fondazione Carnegie, in modo che il pubblico sarebbe sentire e credere. La dichiarazione del presidente del Real Estate Board di New York, e la relazione il segretario di Hoover, sono analoghi tentativi di influenzare l'opinione pubblica verso un parere.
      Questi esempi non sono dati per creare l'impressione che ci sia qualcosa di sinistro in propaganda. Esse sono fissate invece per illustrare come consapevole direzione è dato agli eventi, e come gli uomini dietro a questi eventi di influenzare l'opinione pubblica. In quanto tali, sono esempi di propaganda moderna. A questo punto si può tentare di definire propaganda.
      Propaganda moderna è una costante, lo sforzo di creare o duratura forma di influenzare gli eventi le relazioni del pubblico ad una impresa, un'idea o di un gruppo.
      Questa pratica di creare le condizioni e di creare le immagini nella mente di milioni di persone è molto comune. Praticamente nessuna impresa importante ora è svolta senza di essa, se tale impresa è la costruzione di una cattedrale, e riveste una università, la commercializzazione di un immagine in movimento, galleggianti di un tema vasto legame, o eleggere un presidente. A volte l'effetto sul pubblico è stato creato da un propagandista professionali, a volte da un dilettante deputato per il lavoro. La cosa importante è che è universale e continuo, e nella sua somma è disciplinando la mente del pubblico ogni po 'tanto come un esercito disciplina i corpi dei suoi soldati.
      Così vasta sono i numeri di menti che possono essere irreggimentato, e così tenace, quando sono irreggimentata, che un gruppo, a volte offre una pressione irresistibile, prima che i legislatori, i redattori e gli insegnanti sono impotenti. Il gruppo si aggrappano al suo stereotipo, come lo chiama Walter Lippmann, rendendo di quegli esseri presumibilmente potenti, i leader di opinione pubblica, semplici pezzi di legni nel surf. Quando un Mago Imperiale, intuendo ciò che è forse la fame per un ideale, offre l'immagine di una nazione, tutti nordici e nazionalista, l'uomo comune dello stock di anziani americani, sentendosi gomitate dalla sua posizione che le spetta e di prosperità per gli stock di immigrati più recenti, afferra il quadro che si inserisce in modo perfettamente con i suoi pregiudizi, e la fa propria. Acquista il foglio e cuscino-costume caso, e le bande con i suoi compagni a migliaia in un grande gruppo abbastanza potente da swing elezioni statali e di gettare una pesante chiave scimmia in un convegno nazionale.
      Nella nostra attuale organizzazione sociale l'approvazione del pubblico è essenziale per qualsiasi impresa di grandi dimensioni. Quindi un movimento lodevole può essere perduta a meno che non si imprime nella mente del pubblico. , La carità come business, e della politica e della letteratura, del resto, hanno dovuto adottare la propaganda, per il pubblico deve essere inquadrato nel dare i soldi così come deve essere inquadrato nella profilassi della tubercolosi. Vicino Oriente Relief, l'Associazione per il miglioramento della condizione dei poveri di New York, e tutto il resto, dobbiamo lavorare sull'opinione pubblica come se fossero dei tubi di dentifricio a vendere. Siamo orgogliosi del nostro diminuzione tasso di mortalità infantile e anche questo è il lavoro di propaganda.
      Propaganda esiste su tutti i lati di noi, e lo fa cambiare le nostre immagini mentali del mondo. Anche se questo essere eccessivamente pessimisti, e che resta da dimostrare-il parere rispecchia una tendenza che è indubbiamente vero. In realtà, il suo uso è in crescita come la sua efficacia a ottenere il sostegno dell'opinione pubblica è riconosciuto. Questa, dunque, indica evidentemente il fatto che uno con sufficiente influenza può portare le sezioni del pubblico, almeno per un certo tempo e per un determinato scopo. In precedenza i governanti erano i capi. Hanno disposto il corso della storia, dal processo semplice di fare ciò che volevano. E se oggi i successori dei governanti, coloro la cui posizione o la capacità dà loro il potere, non può più fare ciò che vogliono senza l'approvazione delle masse, che trovano in uno strumento di propaganda, che è sempre più potente a ottenere che l'approvazione. Pertanto, la propaganda è qui per rimanere.
      E 'stato, ovviamente, il successo incredibile di propaganda durante la guerra che ha aperto gli occhi dei pochi intelligenti in tutti i reparti della vita, alle possibilità di disciplinando l'opinione pubblica. Il governo americano e di numerose agenzie patriottica sviluppato una tecnica che, per le persone più abituati a gare per l'accettazione del pubblico, era nuovo. Essi non solo appello per l'individuo per mezzo di ogni approccio-visiva, grafica, e uditivo-per sostenere lo sforzo nazionale, ma hanno anche assicurato la cooperazione degli uomini chiave per ogni gruppo di persone la cui semplice parola effettuate autorità di centinaia o migliaia o centinaia di migliaia di seguaci. Hanno quindi automaticamente contare sul sostegno di fraterna, gruppi religiosi, commerciali, patriottica, sociale e locale, i cui membri hanno le loro opinioni da loro leader e portavoce dei abituati, o dalle pubblicazioni periodiche cui sono stati abituati a leggere e credere. Allo stesso tempo, i manipolatori di opinione patriottica sono avvalsi della cliché mentali e le abitudini emotive del pubblico di produrre reazioni di massa contro le presunte atrocità, il terrore e la tirannia del nemico. Era naturale, dopo la fine della guerra, che le persone intelligenti dovrebbero chiedersi se non era possibile applicare una tecnica simile ai problemi della pace.
      È un dato di fatto, la pratica della propaganda dopo la guerra ha assunto forme molto diverse da quelle prevalenti venti anni fa. Questa nuova tecnica possono dirsi la propaganda nuovo.
      Essa tiene conto non solo del singolo, e neppure della mente di massa da solo, ma anche e soprattutto l'anatomia della società, con le sue formazioni gruppo di interblocco e lealtà. Essa vede l'individuo non solo come una cellula dell'organismo sociale, ma come una cellula organizzata in unità sociale. Toccare un nervo in un punto sensibile e si ottiene una risposta automatica da alcuni membri specifici dell'organismo.
      Business offre esempi grafici degli effetti che possono essere prodotte sul pubblico da parte di gruppi interessati, come i produttori tessili di perdere i loro mercati. Questo problema è sorto, non molto tempo fa, quando i produttori di velluto stavano affrontando la rovina, perché il loro prodotto era stato a lungo fuori moda. Analisi ha mostrato che era impossibile far rivivere una moda di velluto all'interno America. Anatomica caccia al posto di vitale importanza! Paris! Ovviamente! Ma sì e no. Parigi è la casa di moda. Lione è la patria della seta. L'attacco doveva essere effettuato alla fonte. Si è stabilito di sostituire scopo per caso e di utilizzare le fonti regolari per la distribuzione di moda e di influenzare l'opinione pubblica da tali fonti. Un servizio di moda di velluto, apertamente sostenuto dai produttori, è stato organizzato. La sua funzione era quella di stabilire un contatto con le manifatture di Lione e il couturier Parigi per scoprire ciò che stavano facendo, per incoraggiarli ad agire per conto di velluto, e per contribuire alla valorizzazione delle proprie merci. Un intelligente parigino fu arruolato nel lavoro. Ha visitato Lanvin e Worth, Agnese e Patou, e altri, e li indusse a utilizzare velluto nei loro abiti e cappelli. E 'stato lui che ha organizzato per l'illustre contessa questo o duchessa che indossare il cappello o il vestito. E per quanto riguarda la presentazione dell'idea al pubblico, l'acquirente americano o la donna americana della moda è stato semplicemente mostrato le creazioni di velluto presso l'atelier della sarta o la modista. Ha comprato il velluto perché le piaceva e perché era di moda.
      I redattori delle riviste americane e giornalisti di moda dei giornali americani, altresì sottoposti alla reale (anche se creati) circostanza, che si riflette nelle loro notizie, che, a sua volta, sottoposto l'acquirente e il consumatore qui per le stesse influenze. Il risultato è stato che quello che è stato in un primo momento un filo di velluto è diventato un diluvio. A richiesta è stata lenta, ma deliberatamente, creata a Parigi e in America. Un grande magazzino, con l'obiettivo di essere un leader di stile, di una pubblicità abiti di velluto e cappelli per l'autorità del couturier francese, e ha citato i cavi originali ricevuti da loro. L'eco della nuova nota di stile è stato ascoltato da centinaia di grandi magazzini in tutto il paese che ha voluto essere leader stile troppo. Bollettini seguita dispacci. La posta ha seguito la cavi. E il viaggiatore americano donna apparve davanti ai fotografi notizie nave in abito di velluto e il cappello.
      Le circostanze hanno creato il loro effetto. "Fashion Fickle pecca di velluto", è stato un commento giornale. E l'industria negli Stati Uniti, ancora una volta tenuto migliaia di occupati.
      La propaganda nuovo, vista la costituzione della società nel suo complesso, non di rado serve mettere a fuoco e realizzare i desideri delle masse. Un desiderio di una riforma specifico, tuttavia diffusa, non possono essere tradotti in azioni fino a quando non è articolata, e fino a che non ha esercitato una pressione sufficiente sul diritto proprio dagli organi decisionali. Milioni di casalinghe possono pensare che la fabbricazione di alimenti nocivi per la salute dovrebbero essere vietati. Ma ci sono poche possibilità che i loro desideri individuali saranno tradotti in forma legale a meno che la loro richiesta halfexpressed possono essere organizzate, effettuate vocali, e concentrato del legislatore statale o al Congresso federale in qualche modo, che produrrà i risultati che essi desiderano. Se ne rendano conto o no, essi invocano la propaganda per organizzare e effettuano la loro richiesta.
      Ma chiaramente è il minoranze intelligenti che hanno bisogno di fare uso di propaganda continua e sistematica. Nel minoranze attive proselitismo, nel quale gli interessi egoistici e interessi pubblici coincidono trovano il progresso e lo sviluppo d'America. Solo attraverso l'energia attiva dei pochi intelligenti possono al grande pubblico e diventare consapevoli di agire su nuove idee.
      Piccoli gruppi di persone possibile, e non, fanno il resto di noi pensare ciò che vogliono informazioni su un dato argomento. Ma di solito ci sono i sostenitori e gli oppositori di ogni propaganda, entrambi i quali sono altrettanto desiderosi di convincere la maggioranza.

CAPO III
Propagandisti NUOVO

      Chi sono gli uomini che, senza rendersene conto nostro, ci danno le nostre idee, ci dicono che ad ammirare e che a disprezzare, cosa credere circa la proprietà dei servizi pubblici, sulle tariffe, sul prezzo della gomma, circa il Piano Dawes , sull'immigrazione, che ci dicono come le nostre case devono essere progettate, quali mobili dovremmo mettere in loro, che cosa dovrebbe servire menu abbiamo sulla nostra tavola, che tipo di magliette che dobbiamo indossare, che cosa dovremmo sport praticare, ascolti ciò che dovremmo vedere, ciò che dobbiamo sostenere enti di beneficenza, che cosa dovremmo ammirare le immagini, che cosa dovremmo incidere slang, quello che scherzi dobbiamo ridere?
      Se decidiamo di fare una lista degli uomini e delle donne che, a causa della loro posizione nella vita pubblica, potrebbe piuttosto essere chiamato il modellatori di opinione pubblica, si potrebbe giungere rapidamente a un elenco esteso di persone di cui in "Who's Who". Sarebbe, ovviamente, il Presidente degli Stati Uniti ei membri del suo gabinetto, i senatori e dei rappresentanti al Congresso, i Governatori dei nostri Stati quarantotto, i presidenti delle camere di commercio nelle nostre cento città più grandi, i presidenti delle commissioni degli amministratori dei nostri cento e più grandi gruppi industriali, il presidente di molti dei sindacati affiliati alla Federazione Americana del Lavoro, il presidente nazionale di ciascuna delle organizzazioni professionali nazionali e fraterno, il presidente di ciascuna delle società di razza o di lingua nel paese, il giornale centinaia di leader e direttori di riviste, gli autori cinquanta più popolari, i presidenti dei cinquanta principali organizzazioni caritative, i produttori teatrali ventina di leader o il cinema, le centinaia di leader riconosciuti di moda, i più popolari e influenti del clero nella centinaia di città leader, i presidenti dei nostri college e delle università e soprattutto i membri delle loro facoltà, i finanzieri più potenti di Wall Street, i dilettanti più noti dello sport, e così via. Tale elenco comprende diverse migliaia di persone. Ma è noto che molti di questi capi sono a loro volta hanno portato, a volte da parte di persone i cui nomi sono sconosciuti ai più. Molti un membro del Congresso, nel mettere a punto la sua piattaforma, segue i suggerimenti di un boss della zona che poche persone al di fuori della macchina politica che abbia mai sentito parlare. Eloquente teologi possono avere grande influenza nelle loro comunità, ma spesso prendono il loro dottrine da una più alta autorità ecclesiastica. I presidenti delle camere di commercio muffa il pensiero di uomini d'affari locali in materia di questioni di interesse pubblico, ma le opinioni che hanno promulgare di solito sono derivati da una qualche autorità nazionali. Un candidato presidenziale può essere "elaborata" in risposta alla "domanda schiacciante popolare", ma è ben noto che il suo nome può essere deciso da una mezza dozzina di uomini seduti intorno a un tavolo in una stanza d'albergo.
      In alcuni casi il potere di wirepullers invisibile è flagrante. Il potere del governo invisibile che ha deliberato al tavolo da poker in un certo piccola serra a Washington è diventata una leggenda nazionale. C'è stato un periodo in cui le grandi politiche del governo nazionale sono state dettate da un solo uomo, Mark Hanna. A Simmons può, per alcuni anni, riescono a marshalling di milioni di uomini su una piattaforma di intolleranza e di violenza.
      Tali persone caratterizzano nella mente del pubblico il tipo di righello associata con la frase governo invisibile. Ma non ci si ferma spesso a pensare che ci sono dittatori in altri campi la cui influenza è altrettanto decisivo come quello dei politici che ho citato. Un castello di Irene in grado di stabilire la moda dei capelli corti che domina i nove decimi delle donne che fanno ogni pretesa di essere alla moda. I leader della moda di Parigi impostare la modalità della gonna corta, per aver indossato la quale, vent'anni fa, una donna sarebbe semplicemente stato arrestato e rinchiuso in carcere da parte della polizia di New York, e le donne intera industria di abbigliamento, un capitale di centinaia di milioni di dollari , deve essere riorganizzato a conformarsi alle proprie dictum.
      Ci sono i governanti invisibili che controllano i destini di milioni di persone. Non è generalmente realizzato in quale misura le parole e le azioni dei nostri più influenti uomini pubblici sono dettate da persone che operano accorta dietro le quinte.
      Né, cosa ancora più importante, la misura in cui i nostri pensieri e le abitudini sono modificati da parte delle autorità.
      In alcuni servizi della nostra vita quotidiana, in cui ci immaginiamo noi stessi agenti liberi, siamo governati da dittatori che esercitano un grande potere. Un uomo di acquistare un vestito immagina che sia la scelta, secondo il suo gusto e la sua personalità, il tipo di abito che preferisce. In realtà, egli può essere obbedire agli ordini di un sarto anonimo signore a Londra. Questo personaggio è il partner silenzioso in un modesto locale di sartoria, che è patrocinato da signori della moda e principi del sangue. Egli suggerisce di nobili inglesi e ad altri un panno blu, invece di grigio, due pulsanti invece di tre, o maniche di un quarto di un pollice più ristretto rispetto alla stagione scorsa. Il cliente distinti approva l'idea.
      Ma come funziona questo fatto incide John Smith di Topeka?
      Il sarto signore è sotto contratto con una certa grande ditta americana, che produce abiti da uomo, di inviare istantaneamente i disegni degli abiti scelti dai leader della moda di Londra. Dopo aver ricevuto i disegni, con le specifiche per quanto riguarda il colore, il peso e la consistenza, l'azienda pone immediatamente un ordine con la stoffa per i responsabili di varie centinaia di migliaia di dollari 'di stoffa. Le tute costituita secondo le specifiche sono poi pubblicizzato come l'ultima moda. Gli uomini alla moda di New York, Chicago, Boston e Philadelphia li indossa. E l'uomo Topeka, riconoscendo questa leadership, fa lo stesso.
      Le donne sono solo come soggetto ai comandi del governo invisibile, come lo sono gli uomini. Un produttore di seta, alla ricerca di un nuovo mercato per il suo prodotto, ha suggerito a un grande produttore di scarpe che le scarpe delle donne devono essere coperte di seta per soddisfare i loro abiti. L'idea è stata adottata sistematicamente e propagandato. Una famosa attrice era convinto di indossare le scarpe. La diffusione della moda. L'azienda scarpa era pronto con l'offerta per soddisfare la domanda creato. E la società di seta era pronto con la seta per le scarpe più.
      L'uomo che ha iniettato in questa idea l'industria calzaturiera è stata pronuncia le donne in un reparto della loro vita sociale. Uomini diversi regola di noi nei vari reparti della nostra vita. Ci può essere un potere dietro il trono in politica, un altro nella manipolazione del tasso di sconto federale, e un altro ancora nella dettatura di danze della prossima stagione. Se ci fosse un governo nazionale invisibile pronuncia i nostri destini (una cosa che non è impossibile concepire) che avrebbe funzionato con i leader dei gruppi determinati Martedì per uno scopo, e attraverso una serie completamente diversa il Mercoledì per un altro. L'idea del governo invisibile è relativo. Ci può essere un pugno di uomini che controllano i metodi educativi della grande maggioranza delle nostre scuole. Eppure, da un altro punto di vista, ogni genitore è un leader del gruppo, con autorità su di suoi figli.
      Il governo invisibile tende ad essere concentrato nelle mani di pochi, a causa dei costi di manipolare il meccanismo sociale che controlla le opinioni e le abitudini delle masse. Per la pubblicità su una scala che ne arriveranno cinquanta milioni di persone è costoso. Per raggiungere e convincere i leader del gruppo, che dettano i pensieri del pubblico e delle azioni è altrettanto costoso.
      Per questo motivo vi è una crescente tendenza a concentrare le funzioni di propaganda nelle mani dello specialista propaganda. Questo specialista è sempre più assumendo un luogo distinto e funzione nella nostra vita nazionale.
      Le nuove attività richiedono nuova nomenclatura. Il propagandista che si specializza nell'interpretazione delle imprese e le idee al pubblico, e per interpretare al pubblico di promulgatori di nuove imprese e di idee, è venuto ad essere conosciuto con il nome di "consulente di relazioni pubbliche".
      La nuova professione delle relazioni pubbliche è cresciuta a causa della crescente complessità della vita moderna e la conseguente necessità di rendere le azioni di una parte del pubblico comprensibile ad altri settori del pubblico. Essa è dovuta, anche, della sempre maggiore dipendenza del potere organizzato di ogni genere sulla pubblica opinione. I governi, siano essi monarchico, costituzionale, democratica o comunista, dipendono acquiescente l'opinione pubblica per il successo dei loro sforzi e, di fatto, il governo è solo del governo in virtù del consenso del pubblico. Industrie, servizi pubblici, i movimenti di istruzione, anzi tutti i gruppi che rappresentano un concetto o un prodotto, siano essi di maggioranza o di minoranza idee, riescono solo a causa di approvare l'opinione pubblica. L'opinione pubblica è il partner non riconosciuti in tutti i grandi sforzi.
      Il consulente di relazioni pubbliche, poi, è l'agente che, lavorando con i moderni mezzi di comunicazione e le formazioni del gruppo di società, porta un 'idea alla coscienza del pubblico. Ma è molto di più. Egli è interessato a corsi di azione, dottrine, i sistemi e le opinioni, e la garanzia di un appoggio pubblico per loro. Egli è anche preoccupato di cose tangibili, come i prodotti fabbricati e crudo. Egli si occupa di servizi di pubblica utilità, con grandi gruppi commerciali e associazioni rappresentative delle intere industrie.
      Ha funzioni prevalentemente come consulente al proprio cliente, proprio come fa un avvocato. Un avvocato si concentra sugli aspetti giuridici delle attività del suo cliente. Un consiglio per le relazioni pubbliche si concentra sui contatti del pubblico delle attività del suo cliente. Ogni fase delle idee del suo cliente, prodotti o attività che possono influenzare il pubblico o in cui il pubblico può avere un interesse fa parte della sua funzione.
      Per esempio, ai problemi specifici del costruttore si esamina il prodotto, i mercati, il modo in cui il pubblico reagisce al prodotto, l'atteggiamento dei dipendenti per il pubblico e verso il prodotto, e la collaborazione delle agenzie di distribuzione.
      Il consiglio in materia di relazioni pubbliche, dopo aver esaminato tutti questi ed altri fattori, si sforza di forma delle azioni del suo cliente in modo che ci guadagneranno gli interessi, l'approvazione e l'accettazione del pubblico.
      Il mezzo con cui il pubblico è informato delle azioni del suo cliente sono vari come i mezzi di comunicazione stessi, come la conversazione, le lettere, il palcoscenico, il cinema, la radio, la piattaforma di lezione, la rivista, il quotidiano . Il consiglio in materia di relazioni pubbliche, non è un uomo di pubblicità, ma lui sostiene che la pubblicità in cui è indicato. Molto spesso è chiamato da un'agenzia pubblicitaria di completare il suo lavoro per conto di un cliente. Il suo lavoro e che l'agenzia di pubblicità non siano in conflitto con o duplicare l'altro.
      I suoi primi sforzi sono, naturalmente, dedicato all'analisi dei problemi del suo cliente e fare in modo che ciò che ha da offrire al pubblico è qualcosa che il pubblico accetta o può essere portato ad accettare. E 'inutile cercare di vendere un idea o per preparare il terreno per un prodotto che è sostanzialmente infondata.
      Ad esempio, un asilo orfano è preoccupata da una caduta dei contributi e un atteggiamento di sconcertante indifferenza o ostilità da parte del pubblico. Il consiglio in materia di relazioni pubbliche possono scoprire su analisi che il pubblico, vivo alle moderne tendenze sociologiche, critica inconsciamente l'istituzione, perché non è organizzata sul nuovo "piano casa." Egli consiglia la modifica del cliente in questo senso. O una ferrovia può essere invitato a mettere su un treno veloce per motivi di prestigio, che si presterà al nome della strada, e quindi alla sua azioni e obbligazioni.
      Se i produttori di corsetto, per esempio, ha voluto portare i loro prodotti in modo nuovo, avrebbe senza dubbio consigliare che il piano era impossibile, poiché le donne hanno sicuramente emancipati dal corsetto vecchio stile. Eppure, i suoi consiglieri di moda potrebbe relazione che le donne potrebbero essere indotte ad adottare un certo tipo di cintura che ha eliminato le caratteristiche malsana del corsetto.
      Il suo impegno successivo è quello di analizzare il suo pubblico. Studia i gruppi che deve essere raggiunta, e il leader attraverso il quale egli può prendere contatto con questi gruppi. Gruppi sociali, economici, i gruppi geografici, i gruppi di età, i gruppi dottrinale, gruppi linguistici, gruppi culturali, tutte queste rappresentano le divisioni attraverso il quale, a nome del suo cliente, si può parlare al pubblico.
      Solo dopo questa doppia analisi è stata fatta ed i risultati raccolti, è giunto il momento per il passo successivo, la formulazione di politiche che governano la prassi generale, la procedura e le abitudini del cliente in tutti quegli aspetti in cui egli entra in contatto con il pubblico . E solo quando queste politiche sono state concordate è tempo per la quarta fase.
      Il primo riconoscimento delle funzioni distinte del consulente di relazioni pubbliche sorte, forse, nei primi anni del secolo attuale, a seguito degli scandali di assicurazione coincidente con il fango-rastrellamento di corporate finance nelle riviste popolari. Gli interessi così attaccato improvvisamente reso conto che erano completamente al di fuori del contatto con il pubblico sono stati professano di servire, e consulenza di esperti necessari per mostrare loro il modo in cui riusciva a capire il pubblico e di interpretare se stessi ad esso.
      The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, richiesto da lavoratori autonomi più fondamentale interesse, ha avviato una consapevole, diretto sforzo per cambiare l'atteggiamento del pubblico verso le compagnie di assicurazione in generale, e verso se stesso, in particolare, al suo profitto e beneficio del pubblico.
      Ha cercato di fare un movimento maggior parte di se stesso ottenendo il pubblico ad acquistare le sue politiche. Ha raggiunto il pubblico in ogni punto della sua esistenze aziendali e separate. Alle comunità ha dato le indagini sanitarie e consigli di esperti. Alle persone che hanno credenze sulla salute e consigli. Anche l'edificio in cui la società si trovava è stato fatto un punto di riferimento pittoresca da vedere e da ricordare, in altre parole di portare avanti il processo associativo. E così questa società venne ad avere un ampio consenso generale. Il numero e l'importo delle sue politiche è cresciuta costantemente, come i suoi contatti con la società ampio aumento.

Within a decade, many large corporations were employing public relations counsel under one title or another, for they had come to recognize that they depended upon public good will for their continued prosperity. It was no longer true that it was "none of the public's business" how the affairs of a corporation were managed. They were obliged to convince the public that they were conforming to its demands as to honesty and fairness. Thus a corporation might discover that its labor policy was causing public resentment, and might introduce a more enlightened policy solely for the sake of general good will. Or a department store, hunting for the cause of diminishing sales, might discover that its clerks had a reputation for bad manners, and initiate formal instruction in courtesy and tact.

The public relations expert may be known as public relations director or counsel. Often he is called secretary or vice-president or director. Sometimes he is known as cabinet officer or commissioner. By whatever title he may be called, his function is well defined and his advice has definite bearing on the conduct of the group or individual with whom he is working.

Many persons still believe that the public relations counsel is a propagandist and nothing else. But, on the contrary, the stage at which many suppose he starts his activities may actually be the stage at which he ends them. After the public and the client are thoroughly analyzed and policies have been formulated, his work may be finished. In other cases the work of the public relations counsel must be continuous to be effective. For in many instances only by a careful system of constant, thorough and frank information will the public understand and appreciate the value of what a merchant, educator or statesman is doing. The counsel on public relations must maintain constant vigilance, because inadequate information, or false information from unknown sources, may have results of enormous importance. A single false rumor at a critical moment may drive down the price of a corporation's stock, causing a loss of millions to stockholders. An air of secrecy or mystery about a corporation's financial dealings may breed a general suspicion capable of acting as an invisible drag on the company's whole dealings with the public. The counsel on public relations must be in a position to deal effectively with rumors and suspicions, attempting to stop them at their source, counteracting them promptly with correct or more complete information through channels which will be most effective, or best of all establishing such relations of confidence in the concern's integrity that rumors and suspicions will have no opportunity to take root.

His function may include the discovery of new markets, the existence of which had been unsuspected.

If we accept public relations as a profession, we must also expect it to have both ideals and ethics. The ideal of the profession is a pragmatic one. It is to make the producer, whether that producer be a legislature making laws or a manufacturer making a commercial product, understand what the public wants and to make the public understand the objectives of the producer. In relation to industry, the ideal of the profession is to eliminate the waste and the friction that result when industry does things or makes things which its public does not want, or when the public does not understand what is being offered it. For example, the telephone companies maintain extensive public relations departments to explain what they are doing, so that energy may not be burned up in the friction of misunderstanding. A detailed description, for example, of the immense and scientific care which the company takes to choose clearly understandable and distinguishable exchange names, helps the public to appreciate the effort that is being made to give good service, and stimulates it to cooperate by enunciating clearly. It aims to bring about an understanding between educators and educated, between government and people, between charitable institutions and contributors, between nation and nation.

The profession of public relations counsel is developing for itself an ethical code which compares favorably with that governing the legal and medical professions. In part, this code is forced upon the public relations counsel by the very conditions of his work. While recognizing, just as the lawyer does, that every one has the right to present his case in its best light, he nevertheless refuses a client whom he believes to be dishonest, a product which he believes to be fraudulent, or a cause which he believes to be antisocial. One reason for this is that, even though a special pleader, he is not dissociated from the client in the public's mind. Another reason is that while he is pleading before the court—the court of public opinion—he is at the same time trying to affect that court's judgments and actions. In law, the judge and jury hold the deciding balance of power. In public opinion, the public relations counsel is judge and jury, because through his pleading of a case the public may accede to his opinion and judgment.

He does not accept a client whose interests conflict with those of another client. He does not accept a client whose case he believes to be hopeless or whose product he believes to be unmarketable.

He should be candid in his dealings. It must be repeated that his business is not to fool or hoodwink the public. If he were to get such a reputation, his usefulness in his profession would be at an end. When he is sending out propaganda material, it is clearly labeled as to source. The editor knows from whom it comes and what its purpose is, and accepts or rejects it on its merits as news.

CHAPTER IV

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PUBLIC RELATIONS

The systematic study of mass psychology revealed to students the potentialities of invisible government of society by manipulation of the motives which actuate man in the group. Trotter and Le Bon, who approached the subject in a scientific manner, and Graham Wallas, Walter Lippmann and others who continued with searching studies of the group mind, established that the group has mental characteristics distinct from those of the individual, and is motivated by impulses and emotions which cannot be explained on the basis of what we know of individual psychology. So the question naturally arose: If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, is it not possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing it?

The recent practice of propaganda has proved that it is possible, at least up to a certain point and within certain limits. Mass psychology is as yet far from being an exact science and the mysteries of human motivation are by no means all revealed. But at least theory and practice have combined with sufficient success to permit us to know that in certain cases we can effect some change in public opinion with a fair degree of accuracy by operating a certain mechanism, just as the motorist can regulate the speed of his car by manipulating the flow of gasoline. Propaganda is not a science in the laboratory sense, but it is no longer entirely the empirical affair that it was before the advent of the study of mass psychology. It is now scientific in the sense that it seeks to base its operations upon definite knowledge drawn from direct observation of the group mind, and upon the application of principles which have been demonstrated to be consistent and relatively constant

The modern propagandist studies systematically and objectively the material with which he is working in the spirit of the laboratory. If the matter in hand is a nation-wide sales campaign, he studies the field by means of a clipping service, or of a corps of scouts, or by personal study at a crucial spot He determines, for example, which features of a product are losing their public appeal, and in what new direction the public taste is veering. He will not fail to investigate to what extent it is the wife who has the final word in the choice of her husband's car, or of his suits and shirts.

Scientific accuracy of results is not to be expected, because many of the elements of the situation must always be beyond his control. He may know with a fair degree of certainty that under favorable circumstances an international flight will produce a spirit of good will, making possible even the consummation of political programs. But he cannot be sure that some unexpected event will not overshadow this flight in the public interest, or that some other aviator may not do something more spectacular the day before. Even in his restricted field of public psychology there must always be a wide margin of error. Propaganda, like economics and sociology, can never be an exact science for the reason that its subject-matter, like theirs, deals with human beings.

If you can influence the leaders, either with or without their conscious cooperation, you automatically influence the group which they sway. But men do not need to be actually gathered together in a public meeting or in a street riot, to be subject to the influences of mass psychology. Because man is by nature gregarious he feels himself to be member of a herd, even when he is alone in his room with the curtains drawn. His mind retains the patterns which have been stamped on it by the group influences. A man sits in his office deciding what stocks to buy. He imagines, no doubt, that he is planning his purchases according to his own judgment. In actual fact his judgment is a melange of impressions stamped on his mind by outside influences which unconsciously control his thought. He buys a certain railroad stock because it was in the headlines yesterday and hence is the one which comes most prominently to his mind; because he has a pleasant recollection of a good dinner on one of its fast trains; because it has a liberal labor policy, a reputation for honesty; because he has been told that J. P. Morgan owns some of its shares.

Trotter and Le Bon concluded that the group mind does not think in the strict sense of the word. In place of thoughts it has impulses, habits and emotions. In making up its mind its first impulse is usually to follow the example of a trusted leader. This is one of the most firmly established principles of mass psychology. It operates in establishing the rising or diminishing prestige of a summer resort, in causing a run on a bank, or a panic on the stock exchange, in creating a best seller, or a box-office success.

But when the example of the leader is not at hand and the herd must think for itself, it does so by means of cliches, pat words or images which stand for a whole group of ideas or experiences. Not many years ago, it was only necessary to tag a political candidate with the word interests to stampede millions of people into voting against him, because anything associated with "the interests" seemed necessarily corrupt. Recently the word Bolshevik has performed a similar service for persons who wished to frighten the public away from a line of action.

By playing upon an old cliche, or manipulating a new one, the propagandist can sometimes swing a whole mass of group emotions. In Great Britain, during the war, the evacuation hospitals came in for a considerable amount of criticism because of the summary way in which they handled their wounded. It was assumed by the public that a hospital gives prolonged and conscientious attention to its patients. When the name was changed to evacuation posts the critical reaction vanished. No one expected more than an adequate emergency treatment from an institution so named. The cliche hospital was indelibly associated in the public mind with a certain picture. To persuade the public to discriminate between one type of hospital and another, to dissociate the cliche from the picture it evoked, would have been an impossible task. Instead, a new cliche automatically conditioned the public emotion toward these hospitals.

Men are rarely aware of the real reasons which motivate their actions. A man may believe that he buys a motor car because, after careful study of the technical features of all makes on the market, he has concluded that this is the best. He is almost certainly fooling himself. He bought it, perhaps, because a friend whose financial acumen he respects bought one last week; or because his neighbors believed he was not able to afford a car of that class; or because its colors are those of his college fraternity.

Entro un decennio, molte grandi aziende sono state impiegando consulente di relazioni pubbliche sotto un titolo o di un altro, perché era venuto a riconoscere che essi dipendevano pubblico buona volontà per la loro continua prosperità. Non era più vero che è stata "nessuna delle imprese del pubblico" come gli affari di una società sono stati gestiti. Essi sono stati costretti a convincere il pubblico che erano conformi alle sue esigenze per quanto riguarda l'onestà e la lealtà. In tal modo una società potrebbe scoprire che la sua politica di lavoro era provocando il risentimento dei cittadini, e potrebbe introdurre una politica più illuminata esclusivamente per il bene generale di buona volontà. O un grande magazzino, la caccia per la causa della diminuzione delle vendite, potrebbe scoprire che i suoi impiegati ha una reputazione di cattive maniere, e di avviare l'istruzione formale cortesia e tatto.
      L'esperto di pubbliche relazioni può essere conosciuto come direttore delle pubbliche relazioni o consiglio. Spesso è chiamato il segretario o vice-presidente o il direttore. A volte è conosciuto come ufficiale di governo o commissario. Da qualunque titolo egli può essere definito, la sua funzione è ben definita e il suo consiglio si è tenuto definitiva sullo svolgimento del gruppo o individuali con cui lavora.
      Molte persone credono ancora che il consulente di relazioni pubbliche è un propagandista e nient'altro. Ma, al contrario, la fase in cui molti supporre che egli inizia la sua attività potrebbe essere effettivamente la fase in cui egli finisce li. Dopo il pubblico e il cliente sono accuratamente analizzati e sono state formulate le politiche, la sua opera può essere finito. In altri casi il lavoro del consulente di relazioni pubbliche deve essere continuo per essere efficace. Per in molti casi solo con un accurato sistema di informazioni costante, approfondito e franco sarà il pubblico a capire e apprezzare il valore di ciò che un commerciante, educatore o statista sta facendo. Il consiglio in materia di relazioni pubbliche devono mantenere una costante vigilanza, in quanto le informazioni inadeguate o false informazioni provenienti da fonti sconosciute, può avere i risultati di enorme importanza. Una voce unica false in un momento critico possa spingere al ribasso il prezzo delle azioni di una società, provocando una perdita di milioni di azionisti. Un'aria di segretezza o di mistero circa le operazioni finanziarie di una società può razza, un sospetto generale capace di agire come una drag invisibile sulle transazioni tutta l'azienda con il pubblico. Il consiglio per le relazioni pubbliche devono essere in grado di affrontare efficacemente le voci e sospetti, nel tentativo di fermarli alla fonte, porvi rimedio tempestivamente con informazioni corrette e più completa, attraverso i canali che saranno più efficaci, o meglio di tutti stabilire tali rapporti di fiducia nell'integrità la preoccupazione che le voci e sospetti non avrà alcuna possibilità di attecchire.
      La sua funzione può comprendere la scoperta di nuovi mercati, la cui esistenza era stata insospettate.
      Se accettiamo le relazioni pubbliche come professione, dobbiamo anche aspettare per avere entrambi gli ideali e l'etica. L'ideale della professione è un pragmatico. Si tratta di fare il produttore, che si tratti di produttori un legislatore fare le leggi o di un produttore di rendere un prodotto commerciale, capire ciò che il pubblico vuole e di rendere il pubblico a comprendere gli obiettivi del produttore. Per quanto riguarda l'industria, l'ideale della professione è quello di eliminare i rifiuti e gli attriti che si verificano quando l'industria fa le cose o fa cose che il suo pubblico non vuole, o quando il pubblico non capisce ciò che viene offerto. Ad esempio, le compagnie telefoniche mantengono ampi uffici per le relazioni pubbliche per spiegare che cosa stanno facendo, in modo che l'energia non può essere bruciato in attrito di incomprensione. Una descrizione dettagliata, per esempio, della cura immensa e scientifica che la società prende per scegliere i nomi di scambio chiaramente comprensibile e distinguibili, aiuta il pubblico ad apprezzare lo sforzo che è stato fatto per dare un buon servizio, e stimola a cooperare enunciando chiaramente . Essa mira a realizzare un'intesa tra educatori ed educati, tra governo e popolo, tra le istituzioni di beneficenza e collaboratori, tra nazione e nazione.
     La professione di consulente di relazioni pubbliche è in via di sviluppo per sé un codice etico che confronta favorevolmente con quella che disciplina le professioni legali e mediche. In parte, questo codice è imposto il consulente di relazioni pubbliche per le condizioni stesse del suo lavoro. Pur riconoscendo, proprio come fa l'avvocato, che ognuno ha il diritto di presentare il suo caso nella sua luce migliore, si rifiuta comunque di un client che crede di essere disonesto, un prodotto che crede di essere fraudolenti, o una causa che ha crede di essere antisociali. Una ragione di questo è che, anche se un difensore speciale, non è dissociato dal client nella mente del pubblico. Un'altra ragione è che, mentre lui è memoria dinanzi al giudice, il giudice di opinione pubblica che è al tempo stesso cercando di incidere che le sentenze della Corte e delle azioni. In legge, il giudice e giuria l'ago della bilancia del potere di decidere. Nell'opinione pubblica, il consulente di relazioni pubbliche è giudice e giuria, perché attraverso la sua memoria di un caso, il pubblico può aderire al suo parere e il giudizio.
     Egli non accetta un cliente, i cui interessi in conflitto con quelli di un altro cliente. Egli non accetta un cliente il cui caso egli crede di essere senza speranza o il cui prodotto che crede essere commerciabili.
      Egli dovrebbe essere sincero nei suoi rapporti. Si deve essere ripetuto che la sua azienda non è sciocco o ingannare il pubblico. Se fosse per ottenere una tale notorietà, la sua utilità nella sua professione sarebbe stata alla fine. Quando è l'invio di materiale di propaganda, è chiaramente etichettato come alla sorgente. L'editor sa da chi viene e che cosa il suo scopo è, e accetta o respinge nel merito come news.



CAPO IV
LA PSICOLOGIA DELLE RELAZIONI PUBBLICHE

      Lo studio sistematico della psicologia di massa ha rivelato agli studenti le potenzialità del governo invisibile della società, dalla manipolazione dei motivi che azionare l'uomo nel gruppo. Trotter e Le Bon, che ha affrontato il tema in modo scientifico, e Graham Wallas, Walter Lippmann e altri che hanno continuato gli studi alla ricerca della mente del gruppo, ha stabilito che il gruppo ha caratteristiche mentali distinte da quelle del singolo, ed è motivata dal impulsi ed emozioni, che non può essere spiegato sulla base di ciò che sappiamo della psicologia individuale. Quindi la domanda nasce naturale: Se abbiamo capito il meccanismo e le motivazioni della mente del gruppo, non è possibile controllare le masse e reggimento secondo la nostra volontà a loro insaputa it?
      La pratica della propaganda recente ha dimostrato che è possibile, almeno fino a un certo punto ed entro certi limiti. Psicologia di massa è ancora ben lungi dall'essere una scienza esatta ei misteri della motivazione umana non sono affatto tutti rivelata. Ma almeno la teoria e la pratica si sono combinati con successo sufficienti per permettere a noi di sapere che in alcuni casi si può effettuare qualche cambiamento nell'opinione pubblica, con un buon grado di accuratezza di funzionamento di un meccanismo certo, così come l'automobilista può regolare la velocità del suo auto manipolando il flusso di benzina. La propaganda non è una scienza, nel senso di laboratorio, ma non è più interamente la vicenda empirica che era prima dell'avvento dello studio della psicologia di massa. Ora è scientifica nel senso che cerca di fondare la propria attività sulla conoscenza precisa tratte dall'osservazione diretta della mente del gruppo, e su l'applicazione dei principi che hanno dimostrato di essere coerente e relativamente costante
      Gli studi moderni di propaganda sistematicamente ed obiettivamente il materiale con cui egli sta lavorando nello spirito del laboratorio. Se la materia in questione è una nazione a livello campagna vendite, studia il campo per mezzo di un servizio di clipping, o di un corpo di scout, o per studio personale in un punto cruciale, determina, per esempio, che le caratteristiche di un prodotto stanno perdendo il loro appello pubblico, e in quale direzione il nuovo gusto del pubblico è girante. Egli non mancherà di indagare in che misura è la moglie che ha l'ultima parola nella scelta della macchina del marito, o dei suoi abiti e camicie.
      Accuratezza scientifica dei risultati, non è prevedibile, perché molti degli elementi della situazione deve essere sempre al di là del suo controllo. Egli può conoscere con un buon grado di certezza che in circostanze favorevoli un volo internazionale produrrà uno spirito di buona volontà, rendendo possibile anche la consumazione dei programmi politici. Ma non può essere sicuro che qualche evento imprevisto non stenderà la sua ombra questo volo nel pubblico interesse, o che qualche aviatore altri non possono fare qualcosa di più spettacolare il giorno prima. Anche nel suo campo ristretto della psicologia del pubblico ci deve essere sempre un ampio margine di errore. La propaganda, come l'economia e la sociologia, non può mai essere una scienza esatta per la ragione che il suo oggetto, come la loro, si occupa di esseri umani.
      Se si riesce a influenzare i leader, con o senza la loro cooperazione cosciente, automaticamente l'influenza del gruppo che ondeggiano. Ma gli uomini non hanno bisogno di essere effettivamente riuniti in un incontro pubblico o in una rissa di strada, ad essere soggetti alle influenze della psicologia di massa. Perché l'uomo è per natura gregario si sente ad essere membro di una mandria, anche quando è solo nella sua stanza con le tende tirate. La sua mente mantiene i modelli che sono stati stampati su di esso dalle influenze del gruppo. Un uomo è seduto nel suo ufficio decidere quali azioni acquistare. Egli immagina, senza dubbio, che sta pianificando i suoi acquisti in base al proprio giudizio. In realtà il suo giudizio è un melange di impressioni impresso nella sua mente da influenze esterne che inconsciamente controllo il suo pensiero. Acquista un certo livello di scorte ferrovia perché era in prima pagina di ieri e, quindi, è quello che viene più visibile nella sua mente, perché ha un piacevole ricordo di una buona cena in uno dei suoi treni veloci, perché ha una politica liberale di lavoro , una reputazione di onestà, perché gli è stato detto che JP Morgan detiene alcune delle sue parti.
      Trotter e Le Bon ha concluso che la mente del gruppo non pensa in senso stretto della parola. Al posto dei pensieri che ha impulsi, le abitudini e le emozioni. Nel formulare la sua mente il suo primo impulso è di solito a seguire l'esempio di un leader di fiducia. Questo è uno dei principi più fermamente accertate di psicologia di massa. Essa opera nel determinare l'aumento o diminuzione del prestigio di una località di villeggiatura estiva, nel provocare una corsa su una banca, o il panico in borsa, nella creazione di un best-seller, o di un successo al botteghino.
      Ma quando l'esempio del leader non è a portata di mano e l'allevamento deve pensare per sé, lo fa per mezzo di luoghi comuni, Pat parole o immagini che stanno per un intero gruppo di idee o esperienze. Non molti anni fa, era solo necessario codificare un candidato politico con gli interessi parola il panico milioni di persone a votare contro di lui, perché tutto associato a "interessi" sembrava necessariamente corrotti. Recentemente la parola bolscevica ha eseguito un servizio analogo per le persone che voleva spaventare il pubblico lontano da una linea di azione.
      Giocando su un vecchio luogo comune, o la manipolazione di uno nuovo, il propagandista a volte può oscillare una massa intera di emozioni di gruppo. In Gran Bretagna, durante la guerra, gli ospedali di evacuazione rientrato per una notevole quantità di critiche a causa del modo di sintesi in cui hanno gestito i loro feriti. E 'stato assunto da parte del pubblico che un ospedale dà prolungato e l'attenzione di coscienza ai suoi pazienti. Quando il nome è stato cambiato a posti di evacuazione la reazione critica scomparso. Nessuno si aspettava più di un trattamento adeguato di emergenza da un ente chiamato così. L'ospedale cliché è stato associato in modo indelebile nella mente del pubblico con un certo quadro. Per convincere il pubblico a discriminare tra un tipo di ospedale e un altro, di dissociare il cliché dalla foto evocava, sarebbe stato un compito impossibile. Invece, un cliche nuovo automaticamente condizionato l'emozione del pubblico verso questi ospedali.
      Gli uomini sono raramente consapevoli delle vere ragioni che motivano le loro azioni. Un uomo può credere che compra una macchina a motore, poiché, dopo un attento studio delle caratteristiche tecniche di tutte le marche sul mercato, ha concluso che questo è il migliore. E 'quasi certamente ingannare se stesso. L'ha comprata, forse, perché un amico di cui acume finanziario che rispetta comprato uno la scorsa settimana, o perché i suoi vicini credevano non era in grado di permettersi una vettura di questa classe, o perché i suoi colori sono quelli della sua fraternità college.

It is chiefly the psychologists of the school of Freud who have pointed out that many of man's thoughts and actions are compensatory substitutes for desires which he has been obliged to suppress. A thing may be desired not for its intrinsic worth or usefulness, but because he has unconsciously come to see in it a symbol of something else, the desire for which he is ashamed to admit to himself. A man buying a car may think he wants it for purposes of locomotion, whereas the fact may be that he would really prefer not to be burdened with it, and would rather walk for the sake of his health. He may really want it because it is a symbol of social position, an evidence of his success in business, or a means of pleasing his wife.

This general principle, that men are very largely actuated bv motives which they conceal from themselves, is as true of mass as of individual psychology. It is evident that the successful propagandist must understand the true motives and not be content to accept the reasons which men give for what they do.

It is not sufficient to understand only the mechanical structure of society, the groupings and cleavages and loyalties. An engineer may know all about the cylinders and pistons of a locomotive, but unless he knows how steam behaves under pressure he cannot make his engine run. Human desires are the steam which makes the social machine work. Only by understanding them can the propagandist control that vast, loose-jointed mechanism which is modern society.

The old propagandist based his work on the mechanistic reaction psychology then in vogue in our colleges. This assumed that the human mind was merely an individual machine, a system of nerves and nerve centers, reacting with mechanical regularity to stimuli, like a helpless, will-less automaton. It was the special pleader's function to provide the stimulus which would cause the desired reaction in the individual purchaser.

It was one of the doctrines of the reaction psychology that a certain stimulus often repeated would create a habit, or that the mere reiteration of an idea would create a conviction. Suppose the old type of salesmanship, acting for a meat packer, was seeking to increase the sale of bacon. It would reiterate innumerable times in full-page advertisements: "Eat more bacon. Eat bacon because it is cheap, because it is good, because it gives you reserve energy."

The newer salesmanship, understanding the group structure of society and the principles of mass psychology, would first ask: "Who is it that influences the eating habits of the public?" The answer, obviously, is: "The physicians." The new salesman will then suggest to physicians to say publicly that it is wholesome to eat bacon. He knows as a mathematical certainty, that large numbers of persons will follow the advice of their doctors, because he understands the psychological relation of dependence of men upon their physicians.

The old-fashioned propagandist, using almost exclusively the appeal of the printed word, tried to persuade the individual reader to buy a definite article, immediately. This approach is exemplified in a type of advertisement which used to be considered ideal from the point of view of directness and effectiveness:

"YOU (perhaps with a finger pointing at the reader) buy O'Leary's rubber heels—NOW."

The advertiser sought by means of reiteration and emphasis directed upon the individual, to break down or penetrate sales resistance. Although the appeal was aimed at fifty million persons, it was aimed at each as an individual.

The new salesmanship has found it possible, by dealing with men in the mass through their group formations, to set up psychological and emotional currents which will work for him. Instead of assaulting sales resistance by direct attack, he is interested in removing sales resistance. He creates circumstances which will swing emotional currents so as to make for purchaser demand.

If, for instance, I want to sell pianos, it is not sufficient to blanket the country with a direct appeal, such as:

"YOU buy a Mozart piano now. It is cheap. The best artists use it. It will last for years."

The claims may all be true, but they are in direct conflict with the claims of other piano manufacturers, and in indirect competition with the claims of a radio or a motor car, each competing for the consumer's dollar.

What are the true reasons why the purchaser is planning to spend his money on a new car instead of on a new piano? Because he has decided that he wants the commodity called locomotion more than he wants the commodity called music? Not altogether. He buys a car, because it is at the moment the group custom to buy cars.

The modern propagandist therefore sets to work to create circumstances which will modify that custom. He appeals perhaps to the home instinct which is fundamental. He will endeavor to develop public acceptance of the idea of a music room in the home. This he may do, for example, by organizing an exhibition of period music rooms designed by well known decorators who themselves exert an influence on the buying groups. He enhances the effectiveness and prestige of these rooms by putting in them rare and valuable tapestries. Then, in order to create dramatic interest in the exhibit, he stages an event or ceremony. To this ceremony key people, persons known to influence the buying habits of the public, such as a famous violinist, a popular artist, and a society leader, are invited. These key persons affect other groups, lifting the idea of the music room to a place in the public consciousness which it did not have before. The juxtaposition of these leaders, and the idea which they are dramatizing, are then projected to the wider public through various publicity channels. Meanwhile, influential architects have been persuaded to make the music room an integral architectural part of their plans with perhaps a specially charming niche in one corner for the piano. Less influential architects will as a matter of course imitate what is done by the men whom they consider masters of their profession. They in turn will implant the idea of the music room in the mind of the general public.

The music room will be accepted because it has been made the thing. And the man or woman who has a music room, or has arranged a corner of the parlor as a musical corner, will naturally think of buying a piano. It will come to him as his own idea.

Under the old salesmanship the manufacturer said to the prospective purchaser, "Please buy a piano." The new salesmanship has reversed the process and caused the prospective purchaser to say to the manufacturer, "Please sell me a piano."

The value of the associative processes in propaganda is shown in connection with a large real estate development. To emphasize that Jackson Heights was socially desirable every attempt was made to produce this associative process. A benefit performance of the Jitney Players was staged for the benefit of earthquake victims of Japan, under the auspices of Mrs. Astor and others. The social advantages of the place were projected—a golf course was laid out and a clubhouse planned. When the post office was opened, the public relations counsel attempted to use it as a focus for national interest and discovered that its opening fell coincident with a date important in the annals of the American Postal Service. This was then made the basis of the opening.

When an attempt was made to show the public the beauty of the apartments, a competition was held among interior decorators for the best furnished apartment in Jackson Heights. An important committee of judges decided. This competition drew the approval of well known authorities, as well as the interest of millions, who were made cognizant of it through newspaper and magazine and other publicity, with the effect of building up definitely the prestige of the development.

One of the most effective methods is the utilization of the group formation of modern society in order to spread ideas. An example of this is the nationwide competitions for sculpture in Ivory soap, open to school children in certain age groups as well as professional sculptors. A sculptor of national reputation found Ivory soap an excellent medium for sculpture.

The Procter and Gamble Company offered a series of prizes for the best sculpture in white soap. The contest was held under the auspices of the Art Center in New York City, an organization of high standing in the art world.

School superintendents and teachers throughout the country were glad to encourage the movement as an educational aid for schools. Practice among school children as part of their art courses was stimulated. Contests were held between schools, between school districts and between cities.

Ivory soap was adaptable for sculpturing in the homes because mothers saved the shavings and the imperfect efforts for laundry purposes. The work itself was clean.

The best pieces are selected from the local competitions for entry in the national contest. This is held annually at an important art gallery in New York, whose prestige with that of the distinguished judges, establishes the contest as a serious art event.

In the first of these national competitions about 500 pieces of sculpture were entered. In the third, 2,500. And in the fourth, more than 4,000. If the carefully selected pieces were so numerous, it is evident that a vast number were sculptured during the year, and that a much greater number must have been made for practice purposes. The good will was greatly enhanced by the fact that this soap had become not merely the concern of the housewife but also a matter of personal and intimate interest to her children.

A number of familiar psychological motives were set in motion in the carrying out of this campaign. The esthetic, the competitive, the gregarious (much of the sculpturing was done in school groups), the snobbish (the impulse to follow the example of a recognized leader), the exhibitionist, and—last but by no means least—the maternal.

All these motives and group habits were put in concerted motion by the simple machinery of group leadership and authority. As if actuated by the pressure of a button, people began working for the client for the sake of the gratification obtained in the sculpture work itself.

This point is most important in successful propaganda work. The leaders who lend their authority to any propaganda campaign will do so only if it can be made to touch their own interests. There must be a disinterested aspect of the propagandist's activities. In other words, it is one of the functions of the public relations counsel to discover at what points his client's interests coincide with those of other individuals or groups.

In the case of the soap sculpture competition, the distinguished artists and educators who sponsored the idea were glad to lend their services and their names because the competitions really promoted an interest which they had at heart—the cultivation of the esthetic impulse among the younger generation.

Such coincidence and overlapping of interests is as infinite as the interlacing of group formations themselves. For example, a railway wishes to develop its business. The counsel on public relations makes a survey to discover at what points its interests coincide with those of its prospective customers. The company then establishes relations with chambers of commerce along its right of way and assists them in developing their communities. It helps them to secure new plants and industries for the town. It facilitates business through the dissemination of technical information. It is not merely a case of bestowing favors in the hope of receiving favors; these activities of the railroad, besides creating good will, actually promote growth on its right of way. The interests of the railroad and the communities through which it passes mutually interact and feed one another.

In the same way, a bank institutes an investment service for the benefit of its customers in order that the latter may have more money to deposit with the bank. Or a jewelry concern develops an insurance department to insure the jewels it sells, in order to make the purchaser feel greater security in buying jewels. Or a baking company establishes an information service suggesting recipes for bread to encourage new uses for bread in the home. The ideas of the new propaganda are predicated on sound psychology based on enlightened selfinterest.

I have tried, in these chapters, to explain the place of propaganda in modern American life and something of the methods by which it operates—to tell the why, the what, the who and the how of the invisible government which dictates our thoughts, directs our feelings and controls our actions. In the following chapters I shall try to show how propaganda functions in specific departments of group activity, to suggest some of the further ways in which it may operate.

E 'soprattutto gli psicologi della scuola di Freud, che hanno sottolineato che molti dei pensieri dell'uomo e le azioni sono sostituti di compensazione per i desideri che egli è stato costretto a sopprimere. Una cosa può essere desiderato, non per il suo valore intrinseco o l'utilità, ma perché egli ha inconsciamente venire a vedere in essa un simbolo di qualcosa d'altro, il desiderio di cui si vergogna ad ammettere a se stesso. Un uomo di acquistare una macchina può pensare che lo vuole a fini di locomozione, considerando che il fatto può essere che avrebbe davvero preferiscono non essere gravate da essa, e sarebbe piuttosto a piedi per il bene della sua salute. Egli può davvero perché è un simbolo della posizione sociale, una testimonianza del suo successo negli affari, o un mezzo di compiacere sua moglie.
      Questo principio generale, che gli uomini sono in gran parte attuato motivi BV, che nascondono a se stessi, come è vero, come massa della psicologia individuale. E 'evidente che il propagandista di successo deve capire i veri motivi e non essere felice di accettare le ragioni che gli uomini danno per quello che fanno.
      Non è sufficiente a comprendere solo la struttura meccanica della società, raggruppamenti e spaccature e lealtà. Un ingegnere può sapere tutto sui cilindri e pistoni di una locomotiva, ma a meno che non sa come si comporta con vapore sotto pressione non riesce a fare la sua corsa del motore. I desideri umani sono il vapore che rende l'opera sociale della macchina. Solo con la loro comprensione è possibile il controllo propagandista quel vasto, loose-meccanismo articolato che è la società moderna.
      Il propagandista vecchio basato il suo lavoro sulla psicologia meccanicistica reazione allora in voga nei nostri collegi. Ciò presuppone che la mente umana non era che una singola macchina, un sistema di nervi e dei centri nervosi, reagendo con regolarità meccanica agli stimoli, come un impotente, sarà automa meno. Era la funzione del difensore speciale a fornire lo stimolo che causerebbe la reazione desiderata del singolo acquirente.
      E 'stata una delle dottrine della psicologia reazione che un certo stimolo spesso ripetuto a creare una abitudine, o che la mera reiterazione di una idea sarebbe di creare una condanna. Supponiamo che il vecchio tipo di abilità commerciale, facente funzione di un software di carne, stava cercando di aumentare la vendita di pancetta. Si ribadisce innumerevoli volte in pubblicità a piena pagina: "Mangia più pancetta. Eat pancetta, perché è a buon mercato, perché è buono, perché ti dà energia di riserva".
      The arte del vendere più recenti, la comprensione della struttura della società e dei principi della psicologia di massa, dovrebbe prima chiedere: "Chi è che influenza le abitudini alimentari dei cittadini?" La risposta, ovviamente, è: "I medici". Il venditore nuovo quindi suggerire ai medici a dire pubblicamente che è sano mangiare pancetta. Lui sa come una certezza matematica, che un gran numero di persone che seguirà il consiglio del proprio medico, perché capisce il rapporto di dipendenza psicologica degli uomini su di loro medici.
      Il vecchio stile di propaganda, utilizzando quasi esclusivamente il fascino della parola stampata, ha cercato di convincere il singolo lettore ad acquistare un articolo determinativo, immediatamente. Questo approccio è esemplificato in un tipo di pubblicità che ha usato essere considerata ideale dal punto di vista della immediatezza ed efficacia:
"YOU (forse con un dito puntato verso il lettore) comprare tacchi O'Leary di gomma-NOW".
      L'inserzionista perseguito attraverso la ripetizione e l'enfasi rivolta alla persona, per abbattere o penetrare le vendite di resistenza. Anche se il ricorso è stato volto a cinquanta milioni di persone, che mirava a ciascuno nella sua singolarità.
      The nuova arte del vendere è ritenuto possibile, da trattare con gli uomini in massa attraverso le loro formazioni di gruppo, di creare correnti psicologiche ed emotive, che lavorerà per lui. Invece di aggressione vendite di resistenza da un attacco diretto, egli è interessato a rimuovere le vendite di resistenza. Egli crea le circostanze che swing correnti emotive in modo da rendere per la domanda di acquisto.
      Se, per esempio, voglio vendere pianoforti, non è sufficiente a tappeto il paese con un appello diretto, come ad esempio:
"Si compra un pianoforte di Mozart ora. E 'a buon mercato. I migliori artisti usarlo. Essa durerà per anni."
      I crediti possono essere tutte vere, ma sono in diretto conflitto con le richieste dei produttori di pianoforte di altri, e in concorrenza indiretto con le rivendicazioni di una radio o una macchina a motore, in competizione per ogni dollaro del consumatore.
      Quali sono le vere ragioni per cui l'acquirente ha intenzione di spendere i suoi soldi su una macchina nuova, invece di un nuovo pianoforte? Perché ha deciso che vuole la merce chiamata locomozione più di quello che vuole il bene called music? Non del tutto. Compra una macchina, perché è al momento l'abitudine di gruppo per acquistare auto.
      La propaganda moderna definisce quindi a lavorare per creare le circostanze che modificherà che personalizzato. Si appella forse per l'istinto di casa che è fondamentale. Egli farà il possibile per sviluppare l'accettazione del pubblico l'idea di una sala per la musica in casa. Questo può fare, per esempio, organizzando una mostra di sale per la musica periodo progettato da decoratori ben noto che a loro volta influire sui gruppi di acquisto. Egli migliora l'efficacia e il prestigio di queste camere mettendo in loro arazzi rari e preziosi. Poi, al fine di creare interesse drammatico in mostra, che le fasi di un evento o cerimonia. A questa cerimonia persone chiave, persone note per influenzare le abitudini di acquisto del pubblico, come un famoso violinista, un artista popolare, e una società leader, sono invitati. Queste persone chiave influenzano altri gruppi, sollevando l'idea della sala musica per un posto nella coscienza pubblica, che non aveva prima. La giustapposizione di questi leader, e l'idea che essi sono di drammatizzazione, vengono proiettate per il pubblico più ampio attraverso i canali pubblicitari. Nel frattempo, gli architetti influenti sono stati convinti a fare la sala per la musica è parte integrante dell'architettura dei loro piani, con forse una nicchia particolarmente affascinante in un angolo per il pianoforte. Meno influenti architetti sarà una questione di corso di imitare ciò che è fatto dagli uomini che considerano padroni della loro professione. A loro volta le protesi l'idea della sala da musica nella mente del pubblico in generale.
      La sala musica sarà accettata, perché è stata fatta la cosa. E l'uomo o la donna che ha una sala di musica, o ha organizzato un angolo del salotto, come un angolo musicale, naturalmente pensare di acquistare un pianoforte. Verrà a lui, come la propria idea.
      Sotto l'antica arte del vendere il produttore dice che il futuro acquirente, "Si prega di acquistare un pianoforte." The nuova arte del vendere ha invertito il processo e ha causato il futuro acquirente a dire il produttore, "Si prega di vendermi un pianoforte."
      Il valore dei processi associativi nella propaganda è mostrato in connessione con un grande sviluppo immobiliare. A sottolineare che Jackson Heights era socialmente desiderabile ogni tentativo è stato fatto per produrre questo processo associativo. Una performance beneficio dei giocatori prende moglie è stata allestita a favore delle vittime del terremoto del Giappone, sotto l'egida della signora Astor e altri. I vantaggi sociali del luogo sono stati proiettati a un campo da golf è stato disposto e una clubhouse previsto. Quando l'ufficio postale è stato aperto, il consulente di relazioni pubbliche tentato di utilizzare come punto di riferimento per gli interessi nazionali e ha scoperto che la sua apertura è sceso in coincidenza con una data importante nella storia della American Postal Service. Questo è stato poi fatto la base della sua apertura.
      Quando è stato un tentativo di mostrare al pubblico la bellezza degli appartamenti, viene indetto un concorso tra architetti d'interni per il miglior appartamento arredato a Jackson Heights. Un comitato di giudici ha deciso di importante. Questo concorso ha l'approvazione del ben noto le autorità, come pure l'interesse di milioni di persone, che sono stati resi consapevoli di essa attraverso giornali e riviste e la pubblicità di altri, con l'effetto di costruire definitivamente il prestigio dello sviluppo.
      Uno dei metodi più efficaci è l'utilizzo della formazione del gruppo della società moderna, al fine di diffondere le idee. Un esempio di questo è il concorso nazionale di scultura in sapone Ivory, aperto a bambini in età scolare in certe fasce di età così come scultori professionisti. Uno scultore di fama nazionale sapone Ivory trovato un eccellente mezzo per la scultura.
      La Procter & Gamble Company ha offerto una serie di premi per la scultura migliori sapone bianco. Il concorso si è svolto sotto l'egida del Centro Art di New York City, un'organizzazione di alto livello nel mondo dell'arte.
      Sovrintendenti scolastici e insegnanti in tutto il paese sono stati lieti di incoraggiare il movimento come un aiuto didattico per le scuole. Pratica tra i bambini della scuola come parte dei loro corsi di arte è stata stimolata. Concorsi si sono svolti tra le scuole, tra i distretti scolastici e tra le città.
      Sapone Ivory è adattabile per scolpire nelle case, perché le madri salvato i trucioli e gli sforzi imperfetta per scopi lavanderia. L'opera stessa è stata pulita.
      I pezzi migliori sono selezionati dalle competizioni locali per l'iscrizione al concorso nazionale. Questa si svolge ogni anno a una galleria d'arte a New York, il cui prestigio con quella dei giudici distinti, stabilisce il concorso come un evento grave arte.
      Nella prima di queste competizioni a livello nazionale circa 500 pezzi di scultura sono stati iscritti. Nella terza, 2500. E nel quarto, più di 4.000. Se i pezzi accuratamente selezionati erano così numerosi, è evidente che un gran numero sono stati scolpiti durante l'anno, e che un numero molto maggiore deve essere stata fatta per fini pratica. La buona volontà è stata notevolmente rafforzata dal fatto che questo sapone era diventata non solo la preoccupazione della casalinga, ma anche una questione di interesse personale e intima ai suoi figli.
      Un certo numero di familiari motivi psicologici sono stati messi in moto nello svolgimento di questa campagna. L'estetica, la competitività, il gregario (gran parte della scultura è stato fatto in gruppi scolastici), la snob (l'impulso a seguire l'esempio di un leader riconosciuto), l'esibizionista, e, ultimo ma non meno importante: la materna.
      Tutti questi motivi e le abitudini del gruppo sono stati messi in moto concordate dalla macchina semplice di leadership del gruppo e di autorità. Come se azionato dalla pressione di un pulsante, la gente ha iniziato a lavorare per il cliente per il bene della gratificazione ottenuta nella scultura lavoro stesso.
      Questo punto è più importante nel lavoro di propaganda di successo. I dirigenti che prestano la loro autorità a una campagna di propaganda lo farà solo se può essere fatto di toccare i propri interessi. Ci deve essere un aspetto disinteressato delle attività di propagandista. In altre parole, è una delle funzioni del consulente di relazioni pubbliche per scoprire a che punto gli interessi del suo cliente coincidono con quelle di altri individui o gruppi.
      Nel caso del concorso di sculture di sapone, illustri artisti e gli educatori che hanno sponsorizzato l'idea sono stati lieti di prestare i loro servizi ei loro nomi, perché le gare davvero promosso un interesse che avevano a cuore la coltivazione di tale impulso estetico tra le giovani generazioni . °
      Tale coincidenza e sovrapposizione di interessi è infinita come l'intreccio delle formazioni del gruppo in quanto tali. Ad esempio, una linea ferroviaria intende sviluppare il proprio business. Il consiglio per le relazioni pubbliche fa un sondaggio per scoprire in quali punti i suoi interessi coincidono con quelli dei suoi potenziali clienti. L'azienda stabilisce poi le relazioni con le camere di commercio lungo il suo diritto di passaggio e li assiste nello sviluppo delle loro comunità. Li aiuta a garantire nuovi impianti e le industrie per la città. Esso facilita business attraverso la diffusione di informazioni tecniche. E non è solo un caso di elargire favori, nella speranza di ricevere favori, queste attività della ferrovia, oltre a creare buona volontà, effettivamente promuovere la crescita sul suo diritto di passaggio. Gli interessi della ferrovia e delle comunità attraverso il quale passa reciprocamente interagiscono l'un l'altro e dei mangimi.
      Allo stesso modo, una istituti bancari un servizio di investimento a favore dei propri clienti in modo che quest'ultima possa avere più soldi a depositare presso la banca. O una preoccupazione gioielli sviluppa un servizio di assicurazione per assicurare i gioielli vende, al fine di rendere l'acquirente sentire una maggiore sicurezza per l'acquisto gioielli. O una società di cottura istituisce un servizio di informazioni secondo le ricette per il pane per incoraggiare nuovi usi per il pane in casa. Le idee della propaganda nuovi basa sulla psicologia solida, basata sui selfinterest illuminato.

      Ho cercato, in questi capitoli, a spiegare il luogo di propaganda nella vita moderna americana e qualcosa dei metodi con cui essa opera, a dire il perché, il cosa, il chi e il come del governo invisibile che detta i nostri pensieri, dirige i nostri sentimenti e controlli le nostre azioni. Nei capitoli che seguono cercherò di mostrare come funziona la propaganda di servizi specifici di attività di gruppo, di suggerire alcuni modi ulteriormente in cui può operare.

CHAPTER V

BUSINESS AND THE PUBLIC

THE relationship between business and the public has become closer in the past few decades. Business to-day is taking the public into partnership. A number of causes, some economic, others due to the growing public understanding of business and the public interest in business, have produced this situation. 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.

Twenty or twenty-five years ago, business sought to run its own affairs regardless of the public. The reaction was the muck-raking period, in which a multitude of sins were, justly and unjustly, laid to the charge of the interests. In the face of an aroused public conscience the large corporations were obliged to renounce their contention that their affairs were nobody's business. If to-day big business were to seek to throttle the public, a new reaction similar to that of twenty years ago would take place and the public would rise and try to throttle big business with restrictive laws. Business is conscious of the public's conscience. This consciousness has led to a healthy cooperation.

Another cause for the increasing relationship is undoubtedly to be found in the various phenomena growing out of mass production. Mass production is only profitable if its rhythm can be maintained— that is, if it can continue to sell its product in steady or increasing quantity. The result is that while, under the handicraft or small-unit system of production that was typical a century ago, demand created the supply, to-day supply must actively seek to create its corresponding demand. A single factory, potentially capable of supplying a whole continent with its particular product, cannot afford to wait until the public asks for its product; it must maintain constant touch, through advertising and propaganda, with the vast public in order to assure itself the continuous demand which alone will make its costly plant profitable. This entails a vastly more complex system of distribution than formerly. To make customers is the new problem. One must understand not only his own business—the manufacture of a particular product—but also the structure, the personality, the prejudices, of a potentially universal public.

Still another reason is to be found in the improvements in the technique of advertising—as regards both the size of the public which can be reached by the printed word, and the methods of appeal. The growth of newspapers and magazines having a circulation of millions of copies, and the art of the modern advertising expert in making the printed message attractive and persuasive, have placed the business man in a personal relation with a vast and diversified public.

Another modern phenomenon, which' influences the general policy of big business, is the new competition between certain firms and the remainder of the industry, to which they belong. Another kind of competition is between whole industries, in their struggle for a share of the consumer's dollar. When, for example, a soap manufacturer claims that his product will preserve youth, he is obviously attempting to change the public's mode of thinking about soap in general—a thing of grave importance to the whole industry. Or when the metal furniture industry seeks to convince the public that it is more desirable to spend its money for metal furniture than for wood furniture, it is clearly seeking to alter the taste and standards of a whole generation. In either case, business is seeking to inject itself into the lives and customs of millions of persons.

Even in a basic sense, business is becoming dependent on public opinion. With the increasing volume and wider diffusion of wealth in America, thousands of persons now invest in industrial stocks. New stock or bond flotations, upon which an expanding business must depend for its success, can be effected only if the concern has understood how to gain the confidence and good will of the general public. Business must express itself and its entire corporate existence so that the public will understand and accept it. It must dramatize its personality and interpret its objectives in every particular in which it comes into contact with the community (or the nation) of which it is a part.

An oil corporation which truly understands its many-sided relation to the public, will offer that public not only good oil but a sound labor policy. A bank will seek to show not only that its management is sound and conservative, but also that its officers are honorable both in their public and in their private life. A store specializing in fashionable men's clothing will express in its architecture the authenticity of the goods it offers. A bakery will seek to impress the public with the hygienic care observed in its manufacturing process, not only by wrapping its loaves in dust-proof paper and throwing its factory open to public inspection, but also by the cleanliness and attractiveness of its delivery wagons. A construction firm will take care that the public knows not only that its buildings are durable and safe, but also that its employees, when injured at work, are compensated. At whatever point a business enterprise impinges on the public consciousness, it must seek to give its public relations the particular character which will conform to the objectives which it is pursuing.

Just as the production manager must be familiar with every element and detail concerning the materials with which he is working, so the man in charge of a firm's public relations must be familiar with the structure, the prejudices, and the whims of the general public, and must handle his problems with the utmost care. The public has its own standards and demands and habits. You may modify them, but you dare not run counter to them. You cannot persuade a whole generation of women to wear long skirts, but you may, by working through leaders of fashion, persuade them to wear evening dresses which are long in back. The public is not an amorphous mass which can be molded at will, or dictated to. Both business and the public have their own personalities which must somehow be brought into friendly agreement. Conflict and suspicion are injurious to both. Modern business must study on what terms the partnership can be made amicable and mutually beneficial. It must explain itself, its aims, its objectives, to the public in terms which the public can understand and is willing to accept.

Business does not willingly accept dictation from the public. It should not expect that it can dictate to the public. While the public should appreciate the great economic benefits which business offers, thanks to mass production and scientific marketing, business should also appreciate that the public is becoming increasingly discriminative in its standards and should seek to understand its demands and meet them. The relationship between business and the public can be healthy only if it is the relationship of give and take.

It is this condition and necessity which has created the need for a specialized field of public relations. Business now calls in the public relations counsel to advise it, to interpret its purpose to the public, and to suggest those modifications which may make it conform to the public demand.

The modifications then recommended to make the business conform to its objectives and to the public demand, may concern the broadest matters of policy or the apparently most trivial details of execution. It might in one case be necessary to transform entirely the lines of goods sold to conform to changing public demands. In another case the trouble may be found to lie in such small matters as the dress of the clerks. A jewelry store may complain that its patronage is shrinking upwards because of its reputation for carrying high-priced goods; in this case the public relations counsel might suggest the featuring of medium-priced goods, even at a loss, not because the firm desires a large medium-price trade as such, but because out of a hundred medium-price customers acquired to-day a certain percentage will be well-todo ten years from now. A department store which is seeking to gather in the high-class trade may be urged to employ college graduates as clerks or to engage well known modern artists to design show-windows or special exhibits. A bank may be urged to open a Fifth Avenue branch, not because the actual business done on Fifth Avenue warrants the expense, but because a beautiful Fifth Avenue office correctly expresses the kind of appeal which it wishes to make to future depositors; and, viewed in this way, it may be as important that the doorman be polite, or that the floors be kept clean, as that the branch manager be an able financier. Yet the beneficial effect of this branch may be canceled, if the wife of the president is involved in a scandal.

Big business studies every move which may express its true personality. It seeks to tell the public, in all appropriate ways,—by the direct advertising message and by the subtlest esthetic suggestion—the quality of the goods or services which it has to offer. A store which seeks a large sales volume in cheap goods will preach prices day in and day out, concentrating its whole appeal on the ways in which it can save money for its clients. But a store seeking a high margin of profit on individual sales would try to associate itself with the distinguished and the elegant, whether by an exhibition of old masters or through the social activities of the owner's wife.

The public relations activities of a business cannot be a protective coloring to hide its real aims. It is bad business as well as bad morals to feature exclusively a few high-class articles, when the main stock is of medium grade or cheap, for the general impression given is a false one. A sound public relations policy will not attempt to stampede the public with exaggerated claims and false pretenses, but to interpret the individual business vividly and truly through every avenue that leads to public opinion. The New York Central Railroad has for decades sought to appeal to the public not only on the basis of the speed and safety of its trains, but also on the basis of their elegance and comfort. It is appropriate that the corporation should have been personified to the general public in the person of so suave and ingratiating a gentleman as Chauncey M. Depew—an ideal window dressing for such an enterprise.

While the concrete recommendations of the public relations counsel may vary infinitely according to individual circumstances, his general plan of work may be reduced to two types, which I might term continuous interpretation and dramatization by highspotting. The two may be alternative or may be pursued concurrently.

Continuous interpretation is achieved by trying to control every approach to the public mind in such a manner that the public receives the desired impression, often without being conscious of it. High-spotting, on the other hand, vividly seizes the attention of the public and fixes it upon some detail or aspect which is typical of the entire enterprise. When a real estate corporation which is erecting a tall office building makes it ten feet taller than the highest sky-scraper in existence, that is dramatization.

Which method is indicated, or whether both be indicated concurrently, can be determined only after a full study of objectives and specific possibilities.

Another interesting case of focusing public attention on the virtues of a product was shown in the case of gelatine. Its advantages in increasing the digestibility and nutritional value of milk were proven in the Mellon Institute of Industrial Research. The suggestion was made and carried out that to further this knowledge, gelatine be used by certain hospitals and school systems, to be tested out there. The favorable results of such tests were then projected to other leaders in the field with the result that they followed that group leadership and utilized gelatine for the scientific purposes which had been proven to be sound at the research institution. The idea carried momentum.

The tendency of big business is to get bigger. Through mergers and monopolies it is constantly increasing the number of persons with whom it is in direct contact. All this has intensified and multiplied the public relationships of business.

The responsibilities are of many kinds. There is a responsibility to the stockholders—numbering perhaps five persons or five hundred thousand—who have entrusted their money to the concern and have the right to know how the money is being used. A concern which is fully aware of its responsibility toward its stockholders, will furnish them with frequent letters urging them to use the product in which their money is invested, and use their influence to promote its sale. It has a responsibility toward the dealer which it may express by inviting him, at its expense, to visit the home factory. It has a responsibility toward the industry as a whole which should restrain it from making exaggerated and unfair selling claims. It has a responsibility toward the retailer, and will see to it that its salesmen express the quality of the product which they have to sell. There is a responsibility toward the consumer, who is impressed by a clean and well managed factory, open to his inspection. And the general public, apart from its function as potential consumer, is influenced in its attitude toward the concern by what it knows of that concern's financial dealings, its labor policy, even by the livableness of the houses in which its employees dwell. There is no detail too trivial to influence the public in a favorable or unfavorable sense. The personality of the president may be a matter of importance, for he perhaps dramatizes the whole concern to the public mind. It may be very important to what charities he contributes, in what civic societies he holds office. If he is a leader in his industry, the public may demand that he be a leader in his community. The business man has become a responsible member of the social group. It is not a question of ballyhoo, of creating a picturesque fiction for public consumption. It is merely a question of finding the appropriate modes of expressing the personality that is to be dramatized. Some business men can be their own best public relations counsel. But in the majority of cases knowledge of the public mind and of the ways in which it will react to an appeal, is a specialized function which must be undertaken by the professional expert.

Big business, I believe, is realizing this more and more. It is increasingly availing itself of the services of the specialist in public relations (whatever may be the title accorded him). And it is my conviction that as big business becomes bigger the need for expert manipulation of its innumerable contacts with the public will become greater.

One reason why the public relations of a business are frequently placed in the hands of an outside expert, instead of being confided to an officer of the company, is the fact that the correct approach to a problem may be indirect. For example, when the luggage industry attempted to solve some of its problems by a public relations policy, it was realized that the attitude of railroads, of steamship companies, and of foreign government-owned railroads was an important factor in the handling of luggage.

If a railroad and a baggage man, for their own interest, can be educated to handle baggage with more facility and promptness, with less damage to the baggage, and less inconvenience to the passenger; if the steamship company lets down, in its own interests, its restrictions on luggage; if the foreign government eases up on its baggage costs and transportation in order to further tourist travel; then the luggage manufacturers will profit.

The problem then, to increase the sale of their luggage, was to have these and other forces come over to their point of view. Hence the public relations campaign was directed not to the public, who were the ultimate consumers, but to these other elements.

Also, if the luggage manufacturer can educate the general public on what to wear on trips and when to wear it, he may be increasing the sale of men's and women's clothing, but he will, at the same time, be increasing the sale of his luggage.

Propaganda, since it goes to basic causes, can very often be most effective through the manner of its introduction. A campaign against unhealthy cosmetics might be waged by fighting for a return to the wash-cloth and soap—a fight that very logically might be taken up by health officials all over the country, who would urge the return to the salutary and helpful wash-cloth and soap, instead of cosmetics.

The development of public opinion for a cause or line of socially constructive action may very often be the result of a desire on the part of the propagandist to meet successfully his own problem which the socially constructive cause would further. And by doing so he is actually fulfilling a social purpose in the broadest sense.

The soundness of a public relations policy was likewise shown in the case of a shoe manufacturer who made service shoes for patrolmen, firemen, letter carriers, and men in similar occupations. He realized that if he could make acceptable the idea that men in such work ought to be well-shod, he would sell more shoes and at the same time further the efficiency of the men.

He organized, as part of his business, a foot protection bureau. This bureau disseminated scientifically accurate information on the proper care of the feet, principles which the manufacturer had incorporated in the construction of the shoes. The result was that civic bodies, police chiefs, fire chiefs, and others interested in the welfare and comfort of their men, furthered the ideas his product stood for and the product itself, with the consequent effect that more of his shoes were sold more easily.

The application of this principle of a common denominator of interest between the object that is sold and the public good will can be carried to infinite degrees.

"It matters not how much capital you may have, how fair the rates may be, how favorable the conditions of service, if you haven't behind you a sympathetic public opinion, you are bound to fail." This is the opinion of Samuel Insull, one the foremost traction magnates of the country. And the late Judge Gary, of the United States Steel Corporation, expressed the same idea when he said: "Once you have the good will of the general public, you can go ahead in the work of constructive expansion. Too often many try to discount this vague and intangible element. That way lies destruction."

Public opinion is no longer inclined to be unfavorable to the large business merger. It resents the censorship of business by the Federal Trade Commission. It has broken down the anti-trust laws where it thinks they hinder economic development. It backs great trusts and mergers which it excoriated a decade ago. The government now permits large aggregations of producing and distributing units, as evidenced by mergers among railroads and other public utilities, because representative government reflects public opinion. Public opinion itself fosters the growth of mammoth industrial enterprises. In the opinion of millions of small investors, mergers and trusts are friendly giants and not ogres, because of the economies, mainly due to quantity production, which they have effected, and can pass on to the consumer.

This result has been, to a great extent, obtained by a deliberate use of propaganda in its broadest sense. It was obtained not only by modifying the opinion of the public, as the governments modified and marshaled the opinion of their publics during the war, but often by modifying the business concern itself. A cement company may work with road commissions gratuitously to maintain testing laboratories in order to insure the best-quality roads to the public. A gas company maintains a free school of cookery.

But it would be rash and unreasonable to take it for granted that because public opinion has come over to the side of big business, it will always remain there. Only recently, Prof. W. Z. Ripley of Harvard University, one of the foremost national authorities on business organization and practice, exposed certain aspects of big business which tended to undermine public confidence in large corporations. He pointed out that the stockholders' supposed voting power is often illusory; that annual financial statements are sometimes so brief and summary that to the man in the street they are downright misleading; that the extension of the system of non-voting shares often places the effective control of corporations and their finances in the hands of a small clique of stockholders; and that some corporations refuse to give out sufficient information to permit the public to know the true condition of the concern.

Furthermore, no matter how favorably disposed the public may be toward big business in general, the utilities are always fair game for public discontent and need to maintain good will with the greatest care and watchfulness. These and other corporations of a semi-public character will always have to face a demand for government or municipal ownership if such attacks as those of Professor Ripley are continued and are, in the public's opinion, justified, unless conditions are changed and care is taken to maintain the contact with the public at all points of their corporate existence.

The public relations counsel should anticipate such trends of public opinion and advise on how to avert them, either by convincing the public that its fears or prejudices are unjustified, or in certain cases by modifying the action of the client to the extent necessary to remove the cause of complaint. In such a case public opinion might be surveyed and the points of irreducible opposition discovered. The aspects of the situation which are susceptible of logical explanation; to what extent the criticism or prejudice is a habitual emotional reaction and what factors are dominated by accepted cliches, might be disclosed. In each instance he would advise some action or modification of policy calculated to make the readjustment.

While government ownership is in most instances only varyingly a remote possibility, public ownership of big business through the increasing popular investment in stocks and bonds, is becoming more and more a fact. The importance of public relations from this standpoint is to be judged by the fact that practically all prosperous corporations expect at some time to enlarge operations, and will need to float new stock or bond issues. The success of such issues depends upon the general record of the concern in the business world, and also upon the good will which it has been able to create in the general public. When the Victor Talking Machine Company was recently offered to the public, millions of dollars' worth of stock were sold overnight. On the other hand, there are certain companies which, although they are financially sound and commercially prosperous, would be unable to float a large stock issue, because public opinion is not conscious of them, or has some unanalyzed prejudice against them.

To such an extent is the successful floating of stocks and bonds dependent upon the public favor that the success of a new merger may stand or fall upon the public acceptance which is created for it. A merger may bring into existence huge new resources, and these resources, perhaps amounting to millions of dollars in a single operation, can often fairly be said to have been created by the expert manipulation of public opinion. It must be repeated that I am not speaking of artificial value given to a stock by dishonest propaganda or stock manipulation, but of the real economic values which are created when genuine public acceptance is gained for an industrial enterprise and becomes a real partner in it.

The growth of big business is so rapid that in some lines ownership is more international than national. It is necessary to reach ever larger groups of people if modern industry and commerce are to be financed. Americans have purchased billions of dollars of foreign industrial securities since the war, and Europeans own, it is estimated, between one and two billion dollars' worth of ours. In each case public acceptance must be obtained for the issue and the enterprise behind it.

Public loans, state or municipal, to foreign countries depend upon the good will which those countries have been able to create for themselves here. An attempted issue by an east European country is now faring badly largely because of unfavorable public reaction to the behavior of members of its ruling family. But other countries have no difficulty in placing any issue because the public is already convinced of the prosperity of these nations and the stability of their governments.

The new technique of public relations counsel is serving a very useful purpose in business by acting as a complement to legitimate advertisers and advertising in helping to break down unfair competitive exaggerated and overemphatic advertising by reaching the public with the truth through other channels than advertising. Where two competitors in a field are fighting each other with this type of advertising, they are undermining that particular industry to a point where the public may lose confidence in the whole industry. The only way to combat such unethical methods, is for ethical members of the industry to use the weapon of propaganda in order to bring out the basic truths of the situation.

Take the case of tooth paste, for instance. Here is a highly competitive field in which the preponderance of public acceptance of one product over another can very legitimately rest in inherent values. However, what has happened in this field?

One or two of the large manufacturers have asserted advantages for their tooth pastes which no single tooth paste discovered up to the present time can possibly have. The competing manufacturer is put in the position either of overemphasizing an already exaggerated emphasis or of letting the overemphasis of his competitor take away his markets. He turns to the weapon of propaganda which can effectively, through various channels of approach to the public—the dental clinics, the schools, the women's clubs, the medical colleges, the dental press and even the daily press—bring to the public the truth of what a tooth paste can do. This will, of course, have its effect in making the honestly advertised tooth paste get to its real public.

Propaganda is potent in meeting unethical or unfair advertising. Effective advertising has become more costly than ever before. Years ago, when the country was smaller and there was no tremendous advertising machinery, it was comparatively easy to get country-wide recognition for a product. A corps of traveling salesmen might persuade the retailers, with a few cigars and a repertory of funny stories, to display and recommend their article on a nationwide scale. To-day, a small industry is swamped unless it can find appropriate and relatively inexpensive means of making known the special virtues of its product, while larger industries have sought to overcome the difficulty by cooperative advertising, in which associations of industries compete with other associations.

Mass advertising has produced new kinds of competition. Competition between rival products in the same line is, of course, as old as economic life itself. In recent years much has been said of the new competition, we have discussed it in a previous chapter, between one group of products and another. Stone competes against wood for building; linoleum against carpets; oranges against apples; tin against asbestos for roofing.

This type of competition has been humorously illustrated by Mr. O. H. Cheney, Vice-President of the American Exchange and Irving Trust Company of New York, in a speech before the Chicago Business Secretaries Forum.

"Do you represent the millinery trades?" said Mr. Cheney. "The man at your side may serve the fur industry, and by promoting the style of big fur collars on women's coats he is ruining the hat business by forcing women to wear small and inexpensive hats. You may be interested in the ankles of the fair sex—I mean, you may represent the silk hosiery industry. You have two brave rivals who are ready to fight to the death—to spend millions in the fight —for the glory of those ankles—the leather industry, which has suffered from the low-shoe vogue, and the fabrics manufacturers, who yearn for the good old days when skirts were skirts.

"If you represent the plumbing and heating business, you are the mortal enemy of the textile industry, because warmer homes mean lighter clothes. If you represent the printers, how can you shake hands with the radio equipment man? . . .

"These are really only obvious forms of what I have called the new competition. The old competition was that between the members of each trade organization. One phase of the new competition is that between the trade associations themselves—between you gentlemen who represent those industries. Inter-commodity competition is the new competition between products used alternatively for the same purpose. Inter-industrial competition is the new competition between apparently unrelated industries which affect each other or between such industries as compete for the consumer's dollar—and that means practically all industries. . . .

"Inter-commodity competition is, of course, the most spectacular of all. It is the one which seems most of all to have caught the business imagination of the country. More and more business men are beginning to appreciate what inter-commodity competition means to them. More and more they are calling upon their trade associations to help them— because inter-commodity competition cannot be fought single-handed.

"Take the great war on the dining-room table, for instance. Three times a day practically every diningroom table in the country is the scene of a fierce battle in the new competition. Shall we have prunes for breakfast? No, cry the embattled orange-growers and the massed legions of pineapple canners. Shall we eat sauerkraut? Why not eat green olives? is the answer of the Spaniards. Eat macaroni as a change from potatoes, says one advertiser—and will the potato growers take this challenge lying down?

"The doctors and dietitians tell us that a normal hard-working man needs only about two or three thousand calories of food a day. A banker, I suppose, needs a little less. But what am I to do? The fruit growers, the wheat raisers, the meat packers, the milk producers, the fishermen—all want me to eat more of their products—and are spending millions of dollars a year to convince me. Am I to eat to the point of exhaustion, or am I to obey the doctor and let the farmer and the food packer and the retailer go broke! Am I to balance my diet in proportion to the advertising appropriations of the various producers? Or am I to balance my diet scientifically and let those who overproduce go bankrupt? The new competition is probably keenest in the food industries because there we have a very real limitation on what we can consume—in spite of higher incomes and higher living standards, we cannot eat more than we can eat."

I believe that competition in the future will not be only an advertising competition between individual products or between big associations, but that it will in addition be a competition of propaganda. The business man and advertising man is realizing that he must not discard entirely the methods of Barnum in reaching the public. An example in the annals of George Harrison Phelps, of the successful utilization of this type of appeal was the nation-wide hook-up which announced the launching of the Dodge Victory Six car.

Millions of people, it is estimated, listened in to this program broadcast over 47 stations. The expense was more than $60,000. The arrangements involved an additional telephonic hook-up of 20,000 miles of wire, and included transmission from Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, New Orleans, and New York. Al Jolson did his bit from New Orleans, Will Rogers from Beverly Hills, Fred and Dorothy Stone from Chicago, and Paul Whiteman from New York, at an aggregate artists' fee of $25,000. And there was included a four-minute address by the president of Dodge Brothers announcing the new car, which gave him access in four minutes to an estimated audience of thirty million Americans, the largest number, unquestionably, ever to concentrate their attention on a given commercial product at a given moment. It was a sugar-coated sales message.

Modern sales technicians will object: "What you say of this method of appeal is true. But it increases the cost of getting the manufacturer's message across. The modern tendency has been to reduce this cost (for example, the elimination of premiums) and concentrate on getting full efficiency from the advertising expenditure. If you hire a Galli-Curci to sing for bacon you increase the cost of the bacon by the amount of her very large fee. Her voice adds nothing to the product but it adds to its cost."

Undoubtedly. But all modes of sales appeal require the spending of money to make the appeal attractive. The advertiser in print adds to the cost of his message by the use of pictures or by the cost of getting distinguished endorsements.

There is another kind of difficulty, created in the process of big business getting bigger, which calls for new modes of establishing contact with the public. Quantity production offers a standardized product the cost of which tends to diminish with the quantity sold. If low price is the only basis of competition with rival products, similarly produced, there ensues a cut-throat competition which can end only by taking all the profit and incentive out of the industry.

The logical way out of this dilemma is for the manufacturer to develop some sales appeal other than mere cheapness, to give the product, in the public mind, some other attraction, some idea that will modify the product slightly, some element of originality that will distinguish it from products in the same line. Thus, a manufacturer of typewriters paints his machines in cheerful hues. These special types of appeal can be popularized by the manipulation of the principles familiar to the propagandist— the principles of gregariousness, obedience to authority, emulation, and the like. A minor element can be made to assume economic importance by being established in the public mind as a matter of style. Mass production can be split up. Big business will still leave room for small business. Next to a huge department store there may be located a tiny specialty shop which makes a very good living.

The problem of bringing large hats back into fashion was undertaken by a propagandist. The millinery industry two years ago was menaced by the prevalence of the simple felt hat which was crowding out the manufacture of all other kinds of hats and hat ornaments. It was found that hats could roughly be classified in six types. It was found too that four groups might help to change hat fashions: the society leader, the style expert, the fashion editor and writer, the artist who might give artistic approval to the styles, and beautiful mannequins. The problem, then, was to bring these groups together before an audience of hat buyers.

A committee of prominent artists was organized to choose the most beautiful girls in New York to wear, in a series of tableaux, the most beautiful hats in the style classifications, at a fashion fete at a leading hotel.

A committee was formed of distinguished American women who, on the basis of their interest in the development of an American industry, were willing to add the authority of their names to the idea. A style committee was formed of editors of fashion magazines and other prominent fashion authorities who were willing to support the idea. The girls in their lovely hats and costumes paraded on the running-board before an audience of the entire trade.

The news of the event affected the buying habits not only of the onlookers, but also of the women throughout the country. The story of the event was flashed to the consumer by her newspaper as well as by the advertisements of her favorite store. Broadsides went to the millinery buyer from the manufacturer. One manufacturer stated that whereas before the show he had not sold any large trimmed hats, after it he had sold thousands.

Often the public relations counsel is called in to handle an emergency situation. A false rumor, for instance, may occasion an enormous loss in prestige and money if not handled promptly and effectively. An incident such as the one described in the New York American of Friday, May 21, 1926, shows what the lack of proper technical handling of public relations might result in.

$1,000,000 LOST BY FALSE RUMOR ON

HUDSON STOCK

Hudson Motor Company stock fluctuated widely around noon yesterday and losses estimated at $500,000 to $1,000,000 were suffered as a result of the widespread flotation of false news regarding dividend action.

The directors met in Detroit at 12:30, New York time, to act on a dividend. Almost immediately a false report that only the regular dividend had been declared was circulated.

At 12:46 the Dow, Jones & Co. ticker service received the report from the Stock Exchange firm and its publication resulted in further drop in the stock.

Shortly after 1 o'clock the ticker services received official news that the dividend had been increased and a 20 per cent stock distribution authorized. They rushed the correct news out on their tickers and Hudson stock immediately jumped more than 6 points.

A clipping from the Journal of Commerce of April 4, 1925, is reproduced here as an interesting example of a method to counteract a false rumor:

BEECH-NUT HEAD HOME TOWN GUEST

Bartlett Arkell Signally Honored by

Communities of Mohawk Valley

{Special to The Journal of Commerce)

CANAJOHARIE, N. Y., April 3.—To-day was 'Beech-Nut Day' in this town; in fact, for the whole Mohawk Valley. Business men and practically the whole community of this region joined in a personal testimonial to Bartlett Arkell of New York City, president of the Beech-Nut Packing Company of this city, in honor of his firm refusal to consider selling his company to other financial interests to move elsewhere.

When Mr. Arkell publicly denied recent rumors that he was to sell his company to the Postum Cereal Company for $17,000,000, which would have resulted in taking the industry from its birthplace, he did so in terms conspicuously loyal to his boyhood home, which he has built up into a prosperous industrial community through thirty years' management of his Beech-Nut Company.

He absolutely controls the business and flatly, stated that he would never sell it during his lifetime 'to any one at any price,' since it would be disloyal to his friends and fellow workers. And the whole Mohawk Valley spontaneously decided that such spirit deserved public recognition. Hence, to-day's festivities.

More than 3,000 people participated, headed by a committee comprising W. J. Roser, chairman; B. F. Spraker, H. V. Bush, B. F. Diefendorf and J. H. Cook. They were backed by the Canajoharie and the Mohawk Valley Chambers of Business Men's Associations.

Of course, every one realized after this that there was no truth in the rumor that the Beech-Nut Company was in the market. A denial would not have carried as much conviction.

Amusement, too, is a business—one of the largest in America. It was the amusement business—first the circus and the medicine show, then the theater— which taught the rudiments of advertising to industry and commerce. The latter adopted the ballyhoo of the show business. But under the stress of practical experience it adapted and refined these crude advertising methods to the precise ends it sought to obtain. The theater has, in its turn, learned from business, and has refined its publicity methods to the point where the old stentorian methods are in the discard.

The modern publicity director of a theater syndicate or a motion picture trust is a business man, responsible for the security of tens or hundreds of millions of dollars of invested capital. He cannot afford to be a stunt artist or a free-lance adventurer in publicity. He must know his public accurately and modify its thoughts and actions by means of the methods which the amusement world has learned from its old pupil, big business. As public knowledge increases and public taste improves, business must be ready to meet them halfway.

Modern business must have its finger continuously on the public pulse. It must understand the changes in the public mind and be prepared to interpret itself fairly and eloquently to changing opinion.

CHAPTER VI

PROPAGANDA AND POLITICAL LEADERSHIP

THE great political problem in our modern democracy is how to induce our leaders to lead. The dogma that the voice of the people is the voice of God tends to make elected persons the will-less servants of their constituents. This is undoubtedly part cause of the political sterility of which certain American critics constantly complain.

No serious sociologist any longer believes that the voice of the people expresses any divine or specially wise and lofty idea. The voice of the people expresses the mind of the people, and that mind is made up for it by the group leaders in whom it believes and by those persons who understand the manipulation of public opinion. It is composed of inherited prejudices and symbols and cliches and verbal formulas supplied to them by the leaders.

Fortunately, the sincere and gifted politician is able, by the instrument of propaganda, to mold and form the will of the people.

Disraeli cynically expressed the dilemma, when he said: "I must follow the people. Am I not their leader?" He might have added: "I must lead the people. Am I not their servant?"

Unfortunately, the methods of our contemporary politicians, in dealing with the public, are as archaic and ineffective as the advertising methods of business in 1900 would be to-day. While politics was the first important department of American life to use propaganda on a large scale, it has been the slowest in modifying its propaganda methods to meet the changed conditions of the public mind. American business first learned from politics the methods of appealing to the broad public. But it continually improved those methods in the course of its competitive struggle, while politics clung to the old formulas.

The political apathy of the average voter, of which we hear so much, is undoubtedly due to the fact that the politician does not know how to meet the conditions of the public mind. He cannot dramatize himself and his platform in terms which have real meaning to the public. Acting on the fallacy that the leader must slavishly follow, he deprives his campaign of all dramatic interest. An automaton cannot arouse the public interest. A leader, a fighter, a dictator, can. But, given our present political conditions under which every office seeker must cater to the vote of the masses, the only means by which the born leader can lead is the expert use of propaganda.

Whether in the problem of getting elected to office or in the problem of interpreting and popularizing new issues, or in the problem of making the day-to-day administration of public affairs a vital part of the community life, the use of propaganda, carefully adjusted to the mentality of the masses, is an essential adjunct of political life.

The successful business man to-day apes the politician. He has adopted the glitter and the ballyhoo of the campaign. He has set up all the side shows. He has annual dinners that are a compendium of speeches, flags, bombast, stateliness, pseudo-democracy slightly tinged with paternalism. On occasion he doles out honors to employees, much as the republic of classic times rewarded its worthy citizens.

But these are merely the side shows, the drums, of big business, by which it builds up an image of public service, and of honorary service. This is but one of the methods by which business stimulates loyal enthusiasms on the part of directors, the workers, the stockholders and the consumer public. It is one of the methods by which big business performs its function of making and selling products to the public. The real work and campaign of business consists of intensive study of the public, the manufacture of products based on this study, and exhaustive use of every means of reaching the public.

Political campaigns to-day are all side shows, all honors, all bombast, glitter, and speeches. These are for the most part unrelated to the main business of studying the public scientifically, of supplying the public with party, candidate, platform, and performance, and selling the public these ideas and products.

Politics was the first big business in America. Therefore there is a good deal of irony in the fact that business has learned everything that politics has had to teach, but that politics has failed to learn very much from business methods of mass distribution of ideas and products.

Emily Newell Blair has recounted in the Independent a typical instance of the waste of effort and money in a political campaign, a week's speaking tour in which she herself took part. She estimates that on a five-day trip covering nearly a thousand miles she and the United States Senator with whom she was making political speeches addressed no more than 1,105 persons whose votes might conceivably have been changed as a result of their efforts. The cost of this appeal to these voters she estimates (calculating the value of the time spent on a very moderate basis) as $15.27 for each vote which might have been changed as a result of the campaign.

This, she says, was a "drive for votes, just as an Ivory Soap advertising campaign is a drive for sales." But, she asks, "what would a company executive say to a sales manager who sent a high-priced speaker to describe his product to less than 1,200 people at a cost of $15.27 for each possible buyer?" She finds it "amazing that the very men who make their millions out of cleverly devised drives for soap and bonds and cars will turn around and give large contributions to be expended for vote-getting in an utterly inefficient and antiquated fashion."

It is, indeed, incomprehensible that politicians do not make use of the elaborate business methods that industry has built up. Because a politician knows political strategy, can develop campaign issues, can devise strong planks for platforms and envisage broad policies, it does not follow that he can be given the responsibility of selling ideas to a public as large as that of the United States.

The politician understands the public. He knows what the public wants and what the public will accept. But the politician is not necessarily a general sales manager, a public relations counsel, or a man who knows how to secure mass distribution of ideas.

Obviously, an occasional political leader may be capable of combining every feature of leadership, just as in business there are certain brilliant industrial leaders who are financiers, factory directors, engineers, sales managers and public relations counsel all rolled into one.

Big business is conducted on the principle that it must prepare its policies carefully, and that in selling an idea to the large buying public of America, it must proceed according to broad plans. The political strategist must do likewise. The entire campaign should be worked out according to broad basic plans. Platforms, planks, pledges, budgets, activities, personalities, must be as carefully studied, apportioned and used as they are when big business desires to get what it wants from the public.

The first step in a political campaign is to determine on the objectives, and to express them exceedingly well in the current form—that is, as a platform. In devising the platform the leader should be sure that it is an honest platform. Campaign pledges and promises should not be lightly considered by the public, and they ought to carry something of the guarantee principle and money-back policy that an honorable business institution carries with the sale of its goods. The public has lost faith in campaign promotion work. It does not say that politicians are dishonorable, but it does say that campaign pledges are written on the sand. Here then is one fact of public opinion of which the party that wishes to be successful might well take cognizance.

To aid in the preparation of the platform there should be made as nearly scientific an analysis as possible of the public and of the needs of the public. A survey of public desires and demands would come to the aid of the political strategist whose business it is to make a proposed plan of the activities of the parties and its elected officials during the coming terms of office.

A big business that wants to sell a product to the public surveys and analyzes its market before it takes a single step either to make or to sell the product. If one section of the community is absolutely sold to the idea of this product, no money is wasted in reselling it to it. If, on the other hand, another section of the public is irrevocably committed to another product, no money is wasted on a lost cause. Very often the analysis is the cause of basic changes and improvements in the product itself, as well as an index of how it is to be presented. So carefully is this analysis of markets and sales made that when a company makes out its sales budget for the year, it subdivides the circulations of the various magazines and newspapers it uses in advertising and calculates with a fair degree of accuracy how many times a section of that population is subjected to the appeal of the company. It knows approximately to what extent a national campaign duplicates and repeats the emphasis of a local campaign of selling.

As in the business field, the expenses of the political campaign should be budgeted. A large business to-day knows exactly how much money it is going to spend on propaganda during the next year or years. It knows that a certain percentage of its gross receipts will be given over to advertising—newspaper, magazine, outdoor and poster; a certain percentage to circularization and sales promotion—such as house organs and dealer aids; and a certain percentage must go to the supervising salesmen who travel around the country to infuse extra stimulus in the local sales campaign.

A political campaign should be similarly budgeted. The first question which should be decided is the amount of money that should be raised for the campaign. This decision can be reached by a careful analysis of campaign costs. There is enough precedent in business procedure to enable experts to work this out accurately. Then the second question of importance is the manner in which money should be raised.

It is obvious that politics would gain much in prestige if the money-raising campaign were conducted candidly and publicly, like the campaigns for the war funds. Charity drives might be made excellent models for political funds drives. The elimination of the little black bag element in politics would raise the entire prestige of politics in America, and the public interest would be infinitely greater if the actual participation occurred earlier and more constructively in the campaign.

Again, as in the business field, there should be a clear decision as to how the money is to be spent. This should be done according to the most careful and exact budgeting, wherein every step in the campaign is given its proportionate importance, and the funds allotted accordingly. Advertising in newspapers and periodicals, posters and street banners, the exploitation of personalities in motion pictures, in speeches and lectures and meetings, spectacular events and all forms of propaganda should be considered proportionately according to the budget, and should always be coordinated with the whole plan. Certain expenditures may be warranted if they represent a small proportion of the budget and may be totally unwarranted if they make up a large proportion of the budget.

In the same way the emotions by which the public is appealed to may be made part of the broad plan of the campaign. Unrelated emotions become maudlin and sentimental too easily, are often costly, and too often waste effort because the idea is not part of the conscious and coherent whole.

Big business has realized that it must use as many of the basic emotions as possible. The politician, however, has used the emotions aroused by words almost exclusively.

To appeal to the emotions of the public in a political campaign is sound—in fact it is an indispensable part of the campaign. But the emotional content must— (a) coincide in every way with the broad basic plans of the campaign and all its minor details;

(b) be adapted to the many groups of the public at which it is to be aimed; and

(c) conform to the media of the distribution of ideas.

The emotions of oratory have been worn down through long years of overuse. Parades, mass meetings, and the like are successful when the public has a frenzied emotional interest in the event. The candidate who takes babies on his lap, and has his photograph taken, is doing a wise thing emotionally, if this act epitomizes a definite plank in his platform. Kissing babies, if it is worth anything, must be used as a symbol for a baby policy and it must be synchronized with a plank in the platform. But the haphazard staging of emotional events without regard to their value as part of the whole campaign, is a waste of effort, just as it would be a waste of effort for the manufacturer of hockey skates to advertise a picture of a church surrounded by spring foliage. It is true that the church appeals to our religious impulses and that everybody loves the spring, but these impulses do not help to sell the idea that hockey skates are amusing, helpful, or increase the general enjoyment of life for the buyer.

Present-day politics places emphasis on personality. An entire party, a platform, an international policy is sold to the public, or is not sold, on the basis of the intangible element of personality. A charming candidate is the alchemist's secret that can transmute a prosaic platform into the gold of votes. Helpful as is a candidate who for some reason has caught the imagination of the country, the party and its aims are certainly more important than the personality of the candidate. Not personality, but the ability of the candidate to carry out the party's program adequately, and the program itself should be emphasized in a sound campaign plan. Even Henry Ford, the most picturesque personality in business in America to-day, has become known through his product, and not his product through him.

It is essential for the campaign manager to educate the emotions in terms of groups. The public is not made up merely of Democrats and Republicans. People to-day are largely uninterested in politics and their interest in the issues of the campaign must be secured by coordinating it with their personal interests. The public is made up of interlocking groups —economic, social, religious, educational, cultural, racial, collegiate, local, sports, and hundreds of others.

When President Coolidge invited actors for breakfast, he did so because he realized not only that actors were a group, but that audiences, the large group of people who like amusements, who like people who amuse them, and who like people who can be amused, ought to be aligned with him.

The Shepard-Towner Maternity Bill was passed because the people who fought to secure its passage realized that mothers made up a group, that educators made up a group, that physicians made up a group, that all these groups in turn influence other groups, and that taken all together these groups were sufficiently strong and numerous to impress Congress with the fact that the people at large wanted this bill to be made part of the national law.

The political campaign having defined its broad objects and its basic plans, having defined the group appeal which it must use, must carefully allocate to each of the media at hand the work which it can do with maximum efficiency.

The media through which a political campaign may be brought home to the public are numerous and fairly well defined. Events and activities must be created in order to put ideas into circulation, in these channels, which are as varied as the means of human communication. Every object which presents pictures or words that the public can see, everything that presents intelligible sounds, can be utilized in one way or another.

At present, the political campaigner uses for the greatest part the radio, the press, the banquet hall, the mass meeting, the lecture platform, and the stump generally as a means for furthering his ideas. But this is only a small part of what may be done. Actually there are infinitely more varied events that can be created to dramatize the campaign, and to make people talk of it. Exhibitions, contests, institutes of politics, the cooperation of educational institutions, the dramatic cooperation of groups which hitherto have not been drawn into active politics, and many others may be made the vehicle for the presentation of ideas to the public.

But whatever is done must be synchronized accurately with all other forms of appeal to the public. News reaches the public through the printed word— books, magazines, letters, posters, circulars and banners, newspapers; through pictures—photographs and motion pictures; through the ear—lectures, speeches, band music, radio, campaign songs. All these must be employed by the political party if it is to succeed. One method of appeal is merely one method of appeal and in this age wherein a thousand movements and ideas are competing for public attention, one dare not put all one's eggs into one basket.

It is understood that the methods of propaganda can be effective only with the voter who makes up his own mind on the basis of his group prejudices and desires. Where specific allegiances and loyalties exist, as in the case of boss leadership, these loyalties will operate to nullify the free will of the voter. In this close relation between the boss and his constituents lies, of course, the strength of his position in politics.

It is not necessary for the politician to be the slave of the public's group prejudices, if he can learn how to mold the mind of the voters in conformity with his own ideas of public welfare and public service. The important thing for the statesman of our age is not so much to know how to please the public, but to know how to sway the public. In theory, this education might be done by means of learned pamphlets explaining the intricacies of public questions. In actual fact, it can be done only by meeting the conditions of the public mind, by creating circumstances which set up trains of thought, by dramatizing personalities, by establishing contact with the group leaders who control the opinions of their publics.

But campaigning is only an incident in political life. The process of government is continuous. And the expert use of propaganda is more useful and fundamental, although less striking, as an aid to democratic administration, than as an aid to vote getting.

Good government can be sold to a community just as any other commodity can be sold. I often wonder whether the politicians of the future, who are responsible for maintaining the prestige and effectiveness of their party, will not endeavor to train politicians who are at the same time propagandists. I talked recently with George Olvany. He said that a certain number of Princeton men were joining Tammany Hall. If I were in his place I should have taken some of my brightest young men and set them to work for Broadway theatrical productions or apprenticed them as assistants to professional propagandists before recruiting them to the service of the party.

One reason, perhaps, why the politician to-day is slow to take up methods which are a commonplace in business life is that he has such ready entry to the media of communication on which his power depends.

The newspaper man looks to him for news. And by his power of giving or withholding information the politician can often effectively censor political news. But being dependent, every day of the year and for year after year, upon certain politicians for news, the newspaper reporters are obliged to work in harmony with their news sources.

The political leader must be a creator of circumstances, not only a creature of mechanical processes of stereotyping and rubber stamping.

Let us suppose that he is campaigning on a lowtariff platform. He may use the modern mechanism of the radio to spread his views, but he will almost certainly use the psychological method of approach which was old in Andrew Jackson's day, and which business has largely discarded. He will say over the radio: "Vote for me and low tariff, because the high tariff increases the cost of the things you buy." He may, it is true, have the great advantage of being able to speak by radio directly to fifty million listeners. But he is making an old-fashioned approach. He is arguing with them. He is assaulting, single-handed, the resistance of inertia.

If he were a propagandist, on the other hand, although he would still use the radio, he would use it as one instrument of a well-planned strategy. Since he is campaigning on the issue of a low tariff, he not merely would tell people that the high tariff increases the cost of the things they buy, but would create circumstances which would make his contention dramatic and self-evident. He would perhaps stage a low-tariff exhibition simultaneously in twenty cities, with exhibits illustrating the additional cost due to the tariff in force. He would see that these exhibitions were ceremoniously inaugurated by prominent men and women who were interested in a low tariff apart from any interest in his personal political fortunes. He would have groups, whose interests were especially affected by the high cost of living, institute an agitation for lower schedules. He would dramatize the issue, perhaps by having prominent men boycott woolen clothes, and go to important functions in cotton suits, until the wool schedule was reduced. He might get the opinion of social workers as to whether the high cost of wool endangers the health of the poor in winter.

In whatever ways he dramatized the issue, the attention of the public would be attracted to the question before he addressed them personally. Then, when he spoke to his millions of listeners on the radio, he would not be seeking to force an argument down the throats of a public thinking of other things and annoyed by another demand on its attention; on the contrary, he would be answering the spontaneous questions and expressing the emotional demands of a public already keyed to a certain pitch of interest in the subject.

The importance of taking the entire world public into consideration before planning an important event is shown by the wise action of Thomas Masaryk, then Provisional President, now President of the Republic of Czecho-Slovakia.

Czecho-Slovakia officially became a free state on Monday, October 28, 1918, instead of Sunday, October 27, 1918, because Professor Masaryk realized that the people of the world would receive more information and would be more receptive to, the announcement of the republic's freedom on a Monday morning than on a Sunday, because the press would have more space to devote to it on Monday morning.

Discussing the matter with me before he made the announcement, Professor Masaryk said, "I would be making history for the cables if I changed the date of Czecho-Slovakia's birth as a free nation." Cables make history and so the date was changed.

This incident illustrates the importance of technique in the new propaganda.

It will be objected, of course, that propaganda will tend to defeat itself as its mechanism becomes obvious to the public. My opinion is that it will not. The only propaganda which will ever tend to weaken itself as the world becomes more sophisticated and intelligent, is propaganda that is untrue or unsocial.

Again, the objection is raised that propaganda is utilized to manufacture our leading political personalities. It is asked whether, in fact, the leader makes propaganda, or whether propaganda makes the leader. There is a widespread impression that a good press agent can puff up a nobody into a great man.

The answer is the same as that made to the old query as to whether the newspaper makes public opinion or whether public opinion makes the newspaper. There has to be fertile ground for the leader and the idea to fall on. But the leader also has to have some vital seed to sow. To use another figure, a mutual need has to exist before either can become positively effective. Propaganda is of no use to the politician unless he has something to say which the public, consciously or unconsciously, wants to hear.

But even supposing that a certain propaganda is untrue or dishonest, we cannot on that account reject the methods of propaganda as such. For propaganda in some form will always be used where leaders need to appeal to their constituencies.

The criticism is often made that propaganda tends to make the President of the United States so important that he becomes not the President but the embodiment of the idea of hero worship, not to say deity worship. I quite agree that this is so, but how are you going to stop a condition which very accurately reflects the desires of a certain part of the public? The American people rightly senses the enormous importance of the executive's office. If the public tends to make of the President a heroic symbol of that power, that is not the fault of propaganda but lies in the very nature of the office and its relation to the people.

This condition, despite its somewhat irrational puffing up of the man to fit the office, is perhaps still more sound than a condition in which the man utilizes no propaganda, or a propaganda not adapted to its proper end. Note the example of the Prince of Wales. This young man reaped bales of clippings and little additional glory from his American visit, merely because he was poorly advised. To the American public he became a well dressed, charming, sportloving, dancing, perhaps frivolous youth. Nothing was done to add dignity and prestige to this impression until towards the end of his stay he made a trip in the subway of New York. This sole venture into democracy and the serious business of living as evidenced in the daily habits of workers, aroused new interest in the Prince. Had he been properly advised he would have augmented this somewhat by such serious studies of American life as were made by another prince, Gustave of Sweden. As a result of the lack of well directed propaganda, the Prince of Wales became in the eyes of the American people, not the thing which he constitutionally is, a symbol of the unity of the British Empire, but part and parcel of sporting Long Island and dancing beauties of the ballroom. Great Britain lost an invaluable opportunity to increase the good will and understanding between the two countries when it failed to understand the importance of correct public relations counsel for His Royal Highness.

The public actions of America's chief executive are, if one chooses to put it that way, stage-managed. But they are chosen to represent and dramatize the man in his function as representative of the people. A political practice which has its roots in the tendency of the popular leader to follow oftener than he leads is the technique of the trial balloon which he uses in order to maintain, as he believes, his contact with the public. The politician, of course, has his ear to the ground. It might be called the clinical ear. It touches the ground and hears the disturbances of the political universe.

But he often does not know what the disturbances mean, whether they are superficial, or fundamental. So he sends up his balloon. He may send out an anonymous interview through the press. He then waits for reverberations to come from the public—a public which expresses itself in mass meetings, or resolutions, or telegrams, or even such obvious manifestations as editorials in the partisan or nonpartisan press. On the basis of these repercussions he then publicly adopts his original tentative policy, or rejects it, or modifies it to conform to the sum of public opinion which has reached him. This method is modeled on the peace feelers which were used during the war to sound out the disposition of the enemy to make peace or to test any one of a dozen other popular tendencies. It is the method commonly used by a politician before committing himself to legislation of any kind, and by a government before committing itself on foreign or domestic policies.

It is a method which has little justification. If a politician is a real leader he will be able, by the skillful use of propaganda, to lead the people, instead of following the people by means of the clumsy instrument of trial and error.

The propagandist's approach is the exact opposite of that of the politician just described. The whole basis of successful propaganda is to have an objective and then to endeavor to arrive at it through an exact knowledge of the public and modifying circumstances to manipulate and sway that public.

"The function of a statesman," says George Bernard Shaw, "is to express the will of the people in the way of a scientist."

The political leader of to-day should be a leader as finely versed in the technique of propaganda as in political economy and civics. If he remains merely the reflection of the average intelligence of his community, he might as well go out of politics. If one is dealing with a democracy in which the herd and the group follow those whom they recognize as leaders, why should not the young men training for leadership be trained in its technique as well as in its idealism?

"When the interval between the intellectual classes and the practical classes is too great," says the historian Buckle, "the former will possess no influence, the latter will reap no benefits."

Propaganda bridges this interval in our modern complex civilization.

Only through the wise use of propaganda will our government, considered as the continuous administrative organ of the people, be able to maintain that intimate relationship with the public which is necessary in a democracy.

As David Lawrence pointed out in a recent speech, there is need for an intelligent interpretative bureau for our government in Washington. There is, it is true, a Division of Current Information in the Department of State, which at first was headed by a trained newspaper man. But later this position began to be filled by men from the diplomatic service, men who had very little knowledge of the public. While some of these diplomats have done very well, Mr. Lawrence asserted that in the long run the country would be benefited if the functions of this office were in the hands of a different type of person.

There should, I believe, be an Assistant Secretary of State who is familiar with the problem of dispensing information to the press—some one upon whom the Secretary of State can call for consultation and who has sufficient authority to persuade the Secretary of State to make public that which, for insufficient reason, is suppressed.

The function of the propagandist is much broader in scope than that of a mere dispenser of information to the press. The United States Government should create a Secretary of Public Relations as member of the President's Cabinet. The function of this official should be correctly to interpret America's aims and ideals throughout the world, and to keep the citizens of this country in touch with governmental activities and the reasons which prompt them. He would, in short, interpret the people to the government and the government to the people.

Such an official would be neither a propagandist nor a press agent, in the ordinary understanding of those terms. He would be, rather, a trained technician who would be helpful in analyzing public thought and public trends, in order to keep the government informed about the public, and the people informed about the government. America's relations with South America and with Europe would be greatly improved under such circumstances. Ours must be a leadership democracy administered by the intelligent minority who know how to regiment and guide the masses.

Is this government by propaganda? Call it, if you prefer, government by education. But education, in the academic sense of the word, is not sufficient. It must be enlightened expert propaganda through the creation of circumstances, through the high-spotting of significant events, and the dramatization of important issues. The statesman of the future will thus be enabled to focus the public mind on crucial points of policy, and regiment a vast, heterogeneous mass of voters to clear understanding and intelligent action.

CHAPTER VII

WOMEN'S ACTIVITIES AND PROPAGANDA

WOMEN in contemporary America have achieved a legal equality with men. This does not mean that their activities are identical with those of men. Women in the mass still have special interests and activities in addition to their economic pursuits and vocational interests.

Women's most obvious influence is exerted when they are organized and armed with the weapon of propaganda. So organized and armed they have made their influence felt on city councils, state legislatures, and national congresses, upon executives, upon political campaigns and upon public opinion generally, both local and national.

In politics, the American women to-day occupy a much more important position, from the standpoint of their influence, in their organized groups than from the standpoint of the leadership they have acquired in actual political positions or in actual office holding. The professional woman politician has had, up to the present, not much influence, nor do women generally regard her as being the most important element in question. Ma Ferguson, after all, was simply a woman in the home, a catspaw for a deposed husband; Nellie Ross, the former Governor of Wyoming, is from all accounts hardly a leader of statesmanship or public opinion.

If the suffrage campaign did nothing more, it showed the possibilities of propaganda to achieve certain ends. This propaganda to-day is being utilized by women to achieve their programs in Washington and in the states. In Washington they are organized as the Legislative Committee of Fourteen Women's Organizations, including the League of Women Voters, the Young Women's Christian Association, the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, the Federation of Women's Clubs, etc. These organizations map out a legislative program and then use the modern technique of propaganda to make this legislative program actually pass into the law of the land. Their accomplishments in the field are various. They can justifiably take the credit for much welfare legislation. The eight-hour day for women is theirs. Undoubtedly prohibition and its enforcement are theirs, if they can be considered an accomplishment. So is the Shepard-Towner Bill which stipulates support by the central government of maternity welfare in the state governments. This bill would not have passed had it not been for the political prescience and sagacity of women like Mrs. Vanderlip and Mrs. Mitchell.

The Federal measures endorsed at the first convention of the National League of Women Voters typify social welfare activities of women's organizations. These covered such broad interests as child welfare, education, the home and high prices, women in gainful occupations, public health and morals, independent citizenship for married women, and others.

To propagandize these principles, the National League of Women Voters has published all types of literature, such as bulletins, calendars, election information, has held a correspondence course on government and conducted demonstration classes and citizenship schools.

Possibly the effectiveness of women's organizations in American politics to-day is due to two things: first, the training of a professional class of executive secretaries or legislative secretaries during the suffrage campaigns, where every device known to the propagandist had to be used to regiment a recalcitrant majority; secondly, the routing over into peacetime activities of the many prominent women who were in the suffrage campaigns and who also devoted themselves to the important drives and mass influence movements during the war. Such women as Mrs. Frank Vanderlip, Alice Ames Winter, Mrs. Henry Moskowitz, Mrs. Florence Kelley, Mrs. John Blair, Mrs. O. H. P. Belmont, Doris Stevens, Alice Paul come to mind.

If I have seemed to concentrate on the accomplishments of women in politics, it is because they afford a particularly striking example of intelligent use of the new propaganda to secure attention and acceptance of minority ideas. It is perhaps curiously appropriate that the latest recruits to the political arena should recognize and make use of the newest weapons of persuasion to offset any lack of experience with what is somewhat euphemistically termed practical politics. As an example of this new technique: Some years ago, the Consumers' Committee of Women, fighting the "American valuation" tariff, rented an empty store on Fifty-seventh Street in New York and set up an exhibit of merchandise tagging each item with the current price and the price it would cost if the tariff went through. Hundreds of visitors to this shop rallied to the cause of the committee.

But there are also non-political fields in which women can make and have made their influence felt for social ends, and in which they have utilized the principle of group leadership in attaining the desired objectives.

In the General Federation of Women's Clubs, there are 13,000 clubs. Broadly classified, they include civic and city clubs, mothers' and homemakers' clubs, cultural clubs devoted to art, music or literature, business and professional women's clubs, and general women's clubs, which may embrace either civic or community phases, or combine some of the other activities listed.

The woman's club is generally effective on behalf of health education; in furthering appreciation of the fine arts; in sponsoring legislation that affects the welfare of women and children; in playground development and park improvement; in raising standards of social or political morality; in homemaking. and home economics, education and the like. In these fields, the woman's club concerns itself with efforts that are not ordinarily covered by existing agencies, and often both initiates and helps to further movements for the good of the community.

A club interested principally in homemaking and the practical arts can sponsor a cooking school for young brides and others. An example of the keen interest of women in this field of education is the cooking school recently conducted by the New York Herald Tribune, which held its classes in Carnegie Hall, seating almost 3,000 persons. For the several days of the cooking school, the hall was filled to capacity, rivaling the drawing power of a McCormack or a Paderewski, and refuting most dramatically the idea that women in large cities are not interested in housewifery.

A movement for the serving of milk in public schools, or the establishment of a baby health station at the department of health will be an effort close to the heart of a club devoted to the interest of mothers and child welfare.

A music club can broaden its sphere and be of service to the community by cooperating with the local radio station in arranging better musical programs. Fighting bad music can be as militant a campaign and marshal as varied resources as any political battle.

An art club can be active in securing loan exhibitions for its city. It can also arrange travelling exhibits of the art work of its members or show the art work of schools or universities.

A literary club may step out of its charmed circle of lectures and literary lions and take a definite part in the educational life of the community. It can sponsor, for instance, a competition in the public schools for the best essay on the history of the city, or on the life of its most famous son.

Over and above the particular object for which the woman's club may have been constituted, it commonly stands ready to initiate or help any movement which has for its object a distinct public good in the community. More important, it constitutes an organized channel through which women can make themselves felt as a definite part of public opinion.

Just as women supplement men in private life, so they will supplement men in public life by concentrating their organized efforts on those objects which men are likely to ignore. There is a tremendous field for women as active protagonists of new ideas and new methods of political and social housekeeping. When organized and conscious of their power to influence their surroundings, women can use their newly acquired freedom in a great many ways to mold the world into a better place to live in.

CHAPTER VIII

PROPAGANDA FOR EDUCATION

EDUCATION is not securing its proper share of public interest. The public school system, materially and financially, is being adequately supported. There is marked eagerness for a college education, and a vague aspiration for culture, expressed in innumerable courses and lectures. The public is not cognizant of the real value of education, and does not realize that education as a social force is not receiving the kind of attention it has the right to expect in a democracy.

It is felt, for example, that education is entitled to more space in the newspapers; that well informed discussion of education hardly exists; that unless such an issue as the Gary School system is created, or outside of an occasional discussion, such as that aroused over Harvard's decision to establish a school of business, education does not attract the active interest of the public.

There are a number of reasons for this condition. First of all, there is the fact that the educator has been trained to stimulate to thought the individual students in his classroom, but has not been trained as an educator at large of the public.

In a democracy an educator should, in addition to his academic duties, bear a definite and wholesome relation to the general public. This public does not come within the immediate scope of his academic duties. But in a sense he depends upon it for his living, for the moral support, and the general cultural tone upon which his work must be based. In the field of education, we find what we have found in politics and other fields—that the evolution of the practitioner of the profession has not kept pace with the social evolution around him, and is out of gear with the instruments for the dissemination of ideas which modern society has developed. If this be true, then the training of the educators in this respect should begin in the normal schools, with the addition to their curricula of whatever is necessary to broaden their viewpoint. The public cannot understand unless the teacher understands the relationship between the general public and the academic idea.

The normal school should provide for the training of the educator to make him realize that his is a twofold job: education as a teacher and education as a propagandist.

A second reason for the present remoteness of education from the thoughts and interests of the public is to be found in the mental attitude of the pedagogue —whether primary school teacher or college professor—toward the world outside the school. This is a difficult psychological problem. The teacher finds himself in a world in which the emphasis is put on those objective goals and those objective attainments which are prized by our American society. He himself is but moderately or poorly paid. Judging himself by the standards in common acceptance, he cannot but feel a sense of inferiority because he finds himself continually being compared, in the minds of his own pupils, with the successful business man and the successful leader in the outside world. Thus the educator becomes repressed and suppressed in our civilization. As things stand, this condition cannot be changed from the outside unless the general public alters its standards of achievement, which it is not likely to do soon.

Yet it can be changed by the teaching profession itself, if it becomes conscious not only of its individualistic relation to the pupil, but also of its social relation to the general public. The teaching profession, as such, has the right to carry on a very definite propaganda with a view to enlightening the public and asserting its intimate relation to the society which it serves. In addition to conducting a propaganda on behalf of its individual members, education must also raise the general appreciation of the teaching profession. Unless the profession can raise itself by its own bootstraps, it will fast lose the power of recruiting outstanding talent for itself.

Propaganda cannot change all that is at present unsatisfactory in the educational situation. There are factors, such as low pay and the lack of adequate provision for superannuated teachers, which definitely affect the status of the profession. It is possible, by means of an intelligent appeal predicated upon the actual present composition of the public mind, to modify the general attitude toward the teaching profession. Such a changed attitude will begin by expressing itself in an insistence on the idea of more adequate salaries for the profession.

There are various ways in which academic organizations in America handle their financial problems. One type of college or university depends, for its monetary support, upon grants from the state legislatures. Another depends upon private endowment. There are other types of educational institutions, such as the sectarian, but the two chief types include by far the greater number of our institutions of higher learning.

The state university is supported by grants from the people of the state, voted by the state legislature. In theory, the degree of support which the university receives is dependent upon the degree of acceptance accorded it by the voters. The state university prospers according to the extent to which it can sell itself to the people of the state.

The state university is therefore in an unfortunate position unless its president happens to be a man of outstanding merit as a propagandist and a dramatizer of educational issues. Yet if this is the case—if the university shapes its whole policy toward gaining the support of the state legislature—its educational function may suffer. It may be tempted to base its whole appeal to the public on its public service, real or supposed, and permit the education of its individual students to take care of itself. It may attempt to educate the people of the state at the expense of its own pupils. This may generate a number of evils, to the extent of making the university a political instrument, a mere tool of the political group in power. If the president dominates both the public and the professional politician, this may lead to a situation in which the personality of the president outweighs the true function of the institution.

The endowed college or university has a problem quite as perplexing. The endowed college is dependent upon the support, usually, of key men in industry whose social and economic objectives are concrete and limited, and therefore often at variance with the pursuit of abstract knowledge. The successful business man criticizes the great universities for being too academic, but seldom for being too practical. One might imagine that the key men who support our universities would like them to specialize in schools of applied science, of practical salesmanship or of industrial efficiency. And it may well be, in many instances, that the demands which the potential endowers of our universities make upon these institutions are flatly in contradiction to the interests of scholarship and general culture.

We have, therefore, the anomalous situation of the college seeking to carry on a propaganda in favor of scholarship among people who are quite out of sympathy with the aims to which they are asked to subscribe their money. Men who, by the commonly accepted standards, are failures or very moderate successes in our American world (the pedagogues) seek to convince the outstanding successes (the business men) that they should give their money to ideals which they do not pursue. Men who, through a sense of inferiority, despise money, seek to win the good will of men who love money.

It seems possible that the future status of the endowed college will depend upon a balancing of these forces, both the academic and the endowed elements obtaining in effect due consideration.

The college must win public support. If the potential donor is apathetic, enthusiastic public approval must be obtained to convince him. If he seeks unduly to influence the educational policy of the institution, public opinion must support the college in the continuance of its proper functions. If either factor dominates unduly, we are likely to find a demagoguery or a snobbishness aiming to please one group or the other.

There is still another potential solution of the problem. It is possible that through an educational propaganda aiming to develop greater social consciousness on the part of the people of the country, there may be awakened in the minds of men of affairs, as a class, social consciousness which will produce more minds of the type of Julius Rosenwald, V. Everitt Macy, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., the late Willard Straight.

Many colleges have already developed intelligent propaganda in order to bring them into active and continuous relation with the general public. A definite technique has been developed in their relation to the community in the form of college news bureaus. These bureaus have formed an intercollegiate association whose members meet once a year to discuss their problems. These problems include the education of the alumnus and his effect upon the general public and upon specific groups, the education of the future student to the choice of the particular college, the maintenance of an esprit de corps so that the athletic prowess of the college will not be placed first, the development of some familiarity with the research work done in the college in order to attract the attention of those who may be able to lend aid, the development of an understanding of the aims and the work of the institution in order to attract special endowments for specified purposes.

Some seventy-five of these bureaus are now affiliated with the American Association of College News Bureaus, including those of Yale, Wellesley, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Western Reserve, Tufts and California. A bi-monthly news letter is published, bringing to members the news of their profession. The Association endeavors to uphold the ethical standards of the profession and aims to work in harmony with the press.

The National Education Association and other societies are carrying on a definite propaganda to promote the larger purposes of educational endeavor. One of the aims of such propaganda is of course improvement in the prestige and material position of the teachers themselves. An occasional McAndrew case calls the attention of the public to the fact that in some schools the teacher is far from enjoying full academic freedom, while in certain communities the choice of teachers is based upon political or sectarian considerations rather than upon real ability. If such issues were made, by means of propaganda, to become a matter of public concern on a truly national scale, there would doubtless be a general tendency to improvement.

The concrete problems of colleges are more varied and puzzling than one might suppose. The pharmaceutical college of a university is concerned because the drug store is no longer merely a drug store, but primarily a soda fountain, a lunch counter, a bookshop, a retailer of all sorts of general merchandise from society stationery to spare radio parts. The college realizes the economic utility of the lunch counter feature to the practicing druggist, yet it feels that the ancient and honorable art of compounding specifics is being degraded.

Cornell University discovers that endowments are rare. Why? Because the people think that the University is a state institution and therefore publicly supported.

Many of our leading universities rightly feel that the results of their scholarly researches should not only be presented to libraries and learned publications, but should also, where practicable and useful, be given to the public in the dramatic form which the public can understand. Harvard is but one example.

"Not long ago," says Charles A. Merrill in Personality, "a certain Harvard professor vaulted into the newspaper headlines. There were several days when one could hardly pick up a paper in any of the larger cities without finding his name bracketed with his achievement.

"The professor, who was back from a trip to Yucatan in the interests of science, had solved the mystery of the Venus calendar of the ancient Mayas. He had discovered the key to the puzzle of how the Mayas kept tab on the flight of time. Checking the Mayan record of celestial events against the known astronomical facts, he had found a perfect correlation between the time count of these Central American Indians and the true positions of the planet Venus in the sixth century B.C. A civilization which flour129 Propaganda ished in the Western Hemisphere twenty-five centuries ago was demonstrated to have attained heights hitherto unappreciated by the modern world.

"How the professor's discovery happened to be chronicled in the popular press is, also, in retrospect, a matter of interest. ... If left to his own devices, he might never have appeared in print, except perhaps in some technical publication, and his remarks there would have been no more intelligible to the average man or woman than if they had been inscribed in Mayan hieroglyphics.

"Popularization of this message from antiquity was due to the initiative of a young man named James W. D. Seymour. . . .

"It may surprise and shock some people," Mr. Merrill adds, "to be told that the oldest and most dignified seats of learning in America now hire press agents, just as railroad companies, fraternal organizations, moving picture producers and political parties retain them. It is nevertheless a fact. . . .

". . . there is hardly a college or university in the country which does not, with the approval of the governing body and the faculty, maintain a publicity office, with a director and a staff of assistants, for the purpose of establishing friendly relations with the newspapers, and through the newspapers, with the public. . . .

"This enterprise breaks sharply with tradition. In the older seats of learning it is a recent innovation. It violates the fundamental article in the creed of the old academic societies. Cloistered seclusion used to be considered the first essential of scholarship. The college was anxious to preserve its aloofness from the world. ...

"The colleges used to resent outside interest in their affairs. They might, somewhat reluctantly and contemptuously, admit reporters to their Commencement Day exercises, but no further would they go. . . .

"To-day, if a newspaper reporter wants to interview a Harvard professor, he has merely to telephone the Secretary for Information to the University. Officially, Harvard still shies away from the title 'Director of Publicity.' Informally, however, the secretary with the long title is the publicity man. He is an important official to-day at Harvard."

It may be a new idea that the president of a university will concern himself with the kind of mental picture his institution produces on the public mind. Yet it is part of the president's work to see that his university takes its proper place in the community and therefore also in the community mind, and produces the results desired, both in a cultural and in a financial sense.

If his institution does not produce the mental picture which it should, one of two things may be wrong: Either the media of communication with the public may be wrong or unbalanced; or his institution may be at fault. The public is getting an oblique impression of the university, in which case the impression should be modified; or it may be that the public is getting a correct impression, in which case, very possibly, the work of the university itself should be modified. For both possibilities lie within the province of the public relations counsel.

Columbia University recently instituted a Casa Italiana, which was solemnly inaugurated in the presence of representatives of the Italian government, to emphasize its high standing in Latin studies and the Romance languages. Years ago Harvard founded the Germanic Museum, which was ceremoniously opened by Prince Henry of Prussia.

Many colleges maintain extension courses which bring their work to the knowledge of a broad public. It is of course proper that such courses should be made known to the general public. But, to take another example, if they have been badly planned, from the point of view of public relations, if they are unduly scholastic and detached, their effect may be the opposite of favorable. In such a case, it is not the work of the public relations counsel to urge that the courses be made better known, but to urge that they first be modified to conform to the impression which the college wishes to create, where that is compatible with the university's scholastic ideals.

Again, it may be the general opinion that the work of a certain institution is 80 per cent postgraduate research, an opinion which may tend to alienate public interest. This opinion may be true or it may be false. If it is false, it should be corrected by high-spotting undergraduate activities.

If, on the other hand, it is true that 80 per cent of the work is postgraduate research, the most should be made of that fact. It should be the concern of the president to make known the discoveries which are of possible public interest. A university expedition into Biblical lands may be uninteresting as a purely scholastic undertaking, but if it contributes light on some Biblical assertion it will immediately arouse the interest of large masses of the population. The zoological department may be hunting for some strange bacillus which has no known relation to any human disease, but the fact that it is chasing bacilli is in itself capable of dramatic presentation to the public.

Many universities now gladly lend members of their faculties to assist in investigations of public interest. Thus Cornell lent Professor Wilcox to aid the government in the preparation of the national census. Professor Irving Fisher of Yale has been called in to advise on currency matters.

In the ethical sense, propaganda bears the same relation to education as to business or politics. It may be abused. It may be used to overadvertise an institution and to create in the public mind artificial values. There can be no absolute guarantee against its misuse.

CHAPTER IX

PROPAGANDA IN SOCIAL SERVICE

THE public relations counsel is necessary to social work. And since social service, by its very nature, can continue only by means of the voluntary support of the wealthy, it is obliged to use propaganda continually. The leaders in social service were among the first consciously to utilize propaganda in its modern sense.

The great enemy of any attempt to change men's habits is inertia. Civilization is limited by inertia.

Our attitude toward social relations, toward economics, toward national and international politics, continues past attitudes and strengthens them under the force of tradition. Comstock drops his mantle of proselytizing morality on the willing shoulders of a Sumner; Penrose drops his mantle on Butler; Carnegie his on Schwab, and so ad infinitum. Opposing this traditional acceptance of existing ideas is an active public opinion that has been directed consciously into movements against inertia. Public opinion was made or changed formerly by tribal chiefs, by kings, by religious leaders. To-day the privilege of attempting to sway public opinion is every one's. It is one of the manifestations of democracy that any one may try to convince others and to assume leadership on behalf of his own thesis.

New ideas, new precedents, are continually striving for a place in the scheme of things.

The social settlement, the organized campaigns against tuberculosis and cancer, the various research activities aiming directly at the elimination of social diseases and maladjustments—a multitude of altruistic activities which could be catalogued only in a book of many pages—have need of knowledge of the public mind and mass psychology if they are to achieve their aims. The literature on social service publicity is so extensive, and the underlying principles so fundamental, that only one example is necessary here to illustrate the technique of social service propaganda.

A social service organization undertook to fight lynching, Jim Crowism and the civil discriminations against the Negro below the Mason and Dixon line.

The National Association for the Advancement of the Colored People had the fight in hand. As a matter of technique they decided to dramatize the year's campaign in an annual convention which would concentrate attention on the problem.

Should it be held in the North, South, West or East? Since the purpose was to affect the entire country, the association was advised to hold it in the South. For, said the propagandist, a point of view on a southern question, emanating from a southern center, would have greater authority than the same point of view issuing from any other locality, particularly when that point of view was at odds with the traditional southern point of view. Atlanta was chosen.

The third step was to surround the conference with people who were stereotypes for ideas that carried weight all over the country. The support of leaders of diversified groups was sought. Telegrams and letters were dispatched to leaders of religious, political, social and educational groups, asking for their point of view on the purpose of the conference. But in addition to these group leaders of national standing it was particularly important from the technical standpoint to secure the opinions of group leaders of the South, even from Atlanta itself, to emphasize the purposes of the conference to the entire public. There was one group in Atlanta which could be approached. A group of ministers had been bold enough to come out for a greater interracial amity. This group was approached and agreed to cooperate in the conference.

The event ran off as scheduled. The program itself followed the general scheme. Negroes and white men from the South, on the same platform, expressed the same point of view.

A dramatic element was spot-lighted here and there. A national leader from Massachusetts agreed in principle and in practice with a Baptist preacher from the South.

If the radio had been in effect, the whole country might have heard and been moved by the speeches and the principles expressed.

But the public read the words and the ideas in the press of the country. For the event had been created of such important component parts as to awaken interest throughout the country and to gain support for its ideas even in the South.

The editorials in the southern press, reflecting the public opinion of their communities, showed that the subject had become one of interest to the editors because of the participation by southern leaders.

The event naturally gave the Association itself substantial weapons with which to appeal to an increasingly wider circle. Further publicity was attained by mailing reports, letters, and other propaganda to selected groups of the public.

As for the practical results, the immediate one was a change in the minds of many southern editors who realized that the question at issue was not only an emotional one, but also a discussable one; and this point of view was immediately reflected to their readers. Further results are hard to measure with a slide-rule. The conference had its definite effect in building up the racial consciousness and solidarity of the Negroes. The decline in lynching is very probably a result of this and other efforts of the Association.

Many churches have made paid advertising and organized propaganda part of their regular activities. They have developed church advertising committees, which make use of the newspaper and the billboard, as well as of the pamphlet. Many denominations maintain their own periodicals. The Methodist Board of Publication and Information systematically gives announcements and releases to the press and the magazines.

But in a broader sense the very activities of social service are propaganda activities. A campaign for the preservation of the teeth seeks to alter people's habits in the direction of more frequent brushing of teeth. A campaign for better parks seeks to alter people's opinion in regard to the desirability of taxing themselves for the purchase of park facilities. A campaign against tuberculosis is an attempt to convince everybody that tuberculosis can be cured, that persons with certain symptoms should immediately go to the doctor, and the like. A campaign to lower the infant mortality rate is an effort to alter the habits of mothers in regard to feeding, bathing and caring for their babies. Social service, in fact, is identical with propaganda in many cases.

Even those aspects of social service which are governmental and administrative, rather than charitable and spontaneous, depend on wise propaganda for their effectiveness. Professor Harry Elmer Barnes, in his book, "The Evolution of Modern Penology in Pennsylvania," states that improvements in penological administration in that state are hampered by political influences. The legislature must be persuaded to permit the utilization of the best methods of scientific penology, and for this there is necessary the development of an enlightened public opinion. "Until such a situation has been brought about," Mr. Barnes states, "progress in penology is doomed to be sporadic, local, and generally ineffective. The solution of prison problems, then, seems to be fundamentally a problem of conscientious and scientific publicity."

Social progress is simply the progressive education and enlightenment of the public mind in regard to its immediate and distant social problems.

CHAPTER X

ART AND SCIENCE

IN the education of the American public toward greater art appreciation, propaganda plays an important part. When art galleries seek to launch the canvases of an artist they should create public acceptance for his works. To increase public appreciation a deliberate propagandizing effort must be made.

In art as in politics the minority rules, but it can rule only by going out to meet the public on its own ground, by understanding the anatomy of public opinion and utilizing it.

In applied and commercial art, propaganda makes greater opportunities for the artist than ever before. This arises from the fact that mass production reaches an impasse when it competes on a price basis only. It must, therefore, in a large number of fields create a field of competition based on esthetic values. Business of many types capitalizes the esthetic sense to increase markets and profits. Which is only another way of saying that the artist has the opportunity of collaborating with industry in such a way as to improve the public taste, injecting beautiful instead of ugly motifs into the articles of common use, and, furthermore, securing recognition and money for himself.

Propaganda can play a part in pointing out what is and what is not beautiful, and business can definitely help in this way to raise the level of American culture. In this process propaganda will naturally make use of the authority of group leaders whose taste and opinion are recognized.

The public must be interested by means of associational values and dramatic incidents. New inspiration, which to the artist may be a very technical and abstract kind of beauty, must be made vital to the public by association with values which it recognizes and responds to.

For instance, in the manufacture of American silk, markets are developed by going to Paris for inspiration. Paris can give American silk a stamp of authority which will aid it to achieve definite position in the United States.

The following clipping from the New York Times of February 16, 1925, tells the story from an actual incident of this sort:

"Copyright, 1925, by THE NEW YORK TIMES COMPANY—Special Cable to THE NEW YORK TIMES.

"PARIS, Feb. 15.—For the first time in history, American art materials are to be exhibited in the Decorative Arts Section of the Louvre Museum.

"The exposition opening on May 26th with the Minister of Fine Arts, Paul Leon, acting as patron, will include silks from Cheney Brothers, South Manchester and New York, the designs of which were based on the inspiration of Edgar Brandt, famous French iron worker, the modern Bellini, who makes wonderful art works from iron.

"M. Brandt designed and made the monumental iron doors of the Verdun war memorial. He has been asked to assist and participate in this exposition, which will show France the accomplishments of American industrial art.

"Thirty designs inspired by Edgar Brandt's work are embodied in 2,500 yards of printed silks, tinsels and cut velvets in a hundred colors. . . .

"These 'prints ferronnieres' are the first textiles to show the influence of the modern master, M. Brandt. The silken fabrics possess a striking composition, showing characteristic Brandt motifs which were embodied in the tracery of large designs by the Cheney artists who succeeded in translating the iron into silk, a task which might appear almost impossible. The strength and brilliancy of the original design is enhanced by the beauty and warmth of color."

The result of this ceremony was that prominent department stores in New York, Chicago and other cities asked to have this exhibition. They tried to mold the public taste in conformity with the idea which had the approval of Paris. The silks of Cheney Brothers—a commercial product produced in quantity—gained a place in public esteem by being associated with the work of a recognized artist and with a great art museum.

The same can be said of almost any commercial product susceptible of beautiful design. There are few products in daily use, whether furniture, clothes, lamps, posters, commercial labels, book jackets, pocketbooks or bathtubs which are not subject to the laws of good taste.

In America, whole departments of production are being changed through propaganda to fill an economic as well as an esthetic need. Manufacture is being modified to conform to the economic need to satisfy the public demand for more beauty. A piano manufacturer recently engaged artists to design modernist pianos. This was not done because there existed a widespread demand for modernist pianos. Indeed, the manufacturer probably expected to sell few. But in order to draw attention to pianos one must have something more than a piano. People at tea parties will not talk about pianos; but they may talk about the new modernist piano.

When Secretary Hoover, three years ago, was asked to appoint a commission to the Paris Exposition of Decorative Arts, he did so. As Associate Commissioner I assisted in the organizing of the group of important business leaders in the industrial art field who went to Paris as delegates to visit and report on the Exposition. The propaganda carried on for the aims and purposes of the Commission undoubtedly had a widespread effect on the attitude of Americans towards art in industry; it was only a few years later that the modern art movement penetrated all fields of industry.

Department stores took it up. R. H. Macy & Company held an Art-in-Trades Exposition, in which the Metropolitan Museum of Art collaborated as adviser. Lord & Taylor sponsored a Modern Arts Exposition, with foreign exhibitors. These stores, coming closely in touch with the life of the people, performed a propagandizing function in bringing to the people the best in art as it related to these industries. The Museum at the same time was alive to the importance of making contact with the public mind, by utilizing the department store to increase art appreciation.

Of all art institutions the museum suffers most from the lack of effective propaganda. Most present-day museums have the reputation of being morgues or sanctuaries, whereas they should be leaders and teachers in the esthetic life of the community. They have little vital relation to life.

The treasures of beauty in a museum need to be interpreted to the public, and this requires a propagandist. The housewife in a Bronx apartment doubtless feels little interest in an ancient Greek vase in the Metropolitan Museum. Yet an artist working with a pottery firm may adapt the design of this vase to a set of china and this china, priced low through quantity production, may find its way to that Bronx apartment, developing unconsciously, through its fine line and color, an appreciation of beauty.

Some American museums feel this responsibility. The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York rightly prides itself on its million and a quarter of visitors in the year 1926; on its efforts to dramatize and make visual the civilizations which its various departments reveal; on its special lectures, its story hours, its loan collections of prints and photographs and lantern slides, its facilities offered to commercial firms in the field of applied art, on the outside lecturers who are invited to lecture in its auditorium and on the lectures given by its staff to outside organizations} and on the free chamber concerts given in the museum under the direction of David Mannes, which tend to dramatize the museum as a home of beauty. Yet that is not the whole of the problem.

It is not merely a question of making people come to the museum. It is also a question of making the museum, and the beauty which it houses, go to the people.

The museum's accomplishments should not be evaluated merely in terms of the number of visitors. Its function is not merely to receive visitors, but to project iself and what it stands for in the community which it serves.

The museum can stand in its community for a definite esthetic standard which can, by the help of intelligent propaganda, permeate the daily lives of all its neighbors. Why should not a museum establish a museum council of art, to establish standards in home decoration, in architecture, and in commercial production? or a research board for applied arts? Why should not the museum, instead of merely preserving the art treasures which it possesses, quicken their meaning in terms which the general public understands?

A recent annual report of an art museum in one of the large cities of the United States, says:

"An underlying characteristic of an Art Museum like ours must be its attitude of conservatism, for after all its first duty is to treasure the great achievements of men in the arts and sciences."

Is that true? Is not another important duty to interpret the models of beauty which it possesses?

If the duty of the museum is to be active it must study how best to make its message intelligible to the community which it serves. It must boldly assume esthetic leadership.

As in art, so in science, both pure and applied. Pure science was once guarded and fostered by learned societies and scientific associations. Now pure science finds support and encouragement also in industry. Many of the laboratories in which abstract research is being pursued are now connected with some large corporation, which is quite willing to devote hundreds of thousands of dollars to scientific study, for the sake of one golden invention or discovery which may emerge from it.

Big business of course gains heavily when the invention emerges. But at that very moment it assumes the responsibility of placing the new invention at the service of the public. It assumes also the responsibility of interpreting its meaning to the public.

The industrial interests can furnish to the schools, the colleges and the postgraduate university courses the exact truth concerning the scientific progress of our age. They not only can do so; they are under obligation to do so. Propaganda as an instrument of commercial competition has opened opportunities to the inventor and given great stimulus to the research scientist. In the last five or ten years, the successes of some of the larger corporations have been so outstanding that the whole field of science has received a tremendous impetus. The American Telephone and Telegraph Company, the Western Electric Company, the General Electric Company, the Westinghouse Electric Company and others have realized the importance of scientific research. They have also understood that their ideas must be made intelligible to the public to be fully successful. Television, broadcasting, loud speakers are utilized as propaganda aids.

Propaganda assists in marketing new inventions. Propaganda, by repeatedly interpreting new scientific ideas and inventions to the public, has made the public more receptive. Propaganda is accustoming the public to change and progress.

CHAPTER XI

THE MECHANICS OF PROPAGANDA

THE media by which special pleaders transmit their messages to the public through propaganda include all the means by which people to-day transmit their ideas to one another. There is no means of human communication which may not also be a means of deliberate propaganda, because propaganda is simply the establishing of reciprocal understanding between an individual and a group.

The important point to the propagandist is that the relative value of the various instruments of propaganda, and their relation to the masses, are constantly changing. If he is to get full reach for his message he must take advantage of these shifts of value the instant they occur. Fifty years ago, the public meeting was a propaganda instrument par excellence. To-day it is difficult to get more than a handful of people to attend a public meeting unless extraordinary attractions are part of the program. The automobile takes them away from home, the radio keeps them in the home, the successive daily editions of the newspaper bring information to them in office or subway, and also they are sick of the ballyhoo of the rally.

Instead there are numerous other media of communication, some new, others old but so transformed that they have become virtually new. The newspaper, of course, remains always a primary medium for the transmission of opinions and ideas—in other words, for propaganda.

It was not many years ago that newspaper editors resented what they called "the use of the news columns for propaganda purposes." Some editors would even kill a good story if they imagined its publication might benefit any one. This point of view is now largely abandoned. To-day the leading editorial offices take the view that the real criterion governing the publication or non-publication of matter which comes to the desk is its news value. The newspaper cannot assume, nor is it its function to assume, the responsibility of guaranteeing that what it publishes will not work out to somebody's interest. There is hardly a single item in any daily paper, the publication of which does not, or might not, profit or injure somebody. That is the nature of news. What the newspaper does strive for is that the news which it publishes shall be accurate, and (since it must select from the mass of news material available) that it shall be of interest and importance to large groups of its readers.

In its editorial columns the newspaper is a personality, commenting upon things and events from its individual point of view. But in its news columns the typical modern American newspaper attempts to reproduce, with due regard to news interest, the outstanding events and opinions of the day.

It does not ask whether a given item is propaganda or not. What is important is that it be news. And in the selection of news the editor is usually entirely independent. In the New York Times—to take an outstanding example—news is printed because of its news value and for no other reason. The Times editors determine with complete independence what is and what is not news. They brook no censorship. They are not influenced by any external pressure nor swayed by any values of expediency or opportunism. The conscientious editor on every newspaper realizes that his obligation to the public is news. The fact of its accomplishment makes it news.

If the public relations counsel can breathe the breath of life into an idea and make it take its place among other ideas and events, it will receive the public attention it merits. There can be no question of his "contaminating news at its source." He creates some of the day's events, which must compete in the editorial office with other events. Often the events which he creates may be specially acceptable to a newspaper's public and he may create them with that public in mind.

If important things of life to-day consist of transatlantic radiophone talks arranged by commercial telephone companies; if they consist of inventions that will be commercially advantageous to the men who market them; if they consist of Henry Fords with epoch-making cars—then all this is news. The so-called flow of propaganda into the newspaper offices of the country may, simply at the editor's discretion, find its way to the waste basket.

The source of the news offered to the editor should always be clearly stated and the facts accurately presented.

The situation of the magazines at the present moment, from the propagandist's point of view, is different from that of the daily newspapers. The average magazine assumes no obligation, as the newspaper does, to reflect the current news. It selects its material deliberately, in accordance with a continuous policy. It is not, like the newspaper, an organ of public opinion, but tends rather to become a propagandist organ, propagandizing for a particular idea, whether it be good housekeeping, or smart apparel, or beauty in home decoration, or debunking public opinion, or general enlightenment or liberalism or amusement. One magazine may aim to sell health; another, English gardens; another, fashionable men's wear; another, Nietzschean philosophy.

In all departments in which the various magazines specialize, the public relations counsel may play an important part. For he may, because of his client's interest, assist them to create the events which further their propaganda. A bank, in order to emphasize the importance of its women's department, may arrange to supply a leading women's magazine with a series of articles and advice on investments written by the woman expert in charge of this department. The women's magazine in turn will utilize this new feature as a means of building additional prestige and circulation.

The lecture, once a powerful means of influencing public opinion, has changed its value. The lecture itself may be only a symbol, a ceremony; its importance, for propaganda purposes, lies in the fact that it was delivered. Professor So-and-So, expounding an epoch-making invention, may speak to five hundred persons, or only fifty. His lecture, if it is important, will be broadcast; reports of it will appear in the newspapers; discussion will be stimulated. The real value of the lecture, from the propaganda point of view, is in its repercussion to the general public.

The radio is at present one of the most important tools of the propagandist. Its future development is uncertain.

It may compete with the newspaper as an advertising medium. Its ability to reach millions of persons simultaneously naturally appeals to the advertiser. And since the average advertiser has a limited appropriation for advertising, money spent on the radio will tend to be withdrawn from the newspaper.

To what extent is the publisher alive to this new phenomenon? It is bound to come close to American journalism and publishing. Newspapers have recognized the advertising potentialities of the companies that manufacture radio apparatus, and of radio stores, large and small; and newspapers have accorded to the radio in their news and feature columns an importance relative to the increasing attention given by the public to radio. At the same time, certain newspapers have bought radio stations and linked them up with their news and entertainment distribution facilities, supplying these two features over the air to the public.

It is possible that newspaper chains will sell schedules of advertising space on the air and on paper. Newspaper chains will possibly contract with advertisers for circulation on paper and over the air. There are, at present, publishers who sell space in the air and in their columns, but they regard the two as separate ventures.

Large groups, political, racial, sectarian, economic or professional, are tending to control stations to propagandize their points of view. Or is it conceivable that America may adopt the English licensing system under which the listener, instead of the advertiser, pays?

Whether the present system is changed, the advertiser—and propagandist—must necessarily adapt himself to it. Whether, in the future, air space will be sold openly as such, or whether the message will reach the public in the form of straight entertainment and news, or as special programs for particular groups, the propagandist must be prepared to meet the conditions and utilize them.

The American motion picture is the greatest unconscious carrier of propaganda in the world to-day. It is a great distributor for ideas and opinions.

The motion picture can standardize the ideas and habits of a nation. Because pictures are made to meet market demands, they reflect, emphasize and even exaggerate broad popular tendencies, rather than stimulate new ideas and opinions. The motion picture avails itself only of ideas and facts which are in vogue. As the newspaper seeks to purvey news, it seeks to purvey entertainment.

Another instrument of propaganda is the personality. Has the device of the exploited personality been pushed too far? President Coolidge photographed on his vacation in full Indian regalia in company with full-blooded chiefs, was the climax of a greatly over-reported vacation. Obviously a public personality can be made absurd by misuse of the very mechanism which helped create it.

Yet the vivid dramatization of personality will always remain one of the functions of the public relations counsel. The public instinctively demands a personality to typify a conspicuous corporation or enterprise.

There is a story that a great financier discharged a partner because he had divorced his wife.

"But what," asked the partner, "have my private affairs to do with the banking business?"

"If you are not capable of managing your own wife," was the reply, "the people will certainly believe that you are not capable of managing their money."

The propagandist must treat personality as he would treat any other objective fact within his province.

A personality may create circumstances, as Lindbergh created good will between the United States and Mexico. Events may create a personality, as the Cuban War created the political figure of Roosevelt. It is often difficult to say which creates the other. Once a public figure has decided what ends he wishes to achieve, he must regard himself objectively and present an outward picture of himself which is consistent with his real character and his aims.

There are a multitude of other avenues of approach to the public mind, some old, some new as television. No attempt will be made to discuss each one separately. The school may disseminate information concerning scientific facts. The fact that a commercial concern may eventually profit from a widespread understanding of its activities because of this does not condemn the dissemination of such information, provided that the subject merits study on the part of the students. If a baking corporation contributes pictures and charts to a school, to show how bread is made, these propaganda activities, if they are accurate and candid, are in no way reprehensible, provided the school authorities accept or reject such offers carefully on their educational merits.

It may be that a new product will be announced to the public by means of a motion picture of a parade taking place a thousand miles away. Or the manufacturer of a new jitney airplane may personally appear and speak in a million homes through radio and television. The man who would most effectively transmit his message to the public must be alert to make use of all the means of propaganda.

Undoubtedly the public is becoming aware of the methods which are being used to mold its opinions and habits. If the public is better informed about the processes of its own life, it will be so much the more receptive to reasonable appeals to its own interests. No matter how sophisticated, how cynical the public may become about publicity methods, it must respond to the basic appeals, because it will always need food, crave amusement, long for beauty, respond to leadership.

If the public becomes more intelligent in its commercial demands, commercial firms will meet the new standards. If it becomes weary of the old methods used to persuade it to accept a given idea or commodity, its leaders will present their appeals more intelligently.

Propaganda will never die out. Intelligent men must realize that propaganda is the modern instrument by which they can fight for productive ends and help to bring order out of chaos.

American Tobacco Company - il primo vero e proprio evento mediatico della storia - con la marcia femminile a New York per il diritto a fumare in pubblico consistette nell'associare visivamente la sigaretta e i diritti o la libertà della donna. Questa campagna fece aumentare le vendite a tal punto che la società Philip Morris riprese più tardi questa idea per gli uomini, lanciando la figura del famoso cow-boy Marlboro.
Fra le altre campagne portate avanti da Bernays figura quella della prima guerra mondiale, condotta assieme a Lippman, su commissione del presidente degli Stati Uniti, Woodrow Wilson, tesa a spingere l'opinione pubblica ad accettare l'ingresso in guerra a fianco della Gran Bretagna. Sei mesi di campagna propagandistica condussero ad un'isteria anti-tedesca così intensa da impressionare permanentemente il mondo degli affari statunitense (ma anche Adolf Hitler, tra gli altri) per la capacità di controllare l'opinione pubblica su larga scala.
Per la prima metà del XX secolo, gli stessi Bernays e Lippman diressero un'azienda di pubbliche relazioni di grande successo.

MECCANISMI DI CONDIZIONAMENTO DEI MEDIACondividi

Mer alle 11.12

Lo “Spin doctor”

“Spin” è un particolare effetto che si dà alla palla del baseball per imprimerle la traiettoria voluta. “Spin doctor” dunque è il “dottore del raggiro” il “manipolatore di opinioni”; è un consulente politico esperto di comunicazioni, detto in maniera molto generica “consigliere”.[1]

Edward Bernays (Vienna, 22 novembre 1892 – Cambridge, 9 marzo 1995) - Fu uno dei primi “Spin doctor” (assieme a Walter Lippman di cui parleremo più avanti).

Di genitori ebrei, padre delle “pubbliche relazioni”, Bernays era psicologo e nipote di Freud di cui assimilò molti insegnamenti. Nella sua lunga vita (103 anni) è stato tra le cento persone più influenti del XX secolo nel mondo. “Combinando le idee di Gustave Le Bon (autore del libro Psicologia delle folle) e Wilfred Trotter, studioso del medesimo argomento, con le teorie sulla psicologia elaborate dallo zio S. Freud[2], Bernays è stato uno dei primi a vendere dei metodi per utilizzare la psicologia del subcosciente al fine di manipolare l'opinione pubblica”.[3]

Nel 1928 Bernays pubblicò l’importante libro “Propaganda” dove divulgava il concetto di pubblicità legato alla manipolazione dell’inconscio. Trasportando la “Propaganda” in chiave politica (va letto in questa chiave infatti) nasceva la consapevolezza che chi è in grado di usare questa modalità può avere un potere invisibile capace di guidare le nazioni.[4]

Anche oggi questo modello è la bandiera-guida delle lobby politiche che decidono il futuro del mondo. E’ solo un poco più sofisticato.

Il lavoro di Bernays consisteva nel dare un nuovo significato ad un soggetto per creare quell'immagine desiderata che avrebbe poi dato a quel particolare prodotto o concetto il livello di accettazione voluto. Bernays descriveva il pubblico come "un gregge che ha bisogno di venire guidato". E questo pensare del gregge rende la gente "ben disposta verso la classe dirigente." Bernays fu sempre fedele al suo assioma fondamentale: "controlla le masse senza che esse lo sappiano". Le pubbliche relazioni riscontrano i loro miglior successi con la gente quando non sa che sta venendo manipolata. [5]

Alcuni “frutti” delle manipolazioni di Bernays:

1) Per far vendere più sigarette alle ditte di tabacco, collegò la crociata (giusta) della donna che si deve emarginare, all’immagine (falsa) della donna già “emancipata” che fuma in pubblico. Lo fece così bene che le due immagini si sommarono ed a partire dagli anni 1929 “emancipazione femminile” significò per le persone comuni “donna-che-fuma-in-pubblico”. “Senza che nessuno si opponesse, progettò il modello pubblicitario con l'AMA (Associazione dei medici Americana) che durò quasi 50 anni, dimostrando come vero il fatto che le sigarette facciano bene alla salute. Basta guardare le pubblicità nelle pubblicazioni di Life o del Time dagli anni 40 agli anni 50”[6]. Immaginate gli interessi miliardari dietro questo giro (e l’incremento dei tumori).

2) Con un’altra campagna mediatica inventò e convinse gli americani che era bene mangiare il becon[7] a colazione. Questa fu probabilmente una delle cause di obesità negli USA.

3) Elaborò il concetto (ripreso poi da Gebbels per la propaganda hitleriana sulla razza ariana) che ripetendo continuamente un’affermazione (anche falsa) questa diviene poi per il popolo la verità.[8]

4) Per Bernays “convincere a comprare un’auto o far eleggere il Presidente” era lo stesso. Assieme a Lippman fece una cosa che ha dell’incredibile e che ci deve far riflettere molto seriamente; ascoltate:

Nel 1916 mentre in Europa c’era la prima guerra mondiale, in America era Presidente Woodrow Wilson, che fu eletto sulla base di un programma pacifista chiamato “Pace senza vittoria”; la popolazione americana che a quel tempo era pacifista e lo elesse subito. In realtà Wilson era un interventista, ma non poteva dirlo per non tradire il suo programma. Cosa fece allora Wilson? Costituì la prima e forse unica “agenzia per la propaganda dello Stato” la commissione Creel, che viene incaricata niente meno che di trasformare in sei mesi “un popolo di pacifisti in fanatici guerrafondai” “… La Commissione mirava a controllare il pensiero dei membri più intelligenti della comunità statunitense (gli opinion leader), che avrebbero poi diffuso la propaganda e convertito un paese all'isteria della guerra. Funzionò tutto perfettamente, e fu una lezione: la propaganda di Stato, quando è appoggiata dalle classi colte e non lascia spazio al dissenso, può avere un effetto dirompente”[9].

Con lo slogan “Rendere il mondo sicuro per la democrazia”[10] la campagna ebbe un successone. L’America partecipò così alla prima guerra, cominciando ad assumere il ruolo di leadership mondiale.

«Il libro “Propaganda” di Bernays esce nel 1925 e comincia spiegando la lezione della Grande Guerra. Il sistema istituito durante la guerra, e il lavoro della Commissione Creel, dimostrano, scrive, che è possibile "irreggimentare la mente del pubblico così come l'esercito irreggimenta il corpo." Queste nuove tecniche d'"irreggimentazione" delle menti, prosegue, sono a disposizione della minoranza intelligente per assicurarsi che i bifolchi restino al loro posto. Edward Bernays giunge fino a teorizzare la “ingegneria del consenso”, che descrive come l'essenza della democrazia. Le persone che sanno fabbricare il consenso sono quelle che possiedono le risorse e il potere per farlo (la comunità degli affari). (Noam Chomsky)»[11]

Fonte: http://www.ilritorno.it/fare%20e%20pensare/Pensare/4_condizion-media-2.htm

[1] Spiegazioni tratte da wikipedia

[2] Approfondimmo già questo argomento nel Ritorno Ottobre 2005 - n.3//II (alla pag.9)

[3] Da wikipedia

[4] « Coloro che hanno in mano questo meccanismo [...] costituiscono [...] il vero potere esecutivo del paese. Noi siamo dominati, la nostra mente plasmata, i nostri gusti formati, le nostre idee suggerite, da gente di cui non abbiamo mai sentito parlare. [...] Sono loro che manovrano i fili...» da “Propaganda” – (wikipedia)

[5] Tratto da medicinenon.it/propaganda1.htm

[6] Tratto da medicinenon.it/propaganda1.htm

[7] ll bacon è la pancetta di maiale la quale subisce il processo di cottura a vapore e successivamente di affumicatura.

[8] Questa importante diabolica tecnica della ripetizione martellante fu ripresa poi da uno dei suoi ammiratori: Josef Goebbels, il famigerato ministro della propaganda di Hitler, il quale si basò proprio sulle idee di Bernays per convincere i tedeschi della purezza della razza ariana! Oggi come potrete constatare è la base di ogni pubblicità e di moltissime campagne di stampa.

[9] Notizie tratte da http://www.comunicazione.uniroma1.it/materiali/18.58.00_commissione%20creel.ppt della facoltà delle scienze della comunicazione dell’università di Roma

[10] Fate una sosta: riflettete MOLTO bene! Quante volte sentiamo anche oggi dai nostri governanti frasi simili che per “difendere” la democrazia nel mondo ci spingono invece alla guerra? Pensateci. La democrazia non si impone con le cannonate!

[11] Notizie tratte da http://www.comunicazione.uniroma1.it/materiali/18.58.00_commissione%20creel.ppt della facoltà delle scienze della comunicazione dell’università di Roma

Tecniche di produzione della propaganda [modifica]

bambini della revolución sandinista (Nicaragua)Numerose tecniche vengono usate per creare messaggi falsi ma persuasivi. In molte di queste tecniche si possono trovare anche falle logiche, in quanto i propagandisti usano argomenti che, anche se a volte convincenti, non sono necessariamente validi.

Del tempo è stato speso per analizzare i mezzi con cui vengono trasmessi i messaggi propagandistici, e questo lavoro è importante, ma è chiaro che le strategie di disseminazione dell'informazione diventano strategie di diffusione della propaganda solo quando sono accoppiate a messaggi propagandistici. Identificare questi messaggi è un prerequisito necessario per studiare i metodi con cui questi vengono diffusi. Ecco perché è essenziale avere qualche conoscenza delle seguenti tecniche di produzione della propaganda:

Ricorso alla paura: Il ricorso alla paura cerca di costruire il supporto instillando paura nella popolazione. Per esempio Joseph Goebbels sfruttò la frase I tedeschi devono morire!, di Theodore Kaufman, per sostenere che gli alleati cercavano la distruzione del popolo tedesco.

Ricorso all'autorità: Il ricorso all'autorità cita prominenti figure per supportare una posizione, idea, argomento o corso d'azione.

Effetto gregge: L'effetto gregge o l'appello alla "vittoria inevitabile" cercano di persuadere il pubblico a prendere una certa strada perché "tutti gli altri lo stanno facendo", "unisciti alla massa". Questa tecnica rafforza il naturale desiderio della gente di essere dalla parte dei vincitori. Viene usata per convincere il pubblico che un programma è espressione di un irresistibile movimento di massa e che è nel loro interesse unirsi. La "vittoria inevitabile" invita quelli non ancora nel gregge ad unirsi a quelli che sono già sulla strada di una vittoria certa. Coloro che sono già (o lo sono parzialmente) nel gregge sono rassicurati che restarci è la cosa migliore da farsi.

Ottenere disapprovazione: Questa tecnica viene usata per portare il pubblico a disapprovare un'azione o un'idea suggerendo che questa sia popolare in gruppi odiati, temuti o tenuti in scarsa considerazione dal pubblico di riferimento. Quindi, se un gruppo che sostiene una certa politica viene indotto a pensare che anche persone indesiderabili o sovversive lo appoggiano, i membri di tale gruppo possono decidere di cambiare la loro posizione.

Banalità scintillanti: Le "banalità scintillanti" sono parole con un'intensa carica emotiva, così strettamente associate a concetti o credenze di alto valore, che portano convinzione senza supportare informazione o ragionamento. Esse richiamano emozioni come l'amore per la patria, la casa, il desiderio di pace, la libertà, la gloria, l'onore, ecc. Chiedono approvazione senza esaminare la ragione. Anche se le parole o le frasi sono vaghe e suggeriscono cose differenti a persone differenti, la loro connotazione è sempre favorevole: "I concetti e i programmi dei propagandisti sono sempre, buoni, auspicabili e virtuosi".

Razionalizzazione: Individui o gruppi possono usare generalizzazioni favorevoli per razionalizzare atti o credenze. Frasi vaghe e piacevoli sono spesso usate per giustificare tali atti o credenze.

Vaghezza intenzionale: le generalizzazioni sono sempre vaghe, in modo che il pubblico possa fornire la propria interpretazione. L'intenzione è quella di muovere il pubblico tramite l'uso di frasi indefinite, senza analizzare la loro validità o tentare di determinare la loro ragionevolezza o applicabilità.

Transfer: Questa è una tecnica di proiezione di qualità positive o negative (lodare o condannare) di una persona, entità oggetto o valore (un individuo, gruppo, organizzazione, nazione, il patriottismo, ecc.) ad un altro soggetto per rendere quest'ultimo più accettabile o per screditarlo. Questa tecnica viene generalmente usata per trasferire il biasimo da un attore del conflitto all'altro. Evoca una risposta emozionale che stimola il pubblico ad identificarsi con l'autorità riconosciuta.

Ipersemplificazione: generalizzazioni favorevoli sono utilizzate per fornire risposte semplici a problemi sociali complessi, politici, economici o militari.

Uomo comune: L'approccio dell'"uomo comune" tenta di convincere il pubblico che le posizioni del propagandista riflettano il senso comune della gente. Viene designato per vincere la confidenza del pubblico comunicando nel suo stesso stile. I propagandisti usano un linguaggio e un modo di fare ordinari (e anche gli abiti nelle comunicazioni faccia a faccia o audiovisive) nel tentativo di identificare il loro punto di vista con quello della persona media.

Testimonianza: Le testimonianze sono citazioni, dentro o fuori contesto, dette specificamente per supportare o rigettare una data politica, azione, programma o personalità. La reputazione e il ruolo (esperto, figura pubblica rispettata, ecc.) dell'individuo che rilascia la dichiarazione vengono sfruttati. La testimonianza pone la sanzione ufficiale di una persona rispettata o di un'autorità sul messaggio propagandistico. Questo viene fatto in un tentativo di far sì che il pubblico si identifichi con l'autorità o che accetti le opinioni e le convinzioni dell'autorità come se fossero sue.

Stereotipizzazione o Etichettatura: Questa tecnica tenta di far sorgere pregiudizi nel pubblico etichettando l'oggetto della campagna propagandistica come qualcosa che la gente teme, odia, evita o trova indesiderabile.

Individuare il Capro espiatorio: Colpevolizzare un individuo o un gruppo che non è realmente responsabile, alleviando quindi i sentimenti di colpa delle parti responsabili o distraendo l'attenzione dal bisogno di risolvere il problema per il quale la colpa è stata assegnata.

Parole virtuose: Sono parole appartenenti al sistema di valori del pubblico, che tendono a produrre un'immagine positiva quando riferite ad una persona o ad un soggetto. Pace, felicità, sicurezza, guida saggia, libertà, ecc., sono parole virtuose.

Slogan: Uno slogan è una breve frase ad effetto che può includere la stereotipizzazione o l'etichettatura.

Modello di propaganda

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Il modello di propaganda è una teoria avanzata da Edward S. Herman e Noam Chomsky che tenta di spiegare la presunta distorsione dei mass media (media bias) in termini di cause economiche strutturali.

Presentata per la prima volta nel libro La fabbrica del consenso (Manufacturing Consent: the Political Economy of the Mass Media), la teoria vede i media come delle imprese che vendono un prodotto (lettori e pubblico piuttosto che notizie) ad altre imprese (gli inserzionisti pubblicitari). La teoria postula cinque "filtri" che determinano il tipo di notizie che vengono alla fine pubblicate, e che sono:

la proprietà

gli introiti (funding)

le fonti di notizie (sourcing)

la reazione negativa (flak)

l'ideologia (quella prima anticomunista e poi antiterrorista nel caso dei media americani).

I primi tre filtri sono i più importanti.

Sebbene il modello fosse basato principalmente sui media degli USA, Chomsky e Herman credono che la teoria sia applicabile a tutti i paesi che condividono la struttura economica di base che il modello postula come causa della distorsione dei media.

Herman e Chomsky sostengono che siccome tutti i media dominanti sono grandi corporation che fanno a loro volta parte di conglomerati (conglomerates) più grandi, come Westinghouse o General Electric, che si estendono oltre i settori tradizionali dei media, queste aziende hanno forti interessi che potrebbero venire influenzati sfavorevolmente se alcune informazioni venissero divulgate. Secondo questo ragionamento, c'è da aspettarsi che le notizie che vanno in conflitto con gli interessi di coloro che posseggono il mezzo di comunicazione, vengano distorte.

Gli autori sostengono che l'importanza del filtro proprietà è dovuta al fatto che le corporazioni sono soggette al controllo degli azionisti nel contesto di una economia di mercato orientata al profitto. Chomsky e Herman osservano:

Se i manager non riescono a portare avanti azioni che favoriscano il guadagno degli azionisti, gli investitori istituzionali saranno portati a vendere azioni (facendone abbassare il prezzo), o ad essere in sintonia con terzi che ne stiano valutando l'acquisto (p. 11).

Da ciò segue che nei casi in cui massimizzare il profitto significhi sacrificare l'obiettività delle notizie, le notizie che alla fine verranno pubblicate saranno fondamentalmente distorte, qualora su queste i manager avessero un conflitto di interessi.

Osserva Herman, intervistato da David Ross:

Ne “La fabbrica del consenso”, originariamente pubblicato nel 1988 ma rivisto nel 2002, mettiamo in evidenza gli interessi di coloro che controllano 25 delle più grosse corporazioni mediatiche. In mezzo alla tabella c’è il New York Times, proprietà della famiglia Sulzberger. Al tempo, le loro azioni valevano mezzo miliardo di dollari. Adesso valgono probabilmente intorno a 1,2 miliardi di dollari. Stiamo parlando perciò di persone molto ricche facenti parte dell’establishment corporativo. L’idea secondo cui queste persone lascerebbero che i propri strumenti facciano qualcosa che potrebbe risultare contrario agli interessi della comunità corporativa è senza senso.

Gli introiti [modifica]

Gli autori sostengono anche che i media di maggiore diffusione dipendono pesantemente dagli introiti pubblicitari per sopravvivere. Un giornale come il New York Times, per esempio, deriva il 75% dei suoi ricavi dalla pubblicità. I giornali in generale ricevono in media il 70 percento dei loro introiti dalla pubblicità, la televisione il 95%. Tutte le stazioni televisive e tutti i network hanno persone che vanno in giro per cercare di vendere i loro programmi alle aziende. Le devono convincere dei meriti dei programmi in cui le aziende vogliono reclamizzare.

Gli autori suggeriscono che questo filtro si capisca meglio collocandolo in un tradizionale contesto di business. Sostengono che un giornale, come qualunque altra azienda, ha un prodotto che offre al suo pubblico (o clientela). In questo caso, tuttavia, il prodotto è composto dai lettori ricchi (affluent) che comprano il giornale — consistenti anche nel settore istruito della popolazione che ha potere decisionale — mentre i clienti comprendono le imprese che pagano per reclamizzare i loro prodotti. Secondo questo "filtro", le notizie stesse non sono nient'altro che un "riempitivo" per far sì che lettori privilegiati vedano le pubblicità che costituiscono il vero contenuto, e che quindi avrà la forma che più si adatta ad attrarre popolazione istruita con potere decisionale. Le storie che vadano in conflitto col loro "carattere di acquirenti" , si sostiene, tenderanno ad essere marginalizzate o escluse, come anche informazioni che presentino una visione del mondo contrastante con gli interessi dei pubblicitari.

La teoria sostiene che coloro che acquistano il giornale sono a loro volta il prodotto che viene venduto alle imprese che acquistano spazi pubblicitari; il giornale in sé ha solo marginalmente il ruolo di prodotto.

Osserva Herman, intervistato da David Ross:

Le aziende [...] non solo vogliono una larga audience, vogliono anche un’audience d’elite – più soldi l’audience ha e meglio è. Non vogliono disturbare l’audience. Vogliono ciò che si definisce “un ambiente favorevole alla vendita” dei propri prodotti. Per cui c’è bisogno di competere per le aziende, e queste sono la principale fonte di finanziamento. Non c’è dubbio che le aziende influenzano ciò che fanno i media. Non interferiscono in continuazione. Non telefonano ai media per richiamarli all’ordine; non funziona così. La loro principale influenza deriva dal fatto che i media devono competere per loro, e i media devono convincere le aziende che i loro programmi soddisfano i loro bisogni.

Alcune aziende praticamente dettano condizioni specifiche sui programmi. Per esempio, Procter and Gamble, uno dei più grossi acquirenti di pubblicità, ha una regola pubblicitaria scritta. L’azienda non favorisce programmi che insultano le forze armate o che insinuano che la comunità imprenditoriale non sia una comunità benevola e spirituale. L’eccellente libro di Ben Bagdikian, “The Media Monopoly”’, cita direttamente Procter and Gamble. Egli mostra inoltre come certe aziende forniscono indicazioni dicendo che reclamizzeranno soltanto in quei media che si confanno a “certi standard”, standard che in realtà sono di natura politica.

Per cui, se sei un giornale di sinistra, se veramente hai un messaggio che va a disturbare la comunità imprenditoriale, nessuno ti comprerà spazi pubblicitari. Questo filtro delimita i media che potranno ricevere contratti pubblicitari, e perciò, chi potrà permettersi di spendere un sacco di soldi per produrre programmi di buona qualità. Questo filtro ha effetto anche sulla programmazione e nella cernita di notizie in quanto i media non vogliono offendere e far così scappare le aziende.

Le fonti di notizie [modifica]

Il terzo filtro sostiene che i mass media hanno bisogno di un flusso costante di informazioni per soddisfare la loro richiesta giornaliera di notizie. In un'economia industrializzata, dove i consumatori richiedono informazioni su molteplici eventi globali, essi sostengono che questo compito può essere assolto solo dai settori finanziari e del governo, che possiedono le necessarie risorse materiali. Questi comprendono principalmente Il Pentagono e altri enti governativi. Chomsky e Herman sostengono quindi che tra i media e le parti del governo sorge una "relazione simbiotica", sostenuta da necessità economiche e reciprocità di interessi. D'altra parte, governo e promotori di notizie tentano di rendere più semplice per gli organi di informazione, l'acquisto dei loro servizi; secondo gli autori (p. 22), essi

li forniscono di centri in cui riunirsi

danno in anticipo ai giornalisti copie di discorsi o di rapporti futuri

programmano le conferenze stampa in ore adatte alle scadenze dei notiziari

scrivono lanci stampa in un linguaggio sfruttabile

organizzano attentamente le loro conferenze stampa e sessioni fotografiche

D'altra parte i media diventano riluttanti a pubblicare articoli che potrebbero danneggiare gli interessi corporativi che forniscono loro le risorse dalle quali dipendono: È molto difficile dare del bugiardo alle autorità da cui si dipende, anche se mentono spudoratamente. (p. 22)

La complessità di questa presunta relazione dà anche origine ad una "divisione morale del lavoro", in cui "i funzionari sono coloro che possiedono e forniscono i fatti", mentre i "reporter hanno il mero compito di riceverli da loro". Si suppone quindi che i giornalisti adottino un atteggiamento acritico in modo da accettare i valori corporativi senza sperimentare la dissonanza cognitiva.

La risposta negativa [modifica]

Il termine "flak" (fuoco contraereo) è stato usato dagli autori per definire quegli sforzi mirati a screditare organizzazioni e individui che siano in disaccordo (o sollevino dubbi) con le assunzioni prevalenti, favorevoli al potere costituito. Mentre i primi tre fattori "filtranti" sono una conseguenza dei meccanismi del mercato, il flak è caratterizzato da sforzi concertati ed intenzionali per gestire l'informazione pubblica.

L'ideologia (sostitutiva dell'anticomunismo) [modifica]

I sostenitori del modello di propaganda di Chomsky e Herman sostengono che, con la disgregazione dell'Unione Sovietica, si sia necessariamente persa l'enfasi principale del "sistema propagandistico", in questo caso l'anticomunismo, ed abbia bisogno di un sostituto. Chomsky e Herman sostengono che un possibile sostituto per l'ideologia centrale dell'anticomunismo sembra essere emerso nella forma di "anti-terrorismo", dove "terrorismo" viene grossolanamente definito come qualsiasi opposizione alla politica estera degli Stati Uniti.

Sintesi [modifica]

Gli autori riassumono quindi così la loro teoria: "Un modello di propaganda plausibile può basarsi inizialmente su assunzioni guidate su un mercato libero non particolarmente controverse. Essenzialmente, i media privati sono grosse aziende che vendono un prodotto (lettori e spettatori) ad altre imprese (i pubblicitari). I media nazionali tipicamente hanno come target e servono le opinioni d'élite, gruppi che, da una parte forniscono un "profilo" ottimale per gli scopi dei pubblicitari, e dall'altra prendono parte al processo decisionale della sfera pubblica e privata. I media nazionali non riuscirebbero ad andare incontro ai bisogni del loro pubblico elitario se non presentassero un ritratto tollerabilmente realistico del mondo. Ma il loro "scopo societario" richiede anche che i media riflettano gli interessi e le preoccupazioni dei venditori, dei compratori, e delle istituzioni governative e private dominate da questi gruppi (p. 303)."

Riscontri empirici [modifica]

Nel libro La fabbrica del consenso (Manufacturing Consent) all'esposizione teorica del modello segue un'ampia sezione nella quale gli autori testano la validità del modello verificandone la veridicità in casi specifici. Si aspettano cioè che se il modello è corretto e i filtri influenzano davvero il contenuto dei media, allora i media mostreranno di essere parziali, favorendo sistematicamente gli interessi delle corporazioni.

Noam Chomsky disse, "Il primo modo in cui abbiamo messo alla prova il modello ne La Fabbrica del Consenso è stato di sottoporlo alla prova più dura: lasciamo scegliere il terreno di confronto agli oppositori del modello. [...] Abbiamo cioè verificato che modello fosse valido proprio per quegli esempi che gli avversari hanno scelto a sostegno della propria tesi" Perciò il libro studia proprio gli esempi considerati come paradigmatici dell'indipendenza della stampa, come la guerra nel Vietnam, il Watergate, e l'Irangate, e contesta che questi esempi confermano il modello.

Guardarono inoltre a quelli che essi percepivano come "gruppi di controllo storici", riscontrabili naturalmente, nei quali due eventi, simili nelle loro proprietà rilevanti ma differenti nell'attitudine aspettata dai media verso di essi, sono messi in contrasto utilizzando misure obiettive come la copertura di eventi chiave (misurati in pollici di colonna) o editoriali che favorivano una particolare questione (misurati in numero).

Alla fine, gli autori esaminano quali punti di vista credano siano espressi nei media. In un caso, gli autori hanno esaminato più di cinquanta degli articoli di Stephen Kinzer sul Nicaragua nel New York Times. Mostrano che Kinzer non riesce a menzionare una sola persona in Nicaragua che sia pro-sandinista e contestano tale esposizione con i sondaggi che riportano un supporto complessivo del 9% per tutte le parti dell'opposizione. Basandosi su questo esempio e altri selezionati, gli autori concludono che questa parzialità persistente può solo essere spiegata con un modello come quello che propongono. ("[Sono solo] il 9% della popolazione ma hanno il 100% di Stephen Kinser," sentenzia Chomsky.)

Conclude Chomsky: "abbiamo studiato una grande quantità di casi, da ogni punto di vista metodologico che siamo stati in grado di pensare, e tutti supportano il modello di propaganda. E da ora ci sono migliaia di pagine di materiale simile che conferma la tesi in libri ed articoli anche di altre persone. Difatti, azzarderei dire che il modello di propaganda è una delle tesi meglio confermate delle scienze sociali. In realtà, che io sappia, non c'è stata alcuna seria contro-discussione di questa tesi."

Uso della teoria [modifica]

Dalla pubblicazione di Manufacturing Consent, sia Herman che Chomsky hanno adottato la teoria e le hanno assegnato un ruolo prominente nei loro scritti. In particolare Chomsky ne ha fatto un uso estensivo per tener conto delle attitudini dei media verso un ampio raggio di eventi, come la guerra del Golfo (1990), l'invasione di Panama (1989) e l'invasione dell'Iraq (2003). Herman, cercando di far stabilire una entità con mandato istituzionale per analizzare il funzionamento dei media, si associò al Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR, imparzialità e accuratezza nel riportare le notizie), che ha criticato e tentato di documentare le parzialità e le censura dei media dal 1986.

Con l'emergere del World Wide Web come mezzo di comunicazione economico ma potenzialmente di largo raggio, sono sorti un numero di siti web indipendenti che adottano il modello di propaganda per osservare da vicino i media. Probabilmente il più consistente e serio di questi è MediaLens, un sito basato nel Regno Unito, di David Edwards e David Cromwell.

Controllo di applicabilità in altri paesi [modifica]

Sull' applicabilità del modello a sistemi mediatici di altri paesi Chomsky ha questo da dire:

Raramente è stato fatto in maniera anche solo vagamente sistematica. C'è uno studio sui media britannici, da un buon gruppo media di Glasgow. Interessante un lavoro sulla copertura del British Central America, compiuto da Mark Curtis nel suo libro Ambiguità del Potere. È stato fatto del lavoro sulla Francia, soprattutto in Belgio, ed inoltre un libro recente di Serge Halimi (editore di Le Monde diplomatique). C'è uno studio minuzioso di uno studente danese, che applica i metodi che Ed Herman ha utilizzato nello studiare le reazioni dei media degli Stati Uniti alle elezioni (El Salvador, Nicaragua) a 14 dei maggiori giornali europei. [...] Risultati interessanti. Discussi un po' (insieme ad altri) in una nota nel capitolo 5 del mio libro Deterring Democracy [1]