Propaganda (1928) by Edward Bernays

Propaganda (1928) by Edward Bernays

Full text
http://www.historyisaweapon.org/defcon1/bernprop.html


We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of.

Propaganda will naturally make use of the authority of group leaders whose taste and opinion are recognized.

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.

Large groups, political, racial, sectarian, economic or professional, are tending to control stations to propagandize their points of view.

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.

 Another instrument of propaganda is the personality.
      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.

'The point of public relations slogans like 'Support our troops' is that they don't mean anything... That's the whole point of good propaganda. You want to create a slogan that nobody's going to be against, and everybody's going to be for. Nobody knows what it means, because it doesn't mean anything. Its crucial value is that it diverts your attention from a question that does mean something: Do you support our policy? That's the one you're not allowed to talk about.'—Noam Chomsky