The father of American Propaganda

[Myra Bronstein]

I don't think the propaganda subforum would be complete without a brief mention of the man who literally wrote the book (Propaganda, 1929), and whom I discovered only recently while browsing the net.

Edward Louis Bernays (!892-1995) was the nephew of Freud and used Freudian psychoanalytic techniques to mould public opinion at the time of nascent mass communication in America. In fact, he stated that a necessary feature of any democracy was the manipulation of public opinion by a select few.

His campaigns were audacious and brilliant. The Youtube clip is part of the excellent 2002 BBC doco 'The Century of Self" by Adam Curtis, dealing with Bernays' life. Note the ingenious way he transformed a taboo on women smoking in the 1920's into a generation of newly "liberated" women smokers:


http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZYTrFokPH...re=related


The king of spin. It's a little scary seeing how we've been manipulated like sheep for so long.

Great find Mark; thank you.
I've been wanting to read Bernays' book ever since I got interested in the subject.

Very interesting about the women "liberated" to die from smoking.
I've long wondered how much of the woman's lib movement in the US, pertaining specifically to the workplace, was preparing Americans for the fact that within a couple of generations households would need two paychecks to (barely) scrape by.

Hey, I happened to stumble across this website yesterday on "propaganda and espionage philately" (I had to look it up so you have to look it up :p): http://www.psywar.org/stamps.php

Now there's a category of propaganda I hadn't paused to think about. Of course people like Karl Rove and Frank Luntz are probably familiar with every aspect.