Crystallizing Public Opinion (Original Classic Edition)

by Edward Bernays, Mitch Horowitz (Introduction)

Overview

A seminal work on how public opinion is created and shaped, Edward Bernays' 1923 classic Crystallizing Public Opinion set down the principles that corporations and government have used to influence public attitudes over the past century.

With his view that the public behaves like herds of animals, Bernays outlines how to control the masses in whatever way the influencer chooses. With a glimpse into the world of propaganda and advertising, he shows how ideas as different as eating bacon for breakfast and preferring women to be thin were put into our heads.

By adapting the ideas that Bernays put forth in this book, governments and advertisers have been able to "regiment the mind." Bernays' work explains a large part of the popularity of today's TV news shout-fest and angry social media posts. Bernays wrote, "crowds love a contest." This dynamic fuels the hostile and sarcastic comment chains that populate Twitter and Facebook and taps into what Bernays called "the ‘herd' point of view," which results in mass audiences, mass products and mass-media events.

Bernays was named as one of the 100 most influential Americans of the 20th Century by Life magazine. He counted among his clients the American Tobacco Company, several U.S. presidents and the opponents of the Guatemalan revolution.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781722502805
Publisher:	G&D Media
Publication date:	10/14/2019
Edition description:	Original
Pages:	234
Product dimensions:	4.90(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Edward Louis Bernays was an Austrian-American pioneer in the field of public relations and propaganda, referred to in his obituary as "the father of public relations". Bernays was named one of the 100 most influential Americans of the 20th century by Life.

A widely known voice of esoteric ideas, Mitch Horowitz is a writer-in-residence at the New York Public Library, lecturer-in-residence at the Philosophical Research Society in Los Angeles, and the PEN Award-winning author of books including Occult America; One Simple Idea: How Positive Thinking Reshaped Modern Life; and The Miracle Club: How Thoughts Become Reality. Mitch is the author of G&D Media's Napoleon Hill Success Course series, including The Miracle of a Definite Chief Aim; The Power of the Master Mind; and Secrets of Self-Mastery. Mitch also edits and narrates G&D's Condensed Classics series.

Table of Contents

Part I: Scope and Functions
I. The Scope of the Public Relations Counsel
II. The Public Relations Counsel; The Increased and Increasing Importance of the Profession
III. The Function of a Special Pleader 

Part II: The Group and Herd
I. What Constitutes Public Opinion
II. Is Public Opinion Stubborn or Malleable?
III. The Interaction of Public Opinion with the Forces that Help Make It 
IV. The Power of Interacting Forces that Go to Make up Public Opinion
V. An Understanding of the Fundamentals of Public Motivation is Necessary to the Work of the Public Relations Counsel
VI. The Group and Herd are the Basic Mechanisms of Public Change
VII. The Application of these Principles

Part III: Technique and Method
I. The Public Can be Reached Only Through Established Mediums of Communication  
II. The Interlapping Group Formations of Society, the Continuous Shifting of Groups, Changing Conditions, and the Flexibility of Human Nature are All Aids to the Counsel of Public Relations
III. An Outlining of Methods Practicable in Modifying the Point of View of a Group

Part IV: Ethical Relations
I. A Consideration of the Press and Other Mediums of Communication in Their Relation to the Public Relations Counsel
II. His Obligation to the Public as a Special Pleader