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This Just In…
Bonus Online Tactics Commentary: Public relations — a manipulator or an agent for the public mind?
August 4, 2006
Copyright © 2006 PRSA. All rights reserved.
By Pete Abel
Many PR veterans will admit that at one point or another they´ve been slapped with a pejorative title: Spin doctor. Manipulator. Distortionist. They might debate the unfairness of those labels, but argument won´t change reality. To many, public relations is synonymous with propaganda — dressing up what people say to persuade others that they are good people with good ideas, even if they´re not.
Granted, propaganda does not require deception, but it does, by definition, require selective communication, emphasizing the good and de-emphasizing (or omitting) the not-so-good. And is that intrinsically wrong? No. In fact, it´s intrinsically human. From courtships to job interviews, we are wired to embellish image, an instinct that often contributes to the survival of our species. As Jim Carrey´s character in the movie ”Liar Liar“ discovered, if we disclosed all of our thoughts all of the time, we would succeed at nothing but offense and ridicule. Thus, filtering what, how, when and with whom we communicate is more wise than wily.
Problems start when selective communication is taken to an extreme, when it crosses the line between filtering and misrepresentation, prudence and lies. And nowhere is that risk more aptly illustrated than in the life of Edward Bernays, one of the “fathers” of modern public relations.
Bernays biographer Larry Tye offers a compelling portrait of this man who promoted cigarettes as “freedom torches” — symbols of women´s quest for equality — while he privately scolded his wife for smoking because he was concerned about the effects on her health. Whatever we make of Bernays´ ”walking contradiction,“ his case studies, books and speeches influenced our profession (hence, the “father” title) — defining our practice as ”the crystallizing of public opinion“ and ”the engineering of consent.“
To be fair, Bernays also suggested that honesty be a cornerstone of PR practice. But his lip service to integrity seems gratuitous when contrasted with the programs he designed, not to mention the balance of his spoken and published statements.
Consider these excerpts from one of his earliest books, ”Propaganda,“ first published in 1928: ”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 faction of our 120 million — who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses, who pull the wires which control the public mind, who harness old forces and contrive new ways to bind and guide the world.“ Translation: The PR practitioner is smarter than the public and, given this elevated intelligence, is rightly tasked with manipulating public opinion to help societies function in productive ways.
Now, before we condemn Bernays as arrogant, we should each check the realities of our own behavior, to be certain we are ”without sin.“ Few of us will be. We should also take a moment to understand the context in which Bernays articulated his philosophy.
Tye summarizes that context, reminding us that from the mid-1800´s through World War I, Europe and the United States struggled with the aftermath of the Industrial Revolution and the changes that came with it, including the spread of democracy, the expansion of modern capitalism, mass migration from farms to cities and greed-saturated scandals involving industry and government alike. In the midst of this chaos, some of the best-educated voices of the time outlined concerns about continued empowerment, rather than control, of ”the public mob,“ which they viewed as emotional, illogical and uneducated.
British poet and journalist Charles Mackay was among the first to articulate this anxiety in his 1841 book ”Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.“ Over the next half century, Mackay´s indictment of populist tendencies waxed rather than waned, reaching a pinnacle in 1895 when French sociologist and social psychologist Gustave Le Bon published ”The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind.“
Three decades later, Bernays moved beyond portraits of apprehension to prescriptions, outlining his vision of public relations as ”public control“ — a point of view that may be more predominant now than during the first half of the prior century.
Would leaders of our cultures, companies and governments admit that fear of the public mob motivates them? Probably not, although their actions frequently suggest otherwise. In both major U.S. political parties and across all industries, policy shapers prove their silent endorsement by funding campaigns wherein the objective is agreement with the funder´s position; wherein the ruling mindset equates ”the public will“ with ”risky venture,“ one that could compromise or destroy order.
That said, while Bernays and subsequent disciples may have accepted or even advocated manipulation of the public for its own good, theirs has not been the only platform for PR practice. Consider Arthur Page — the namesake of one of today´s PR-centered trade organizations; a Bernays contemporary; and a widely respected executive at the original AT&T.
In 1938, Page defined corporate public relations as ”the task which business has, and which it has always had, of fitting itself to the pattern of public desires“ — the opposite of Bernays´ admonition that business fit the pattern of public desires to its own. Even earlier, Page denounced (by implication) Bernays´ brand of ”cosmetic“ public relations, as excerpted by biographer Noel Griese: ”In discussing our public relations... I don´t want to make it appear that we are talking about a cloak, or a special method... I am not talking about stage management. I am... talking about character. The thing we are trying to do is to be the kind of employees who want to serve the public, who want to be friends with their neighbors.“
Unfortunately, by failing to challenge prejudicial attitudes of his white, southern lineage, Page did not go as far as he could have in his defiance of the elitism of early 20th century America. But he still deserves some deference for anticipating what James Surowiecki, more than 60 years later, coined ”the wisdom of crowds.“
In his 2004 book of the same title, Surowiecki offers a powerful refutation of Mackay, Le Bon and Bernays, giving evidence that there are, in fact, situations where the ”many are smarter than the few.“ In doing so, Surowiecki suggests that we and our leaders might better serve constituents if we relented to, rather than resisted, the crowd; if we molded our will to the public´s will, rather than the other way around.
A number of PR professionals will insist there is room and rationale for the paradigms of both Page and Bernays. They will point to the reality that Mackay was not entirely wrong. Sometimes, the crowd does lose its collective mind, forcing business, social and political leaders to fight fire with fire, to embrace their own propaganda as a counterbalance to the propaganda of misguided or misinformed voices.
The same PR professionals who defend situational use of propaganda might also remind us that, when counseling employers and clients, they advocate enlightened approaches that move beyond agreement to consider compromise and even collaboration with the public.
Both arguments are fair. But fairness does not eliminate the nagging question with which we started this discussion: Why is public relations, more often than not, perceived as a manipulator of, rather than an agent for, the public mind? Is that perception nothing more than a misperception? Or is it, at least in part, justified?
Do we err too often on the side of pushing the public to agree with our employers´, our clients´ and our own visions of world order? And, if we are guilty of persuasion-centric approaches to public relationships, are we willing to change? Are we capable of change? Given the opportunity, would we try to correct the imbalance and misperception and systematically seek, rather than occasionally concede to, the wisdom of crowds?
Now is the time — as our world evolves into a more global, complex and frightening place — for PR professionals to seriously consider these questions. If we don´t, the answers will be defined for us, without our input, in ways that could leave us standing alone, wondering what happened to the trade in which we have invested so much of our life´s work and creative energy.
Pete Abel is the senior PR executive at a St. Louis-based broadband services company, where he is responsible for government relations, media relations and employee communications. Previously, he was a senior partner at Fleishman-Hillard, where he consulted with multiple Fortune 500 clients.
The opinions voiced in our commentary section do no necessarily reflect those of Tactics and Strategist Online or the Public Relations Society of America.
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