Propaganda (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit

Write a ridiculously simplified synopsis.

Quotes edit see section history

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

• “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 his opinion and judgement.”

• “It is understood that the methods of propoganda can be effective only with the voter who makes up his own mind on the basis of his group prejudices and desires.”

• “propoganda is simply the establishing of reciprocal understanding between an individual and a group”

• “There is hardly a single item in any daily paper, the publication of which does not, or might not, profit or injure somebody.”

• “The American motion picture is the greatest unconscious carrier of propoganda in the world today. 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.”

• “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.”

• Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers

• 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.

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• 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.

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• The world informed by 'public relations' will be but 'a smoothly functioning society,' where all of us are guided imperceptibly throughout our lives by a benign elite of rational manipulators.

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• 'We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of.' These 'invisible governors' are a heroic elite, who coolly keep it all together, thereby 'organizing chaos,' as God did in the Beginning. '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.'

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• Human desires are the steam which makes the social machine work.

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• Lippmann had arrived at the bleak view that 'the democratic El Dorado' is impossible in modern mass society, whose members-by and large incapable of lucid thought or clear perception, driven by herd instincts and mere prejudice, and frequently disoriented by external stimuli-were not equipped to make decisions or engage in rational discourse.

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• Trotter and Le Bon concluded that the group mind does not think in the strict send 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.

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• If you can influence the leaders, either with or without their conscious cooperation, you automatically influence the group which they sway.

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• 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.

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• it was not until 1915 that governments first systematically deployed the entire range of modern media to rouse their populations to fanatical assent.

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Setting & Locations edit see section history

• America
• New York
• Paris
• United States

First Sentence edit see section history

Themes & Symbolism edit see section history

• psychology: Describe this theme.
• public relations
• consumerism
• economics
• politics
• sociology

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Edward L. Bernays (Author)

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
• Dewey: 303.375

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Nonfiction › Education › Education Theory › Contemporary Methods › Multicultural
• Books › Nonfiction › Current Events › Mass Media › Media Studies
• Books › Nonfiction › Social Sciences › Media Studies
• Books › Nonfiction › Social Sciences › Sociology
• Books › Nonfiction › Politics
• Books › Entertainment