In Depth
Spin Cycles: a century of spin
Reporter's interview transcript: Stuart Ewen on Edward Bernays
January 19, 2007
CBC News
IB: Tell me where Edward Bernays fits in.
SE: Bernays first of all is the double nephew of Sigmund Freud . He was born in Vienna. He grew up with the unconscious as kind of dinner conversation. He also, because of this was somebody who was intrigued not just by Freudian theory but by a whole wide range of social-psych theories that emerged in the late 19th century and flowered in the period following. He was fascinated with the question of social-psych, not simply how the individual thinks but how the individual is part of a collectivity and how the collectivity thinks. On the one hand, he's influenced by his uncle Sigmund Freud, but he's also very taken with the ideas of Gustav Le Bon who wrote a book called The Crowd. He's influenced by a guy named Gabriel Tard who says that because of the nature of the modern media system, every conversation that takes place between people is following the grooves of borrowed thought-in certain ways part of what the modern media system does is that becomes a pat of private conversation in a way that it had never been before. This is something Bernays is thinking about. He's a student of the herd instinct. The need for people to feel like they belong to something larger than themselves so they aren't overcome with existential anxiety. So he was fascinated by a wide range of psychological theories and practices that were beginning to emerge within society and I think what his real contribution was to the development of PR in the 20th C was to transform PR from a fact-based, journalistic-based approach to getting the word out, even if those facts were disputable, to an approach that was really trying to reach people on a more subliminal level, trying to appeal to unconscious desires, fears. He really is in many ways the person who takes the idea of using symbols, which stir up emotions, issues, ideas that had been raised by other people, he puts them into practice on a day-in day-out basis.
IB: So Ivy Lee represented the first stage of public relations, based on information, and Bernays is the second stage based on symbols?
SE: Yes and I would say that even Ivy Lee, although he's no longer a major figure in PR by the 1920s-a whole new generation has become more influential but even IL in his public pronouncements starts talking about mass psychology and this becomes standard drill and rhetoric of the PR profession that it's really about using symbols in order to appeal to the emotional either unconscious or instinctual life of people and I'd say Bernays' contribution not only represents a next stage but in many ways he represents the triumphal stage that still defines a lot of public relations-political as well as commercial PR in the US. That is to say, rational argument and the presentation of information has become fugitive in public discourse. So Bernays' impact is not simply one that helps to shape the compliance professions of the 1920s, it helps to shape the political and public climate of the US unto the present.
EPISODE 1:
Reporter's interview transcripts
Program Audio
EPISODE 2:
Reporter's interview transcripts
Program Audio
EPISODE 3:
Reporter's interview transcripts
Program Audio
EPISODE 4:
Reporter's interview transcripts
Program Audio
EPISODE 5:
Reporter's interview transcripts
Program Audio
EPISODE 6:
Reporter's interview transcripts
Program Audio
RELATED
External Links - Episode 1
- PR Museum: Edward Bernays
- Online Readings: Ivy Lee
- Find Ivy Lee biography in a nearby library
- Univ. of Kentucky: Fraser Seitel
- Journal of Pub. Relations Research: Ludlow massacre
- SUBSOL, corporate spin: Stuart Ewen
- LarryTye.com
- IG Publishing: Propaganda
- PR Museum: Chet Burger
- Canadian Public Relations Society
(Note: CBC does not endorse and is not responsible for the content of external sites - links will open in new window)