Propaganda, Edward Bernays, 1928 - ch 9
CHAPTER IX
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PROPAGANDA IN SOCIAL SERVICE
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THE public relations counsel is necessary to social work. And
since social service, by its very nature, can continue only by means
of the voluntary support of the wealthy, it is obliged to use
propaganda continually. The leaders in social service were among the
first consciously to utilize propaganda in its modern sense.
The great enemy of any attempt to change men's habits is
inertia. Civilization is limited by inertia.
Our attitude toward social relations, toward economics, toward
national and international politics, continues past attitudes and
strengthens them under the force of tradition. Comstock drops his
mantle of proselytizing morality on the willing shoulders of a Sumner;
Penrose drops his mantle on Butler; Carnegie his on Schwab, and so ad
infinitum. Opposing this traditional acceptance of existing ideas is
an active public opinion that has been directed consciously into
movements against inertia. Public opinion was made or changed formerly
by tribal chiefs, by kings, by religious leaders. To-day the privilege
of attempting to sway public opinion is every one's. It is one of the
manifestations of democracy that any one may try to convince others
and to assume leadership on behalf of his own thesis.
New ideas, new precedents, are continually striving for a place
in the scheme of things.
The social settlement, the organized campaigns against
tuberculosis and cancer, the various research activities aiming
directly at the elimination of social diseases and maladjustments--a
multitude of altruistic activities which could be catalogued only in a
book of many pages--have need of knowledge of the public mind and mass
psychology if they are to achieve their aims. The literature on social
service publicity is so extensive, and the underlying principles so
fundamental, that only one example is necessary here to illustrate the
technique of social service propaganda.
A social service organization undertook to fight lynching, Jim
Crowism and the civil discriminations against the Negro below the
Mason and Dixon line.
The National Association for the Advancement of the Colored
People had the fight in hand. As a matter of technique they decided to
dramatize the year's campaign in an annual convention which would
concentrate attention on the problem.
Should it be held in the North, South, West or East? Since the
purpose was to affect the entire country, the association was advised
to hold it in the South. For, said the propagandist, a point of view
on a southern question, emanating from a southern center, would have
greater authority than the same point of view issuing from any other
locality, particularly when that point of view was at odds with the
traditional southern point of view. Atlanta was chosen.
The third step was to surround the conference with people who
were stereotypes for ideas that carried weight all over the country.
The support of leaders of diversified groups was sought. Telegrams and
letters were dispatched to leaders of religious, political, social and
educational groups, asking for their point of view on the purpose of
the conference. But in addition to these group leaders of national
standing it was particularly important from the technical standpoint
to secure the opinions of group leaders of the South, even from
Atlanta itself, to emphasize the purposes of the conference to the
entire public. There was one group in Atlanta which could be
approached. A group of ministers had been bold enough to come out for
a greater interracial amity. This group was approached and agreed to
cooperate in the conference.
The event ran off as scheduled. The program itself followed the
general scheme. Negroes and white men from the South, on the same
platform, expressed the same point of view.
A dramatic element was spot-lighted here and there. A national
leader from Massachusetts agreed in principle and in practice with a
Baptist preacher from the South.
If the radio had been in effect, the whole country might have
heard and been moved by the speeches and the principles expressed.
But the public read the words and the ideas in the press of the
country. For the event had been created of such important component
parts as to awaken interest throughout the country and to gain support
for its ideas even in the South.
The editorials in the southern press, reflecting the public
opinion of their communities, showed that the subject had become one
of interest to the editors because of the participation by southern
leaders.
The event naturally gave the Association itself substantial
weapons with which to appeal to an increasingly wider circle. Further
publicity was attained by mailing reports, letters, and other
propaganda to selected groups of the public.
As for the practical results, the immediate one was a change in
the minds of many southern editors who realized that the question at
issue was not only an emotional one, but also a discussable one; and
this point of view was immediately reflected to their readers. Further
results are hard to measure with a slide-rule. The conference had its
definite effect in building up the racial consciousness and solidarity
of the Negroes. The decline in lynching is very probably a result of
this and other efforts of the Association.
Many churches have made paid advertising and organized
propaganda part of their regular activities. They have developed
church advertising committees, which make use of the newspaper and the
billboard, as well as of the pamphlet. Many denominations maintain
their own periodicals. The Methodist Board of Publication and
Information systematically gives announcements and releases to the
press and the magazines.
But in a broader sense the very activities of social service are
propaganda activities. A campaign for the preservation of the teeth
seeks to alter people's habits in the direction of more frequent
brushing of teeth. A campaign for better parks seeks to alter people's
opinion in regard to the desirability of taxing themselves for the
purchase of park facilities. A campaign against tuberculosis is an
attempt to convince everybody that tuberculosis can be cured, that
persons with certain symptoms should immediately go to the doctor, and
the like. A campaign to lower the infant mortality rate is an effort
to alter the habits of mothers in regard to feeding, bathing and
caring for their babies. Social service, in fact, is identical with
propaganda in many cases.
Even those aspects of social service which are governmental and
administrative, rather than charitable and spontaneous, depend on wise
propaganda for their effectiveness. Professor Harry Elmer Barnes, in
his book, "The Evolution of Modern Penology in Pennsylvania," states
that improvements in penological administration in that state are
hampered by political influences. The legislature must be persuaded to
permit the utilization of the best methods of scientific penology, and
for this there is necessary the development of an enlightened public
opinion. "Until such a situation has been brought about," Mr. Barnes
states, "progress in penology is doomed to be sporadic, local, and
generally ineffective. The solution of prison problems, then, seems to
be fundamentally a problem of conscientious and scientific publicity."
Social progress is simply the progressive education and
enlightenment of the public mind in regard to its immediate and
distant social problems.
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