Edward Bernays – pioneer of PR #contentmarketing

This is fascinating. Dating from 2002, this first part of a four-part series (all currently on YouTube) centres on the work of Edward Bernays, the pioneer of Public Relations, propagandist and one of the originators of the consumer culture. For better or worse, Bernays achieved an enormous amount including his Torches of Freedom campaign that made smoking socially acceptable and even desirable for women, and inventing a communist plot in Guatemala to justify the overthrow of its government.

 “If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, is it not possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing about it? The recent practice of propaganda has proved that it is possible, at least up to a certain point and within certain limits.”