One must try to find out what they are in any situation in which one is working. The public’s attitudes, ideas, presumptions or prejudices result from definite influences.Bernays recommends World Almanac with lists of thousands of associations across the United States – a cross-section of the country.The engineer of consent must be powerfully equipped with facts, with truths, with evidence before he shows himself before a public.As in physical engineering, a feasibility study must be done and a budget drawn up.
#Edward bernays engineering of consent quotes professional#
The public relations counsel has the professional responsibility to push only those ideas that he can respect, and not to promote causes or accept assignments for clients he considers anti-social. It must be remembered of course that good will, the basis of lasting adjustment, can be preserved in the long run, only by those whose actions warrant it.The chief function is to analyze objectively and realistically the position of its client vis-a-vis a public, and to advise as to the necessary corrections in its client’s attitudes towards and approaches to that public.The engineering of consent often does supplement the educational process. Under no circumstances should the engineering of consent supersede or displace the educational system, either formal or informal, in bringing about understanding by the people as the basis for their actions.The freedoms of press, speech, petition and assembly, the freedoms which make the engineering of consent possible, are among the most cherished guarantees in the Constitution of the United States.With the aid of technicians in the field who have specialized in utilizing the channels of communications, have been able to achieve purposefully and scientifically what we have termed "the engineering of consent".Today’s leaders have become more remote physically from the public, yet, at the same time, the public has much greater familiarity with these leaders through the system of modern communications.Increased influence of mass media is due to widespread and enormously rapid diffusion of literacy.There are two divisions in media: commercial and organized group information systems.The United States has become a small room where a single whisper is magnified thousands of times.The author's observations in the essay include the following: The essay first appeared in the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. Marketing is often based on themes and symbols that unconsciously influence consumer behavior. To some observers, consumer psychologists have already made the choice for people before they buy a certain product. Were the manipulated voter to become the normal voter, the government he supports could hardly be said to rest on his consent in any traditional sense of that word. Consent that is thus engineered is difficult to distinguish in any fundamental way from the consent that supports modern totalitarian governments. The threat of engineered consent in democracy has been expressed in a textbook on American government: Under modern conditions of political advertising and manipulation, it has become possible to talk of the engineering of consent by an elite of experts and professional politicians. Their dispassionate approach and methods may be likened to those of the engineering professions which stem from the physical sciences." In his own words, Bernays describes engineering consent as "use of an engineering approach-that is, action based only on thorough knowledge of the situation and on the application of scientific principles and tried practices to the task of getting people to support ideas and programs." īernays explained, "Professionally, activities are planned and executed by trained practitioners in accordance with scientific principles, based on the findings of social scientists.