The Engineering of Consent
An eight-page essay by Edward L. Bernays in The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, March 1947.
What it is
An eight-page essay by Edward L. Bernays in The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, March 1947. He argues that free speech and a free press have added a right of persuasion to American life, and counts the machinery: almost 1,800 dailies with around 44,000,000 circulation, 2,000 radio stations, 60,000,000 receiving sets. He defines engineering of consent as action based on thorough knowledge of the situation and on scientific principles. The method runs in order: calculate resources, master the subject, set exact objectives, research the public and its group leaders, draw themes from that survey, organize, then plan tactics. The counsel must create news, events that jut out of routine, and write in simple language with sixteen-word sentences. Examples include George Creel's World War I committee, the Office of War Information and a Red Cross drive.
Why read it now
The planning sequence still works: resources, subject knowledge, exact objectives, research, then themes, organization and tactics. His note that a relief appeal for a specific country raises more than one for a whole continent fits later findings that concrete, specific appeals draw more giving, as in the identifiable-victim studies of Deborah Small, George Loewenstein and Paul Slovic. His advice to work through group leaders and opinion molders matches the two-step flow model of Paul Lazarsfeld and Elihu Katz, though Duncan Watts later found that large cascades depend more on many ordinary people than on a few influentials. The call to create news through planned events is the root of the modern PR stunt and launch moment. What has aged badly is the stance. He treats the public as something to be led because the average adult has six years of schooling, admits that the undeserving can win good will long enough to do damage, and leaves the remedy to the counsel's conscience. Use: turn his four prerequisites and four objective types into a one-page campaign brief, and add an explicit ethics check.
Passages worth keeping
The United States has become a small room in which a single whisper is magnified thousands of times.
وسائل الاتصال جعلت البلد الواسع مثل غرفة صغيرة، فأي همسة فيها تتضخم آلاف المرات حتى تصل إلى الجميع.
But this does not prevent those who do not deserve good will from winning it and holding onto it long enough to do a lot of damage.
السمعة الطيبة تدوم لمن يستحقها، لكن من لا يستحقها قد يكسبها ويحتفظ بها مدة تكفي ليُحدث ضررًا كبيرًا.
Much better results are obtained in a relief drive when the appeal is made for aid to the people of a specific country or locality rather than of a general area such as Europe or Asia.
نداء الإغاثة لأهل بلد محدد أو منطقة محددة يحقق نتائج أفضل بكثير من نداء لمنطقة واسعة مثل أوروبا أو آسيا.
He must prepare copy written in simple language and sixteen-word sentences for the average school-age public.
المادة الموجهة إلى عامة الناس تُكتب بلغة بسيطة وجمل من نحو ست عشرة كلمة، لتناسب مستوى التعليم الغالب.
A good criterion as to whether something is or is not news is whether the event juts out of the pattern of routine.
الحدث يصير خبرًا حين يخرج عن نمط الروتين، ولذلك على المستشار أن يصنع أحداثًا غير معتادة تحمل فكرته.
What it teaches best
Read the original commons.wikimedia.org
If this library is useful, leave an email
We send new patterns, ads, and notes when we add them. Name and phone are optional.
You are on the list
We will write when we add more library material.