The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. (Location 355)
a trifling fraction of our hundred and twenty million—who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. (Location 364)
As civilization has become more complex, and as the need for invisible government has been increasingly demonstrated, the technical means have been invented and developed by which opinion may be regimented. (Location 391)
This invisible, intertwining structure of groupings and associations is the mechanism by which democracy has organized its group mind and simplified its mass thinking. (Location 457)
But instead of a mind, universal literacy has given him rubber stamps, rubber stamps inked with advertising slogans, with editorials, with published scientific data, with the trivialities of the tabloids and the platitudes of history, but quite innocent of original thought. (Location 479)
The mechanism by which ideas are disseminated on a large scale is propaganda, in the broad sense of an organized effort to spread a particular belief or doctrine. (Location 483)
Propaganda becomes vicious and reprehensive only when its authors consciously and deliberately disseminate what they know to be lies, or when they aim at effects which they know to be prejudicial to the common good.” (Location 509)
They are set down rather to illustrate how conscious direction is given to events, and how the men behind these events influence public opinion. (Location 537)
Modern propaganda is a consistent, enduring effort to create or shape events to influence the relations of the public to an enterprise, idea or group. (Location 539)
Propaganda does exist on all sides of us, and it does change our mental pictures of the world. Even if this be unduly pessimistic—and that remains to be proved—the opinion reflects a tendency that is undoubtedly real. (Location 558)
They not only appealed to the individual by means of every approach—visual, graphic, and auditory—to support the national endeavor, but they also secured the cooperation of the key men in every group—persons whose mere word carried authority to hundreds or thousands or hundreds of thousands of followers. (Location 568)
It takes account not merely of the individual, nor even of the mass mind alone, but also and especially of the anatomy of society, with its interlocking group formations and loyalties. (Location 577)
Touch a nerve at a sensitive spot and you get an automatic response from certain specific members of the organism. (Location 579)
A demand was slowly, but deliberately, created in Paris and America. A big department store, aiming to be a style leader, advertised velvet gowns and hats on the authority of the French couturiers, and quoted original cables received from them. (Location 593)
But there is little chance that their individual desires will be translated into effective legal form unless their half-expressed demand can be organized, made vocal, and concentrated upon the state legislature or upon the Federal Congress in some mode which will produce the results they desire. (Location 602)
Small groups of persons can, and do, make the rest of us think what they please about a given subject. (Location 609)
But it is well known that many of these leaders are themselves led, sometimes by persons whose names are known to few. (Location 627)
In some instances the power of invisible wirepullers is flagrant. (Location 633)
Such persons typify in the public mind the type of ruler associated with the phrase invisible government. (Location 637)
In reality, he may be obeying the orders of an anonymous gentleman tailor in London. (Location 648)
Different men rule us in the various departments of our lives. There may be one power behind the throne in politics, another in the manipulations of the Federal discount rate, and still another in the dictation of next season’s dances. (Location 662)
has come to be know by the name of “public relations counsel.” (Location 675)
conforming to its demands as to honesty and fairness. Thus a corporation might discover that its labor policy was causing public resentment, and might introduce a more enlightened policy solely for the sake of general good will. (Location 729)
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? (Location 775)
If you can influence the leaders, either with or without their conscious cooperation, you automatically influence the group which they sway. (Location 795)
In making up its mind, its first impulse is usually to follow the example of a trusted leader. This is one of the most firmly established principles of mass psychology. (Location 805)
By playing upon a old cliché, or manipulating a new one, the propagandist can sometimes swing a whole mass of group emotions. (Location 812)
man may believe that he buys a motor car because, after careful study of the technical features of all makes on the market, he has concluded that this is the best. He is almost certainly fooling himself. He bought it, perhaps, because a friend whose financial acumen he respects bought one last week; (Location 820)
A thing may be desired not for its intrinsic worth or usefulness, but because he has unconsciously come to see in it a symbol of something else, the desire for which he is ashamed to admit to himself. (Location 825)
He may really want it because it is a symbol of social position, an evidence of his success in business, or a means of pleasing his wife. (Location 827)
Human desires are the steam which makes the social machine work. Only by understanding them can the propagandist control that vast, loose-jointed mechanism which is modern society. (Location 834)
The new salesman will then suggest to physicians to say publicly that it is wholesome to eat bacon. (Location 844)
What are the true reasons the purchaser is planning to spend his money on a new car instead of on a new piano? (Location 861)
He buys a car, because it is at the moment the group custom to buy cars. (Location 863)
to create circumstances which will modify that custom. He appeals perhaps to the home instinct which is fundamental. (Location 864)
To this ceremony key people, persons known to influence the buying habits of the public, such as a famous violinist, a popular artist, and a society leader, are invited. (Location 868)
This competition drew the approval of well-known authorities, as well as the interest of millions, who were made cognizant of it through newspaper and magazine and other publicity, with the effect of building up definitely the prestige of the development. (Location 886)
The leaders who lend their authority to any propaganda campaign will do so only if it can be made to touch their own interests. (Location 911)
One must understand not only his own business—the manufacture of a particular product—but also the structure, the personality, the prejudices, of a potentially universal public. (Location 950)
continuous interpretation (Location 1014)
dramatization by high-spotting. (Location 1014)
When a real estate corporation which is erecting a tall office building makes it ten feet taller than the highest skyscraper in existence, that is dramatization. (Location 1018)
Through mergers and monopolies it is constantly increasing the number of persons with whom it is in direct contact. All this has intensified and multiplied the public relationships of business. (Location 1027)
it was realized that the attitude of railroads, of steamship companies, and of foreign government-owned railroads was an important factor in the handling of luggage. (Location 1050)
The problem then, to increase the sale of their luggage, was to have these and other forces come over to their point of view. Hence the public relations campaign was directed not (Location 1056)
Propaganda, since it goes to basic causes, can very often be most effective through the manner of its introduction. (Location 1060)
The development of public opinion for a cause or line of socially constructive action may very often be the result of a desire on the party of the propagandist to meet successfully his own problem which the socially constructive cause would further. (Location 1064)
toothpaste discovered up to the present time can possibly have. The competing manufacturer is put in the position either of overemphasizing an already exaggerated emphasis or of letting the overemphasis of his competitor take away his markets. (Location 1136)