Propaganda & Mass Persuasion: 02/15/2009 - 02/22/2009

Thursday, February 19, 2009

The Art of Persuasion


In Stuart Ewen’s Chapter Six “House of Truth” PR! (A tale of the rise of public relations) Ewen discusses how the Committee on Public Information used propaganda to promote support for the war, they believed that facts were simply not enough to rally the public support. There tactics played on the emotions of the American people. The CPI was government run to gain the public’s support of WW1 created by Past President Woodrow Wilson. The images they displayed in the media played on their emotions and in some cases were known to instill fear, which created paranoia.

“ Nearly 150,000 times each week, men like Williams would rise before their communities to preach the holiness of the American war effort, to condemn the heresy of antiwar opinion.” (Stuart Ewen PR! p104)

In order to further Americans support the president moved this to the top of his list. The CPI published its own paper, to influence and penetrate “the minds of the masses.” Due to this publicists began to expand their knowledge on understanding the art of persuasion, using venerable power symbols to inspire and control or sway the public’s thoughts into support.


EFleurival

“An Appeal to the Heart”

“An Appeal to the Heart”
-Charles Dana Gibson

In Chapter 6 “House of Truth” of PR!: A Social History of Spin, author Stuart Ewen discusses how the Committee on Public Information (CPI) used imagery as propaganda under the guidance of Charles Dana Gibson, an American graphic artist. Established by President Woodrow Wilson in 1917, the CPI was a government agency geared towards gaining public support towards WWI. This was accomplished through print journalism and early films. However, Gibson proposed to extend the propaganda campaign through illustrations and symbolism which played upon the emotions of the American people. Gibson found that “One cannot create enthusiasm for the war on the basis of practical appeal” and that Americans cannot be influenced for war by only facts (Ewen, 122). In effect, he proposed that designed artwork for the CPI would “appeal to the heart” of Americans (Ewen, 122).
Gibson’s campaign of illustrations had a major impact on the American people during the being the explicit images were plastered in the heart and minds of people. The illustrations conveyed messages through metaphors , imagery, and sentiment. However, such portraits also played upon fear and created an outbreak of paranoia (Ewens, 123).

Assault on Reason

Al-Gore's talks on "assault on Reason"

An intriguing video and lecture that shows how the former bush administration sold the American people a war - that we did not have to buy, but it was campaigned in such a manner that people lost their ability to question its validity.

After listening to the entire lecture, and how vice president Al Gore reveals the tactics used by President Bush and other architects of the Iraq war, one may ask

" Was the CPI really dismantled? "

www.youtube.com
"Al Gore Assault on Reason"

Next right make a left

It seems like business have more control over law making today than politicians. Politicians don't seem to care about what laws they pass or if they cut taxes or not because they usually don't pay taxed and usually don't follow the laws. All they seem to care about is money in their pockets. "Big business" knows what direction they want certain laws to go and it's always in their favor and helps their business. Obama started his campaign off saying he wasn't going to accept money from private investors but that didn't last too long now did it? It doesn't matter what side of the table a politician is sitting on, left or right, they are all human and have the same ambitions. No side is better than the other.

"You have only to write an article about some piece of corruption in order to find yourself the target of innumerable correspondents, urging you to publish their wrongs. The sense of conspiracy and secrets scheming which transpire is almost uncanny. "Big Business," and its ruthless tentacles, have become the material for the feverish fantasy of illiterate thousands thrown out of kilter by the rack and strain of modern life."("The Themes of Muckraking,pg. 249" Lippmann, Walter)

I am very proud to see America has made it this far and elected a black president. But I do not feel he was put in office for the right reasons. I feel he might have been put in office specifically to fail. Things aren't looking as good as they seemed in November.

AT&T : A Revolutionary and Caring Monopoly that the Public Needs


As highlighted in Stuart Ewen’s book, PR!: A Social History of Spin, AT&T was a clear-cut pioneer in the “public relations” aspect of business. Formerly, the “Robber Barons,” which consisted of industries such as “finance, transportation, capital-goods production, coal, and petroleum,” (pp.100, Ewen), were not in need of a public relations strategy in order to accomplish their greed-drenched goals. Yet, AT&T was truly in a league of its own, as its sights were set on the horizon of a new and modern idea of social life and a new form of communication, in addition to a new way to set forth a monopoly.

This company saw no other destination than being the one and only nationwide telephone service provider. The big difference however, was the fact that AT&T required the “public’s” or “middle-class’s’” approval and funding to grow into the super-power that it desired to be. Therefore, the concept that the middle-class lived in fear of the most: a continuous stream of corporate-takeovers and loss of governance due to monopolies, had to be reshaped to favor AT&T’s business.

Some of the ways that this molding of the American consumers' minds was eventually accomplished, was through the leadership of Theodore Newton Vail beginning in 1907, and as is quoted by Ewen on pp. 93 was through, “cut-rate local phone bills, the friendly greetings of Ma Bell, employee spirit de corps programs and presenting things through the public’s eyes.”

It was with AT&T that for the first time the public was being sought out by a soon-to-be corporate-giant and convinced through ads, that the company was the only solution imaginable to fit nicely into their lives and ultimately, transform their lives . Ewen demonstrated this mass manipulation of the "public" led by Vail, which was mainly a result of the use of such ad's, by bringing it to light on page 94 of PR!: A Social History of Spin:

“Every Bell Telephone would be the Center of the Bell System,” and this “encouraged telephone users to view the company not as a dark monopolistic leviathan, but as a beneficent mother figure who would make each and every one of them the center of her attentions.”

As localized telephone companies were still being newly-grasped by the public and seemed innovative as it was, AT&T’s emergence was, an idea that was ground-breaking or even unrealistic to most of the “public” during that era. However, through AT&T’s tremendous public relations outreach, the “public” had come to fall into the corporate-fed message that if they bought the telephone service, they would actually be purchasing a “dream.” The advanced methodology of and connections created by AT&T. as advertised and editorialized, was eventually proven to be the revolutionary cornerstone of the middle-class’s community, that was missing all along. Yet, for the “public” to understand that they were lacking something that would be life changing and “necessary,” advertisements had to and did illustrate the future of Americans with AT&T’s phone system already incorporated into their daily living, in order to paint the picture that we now faithfully encourage and embrace in our capitalistic society: “I want that product…No, I actually need it…As a matter of fact, I can’t live without it.”
The Power Of Advertisement
One of the things that I learned when I was reading Chapter Five is how the telephone company "AT&T, tried different advertisement strategies to persuade people that having a telephone in their house was important for them. One of the slogans that the company developed at that time was:
" When you lift the Bell receiver... you are in contact with the world " *1
The company made it sound like every family needed to have a phone in their house. Also they tried to hire different advertisement companies and look for a ways to make an advertisement that is most effective. As the time passed the company continued with promoting. Another slogan that AT&T created was

" One system, One policy, Universal Service. " *2
With this slogan they were trying to make it sound like the company is essential to the nation. However, in my opinion, their true intention was to convince as many people as they could so AT&T would to able to expand themselves in the country. In other words, they were trying to become a monopoly and give service to the entire nation by themselves.
For the most part in today’s society a lot of companies do the same thing. They spend a huge amount of money so that the people can become aware about thier product. I think " AT&T" succeeded in accomplishing their goal because today the company is one of the strongest companies that is around in the United States and abroad too. Of course they eventually lost any monopoly they might have had and now telephone service is provided by many different companies. The competition among companies has forced people to live in a culture jamming society.
I think, advertisement has become “ a hostile intrusion “ in our everyday life that is almost inescapable. Stuart Ewen ( *1, *2, Stuart Ewen text Pg 94 )

Embracing the Immigrants

"We let sharks prey on them, we let poverty swamp them, we did not teach them English, " lamented George Creel, Progressive journalist who would become the civilian director of the CPI.

President Wilson ran on a platform in 1916 of keeping the U.S. out of WWI. It was shortly thereafter that the United States entered the war. Knowing that he needed popular support for the War, the Committee on Public Information was created in April of 1917 shortly after the United States declared War on Germany.

The purpose of the committee was to sway popular opinion in support of the War. As part of that effort it was important to get the support of the millions of people who had immigrated to the United States. Although this segment of the population had previously been ignored, it was now recognized that a major effort was needed by the CPI to rally support for the War within the immigrant population.

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Changing Big Businesses into Big Helpers

In regards to publicity in the corporate world Ivy L. Lee stated:
"Publicity in its ultimate sense means the actual relationship of a company to the people, and that relationship involves far more than saying- it involves doing. An elementary requisite of any sound publicity must be, therefore, the giving of the best possible service" ( Ewen “PR” P.84).

Lee’s ideas of the importance of securing public confidence were original but for most big corporations, such as Rockefeller’s Standard Oil, they were insignificant. Businesses headed by people like Rockefeller preferred to stay out of the spot light and had little regard for public opinion. This is not to say that Lee’s visions would go unused, Theodore Newton Vail would see the importance of pubic relations and use it to ease the tension that the public had towards the “big business” AT&T.

During a time that the public feared big businesses, Vail did a brilliant job at easing the publics mind. Through well planned strategies Vail would move past the “curse of bigness” and create a look for AT&T that was irresistible and geared towards the needs of the people. These strategies included “cut-rate local phone bills, the friendly greetings of Ma Bell, employee spirit de corps programs, and presenting things through the public’s eye”.

Vail became a new type of corporate leader. Unlike other businesses of the time that kept a deliberate distance from the public view, Vail new that public relations was key in the survival of bug businesses in the twentieth century. Through creating jobs for women, having the best deals around, and making the people feel that their opinions matter, Vail set the stage for big corporations by creating the user friendly monopoly.

A new Committee, A new Type Of War.


"On April 6, 1917, when the United States Formally declared war, the issue of propaganda moved to the top of the president's agenda." (PR, Ewen, 108)

As Walter Lippmann recommended to the President at the time, propaganda is essential (especially during war time) for nurturing "a healthy public opinion" (Ewen 108). We think of this as advertising in a way. The war was "advertised" to the public and to inform them that their intentions were to "make a world that is safe for democracy" (Ewen 108). This stemmed after the creation of an official government news bureau, that was to handle all advertising regarding the war.

During Wartime it is essential to pick and chose your words wisely, as well as the company you keep in order to shape public opinion. Lippmann even submitted plans to the president laying out the specifics. There was the creation of a "Publicity Bureau" a "clearinghouse for information on government activities.

To sum this concept up, Lippmann's ultimate goal was to mobilize the people, the elite, journalists, intelligent minds with voices rather, to share opinion. He even went as far as to tap into the American film industry. Propaganda was important for war support, weeding out the lies spoken/told from abroad was another issue and important for keeping up American morale.

With plans in place, shortly after, Wilson took action and issued executive order No. 2594 to establish the CPI. Below, he spoke on the committee, who would run it, and who would be involved.

I hereby create a Committee on Public Information, to be composed of the Secretary of State, the Secretary of War, the Secretary of the Navy, and a civilian who shall be charged with the executive direction of the Committee.

As Civilian Chairman of this Committee, I appoint Mr. George Creel. The Secretary of State, the Secretary of War, and the Secretary of the Navy are authorized each to detail an officer or officers to the work of the Committee.

WOODROW WILSON
THE WHITE HOUSE,
April 13, 1917.

You Only Got 4 Minutes To Save The World


Chapter 6 of Ewen's "PR!" (Pages 116-119)

The organization "4 Minute Men" was created by George Creel when America was at it's first World War. The CPI sought after Creel to organize the group consisting of local leaders (who were usually businessmen) in order "to shape attitudes within the frame of people's daily lives" (Ewen, page 117.)

Forming the "4 Minute Men" was in my opinion a clever strategy. In order to deliver a message intimately, the best way was to bring the message to the people. Three years before the first radio broadcast, many businessmen throughout the United States spoke in their hometowns to neighbors, and peers to maintain a positive outlook on the war.

In order to maintain the moniker, members were not supposed to go over four minutes while speaking to a crowd. Bulletins were sent to members that would already include pre-written speeches and suggestions on what issues to bring up, and ways to motivate the crowds. Delivering an effective speech must've been difficult for some, because not only were they being seen by their neighbors and locals, but they were being monitored by chairmen whose role consisted of ensuring the speakers were doing their job properly, and also served as guides to provide critiques and advice for future speeches.

Overall, if one was good at public speaking, and agreed with the CPI's intentions, then they were most likely a shoe-in for membership of the 4 Minute Men; that is of course, interested candidates must also be a professional or a business man. Being a 4 Minute Man, in my opinion, did not require one to go out of their way to figure out how to convince a crowd of their message. As long as one followed the bulletins' guidelines to a tee, and simply used enthusiasm, they could maintain the undivided attention of a crowd.

Hidden Messages and Films


If someone were to ask people why they watch films, the majority would say because the movie(s) they are watching interest them. As a follow-up question, if someone were to ask what was the message behind the movie(s), most people would struggle to find the answer or simply don't care to know.

The films of today are geared to provide a cheap form of entertainment for the patron while the production companies reap the financial windfall. As I ponder on the films I have seen in the last year (Iron Man, The Dark Knight, Quantum of Solace etc.), I'm trying to recall the messages I received from these films and yet I draw a blank.

Some might wonder do films have messages in them to provoke some form of action. In the case of modern films, it varies to a degree. However films released during the early 20th Century had messages in them in which most individuals failed to realize. We can find out more about this practice in the following:

"Employing this powerful new tool-with all its suggestive implications-the CPI's Division of Films
launched an unprecedented effort to deploy movies as implements of war. Under the division's direction, a number of feature films were produced for worldwide theatrical distribution: Pershing's Crusaders, America's Answer, Under Four Flags, and others, shown alongside more conventional Hollywood productions" (Ewen, PR!, 115).

The films mentioned in the snippet were produced to do two things, the first was to gain support for the nation's involvement in World War I and the second was to encourage men in America to help the nation by participating in the war as soldiers.

After reading this chapter, one must feel compelled to watch today's films from an analytical prospective because we do not know what hidden messages are interwoven into films especially given the two wars that America is fighting in.












Majority Rules...what?

In reading chapter 4 "Controlling Chaos" of Stuart Ewan's book PR, I was moved by the famous French Social Psychologist Gustave Le Bon. In his 1895 book, The Crowd:Study of the Popular Mind, Le Bon takes his position as a man who is at odds with the growing world of socialist ideals and ideology. Le Bon is somewhat a man of conservative ideals who feels that the old order of Hierarchies and social class systems are being tainted by a new movement of middle-class "opinionated people", who are forming Labour Unions as well as affecting the laws of wages and working conditions.

Le Bon who has went so far to state "The crowd is always intellectually inferior to the isolated individual" is determined to condemn this behavior.
"To-day the claims of the masses are becoming more and more sharply defined, and amount nothing less then a determination to destroy utterly society as it now exist...with the view to making it hark back to primitive communism....the divine rights of the masses is about to replace the divine rights of the Kings"

I feel Le Bon's statement is directly an insecure way of thinking similar to that of many "elite" well to do individuals in society, even to contemporary standards. An example of this would be a figure such as Bill O'reilly who is a devote Conservative who believes in the ideals of smaller rural communities rather then those of the larger scale society. I do agree to an extent that in theory, the larger a group, the less rational they become in the context of social and political ideals, but to an extent. In a democracy the people are at the epicenter of the political spectrum. If the working class represent the majority, why are their concerns not met by those who are in position to make these changes? It's strange to me that even in my own country of Haiti, 1% of the country controls the entire countries wealth and power. In the end, the ones who have want to remain at the top and the working class must suffer the fate of not being in a "position of power".

Arthur Bullard's Pursue of Publicity

To accomplish his goal, Bullard proposed that the government should,

"organize a publicity bureau, which constantly kept before the public the importance of supporting the men at the front. It would requisition space on
the front page of newspapers, it would call for a draft of trained writers to feed Army stories to the public, and it would create a Corp of Press Agents. This is in order to make a democracy fight wholeheartedly."

America must, Bullard concluded, organize "propaganda campaigns to make the
struggle comprehensible and popular." Unless our will to win is
passionate and determine, our Army and Navy will accomplish little.

Arthur Bullard's theory of government publicity from progressive journalism seeks its foundation to American unity. It is actually true that support in times of hardship actually brings will and eventually victory. Bullard's theory stimulates public opinion.

So I agree with his thoughts and views of Americans needing to know government views and suggestions on war, it brings unity to a whole instead of unity amongst the the higher power. it is said that "a unit that fights together; rejoices together but, a unit that is singled powered crumbles." - Coach Pat Riley(NBA Hall of Fame) This theory will motivate the hence of views, and people will eventually start to think as one. It actually shapes out with Lippman's theory in Chapter 4 of social science, "refining the problem & it will solve itself."

PR! Stuart Ewen-Chapter 6 pages 102-108


Wednesday, February 18, 2009

War Engine # 2594

Stuart Ewen's "PR!" - "House of Truth" - Chapter 6

In the 21st century America, when citizens are discussing the role of the "progressives," the discussion continually revolves around all the good that the progressives have brought to America at the turn of the century. However, as discussed in Stuart's "PR!," the progressive movement did initially originate from the belief that the common people are capable of reasoning, but as the journalist's started to fear the low-class Americans, the "capability" of average Americans was put into questions.

In simple terms, what started as a movement for the betterment of the common people, resulted into a movement that would in the future mold and shape every bit of the common people's idea. As thoroughly discussed in chapter 6, the progressive journalism lobbied the federal government to allow them to establish this "laboratory" in which the common people would be educated and their ideas would be shaped according to a few "selected intelligent people." This gave a new definition to the progressives, in which only the "elite" are capable of handling truth, just as Lippmann believed. The progressive journalists took this advantage to take up the role of becoming the "architects" of the common people.

This idea gave birth to executive order # 2565, establishing the CPI - Committee on Public Information. This would later become not only a "committee on Public Information," but rather a committee comprised of those "elites," which Lippmann discusses in the previous chapter, who would go on this mission of creating a society, in which they hold complete authority on the "masses." This in a nut shell was the central role of the CPI, and its establishment.

Romanticism and pragmatism of social advertising.

(according to CPI documents) 
  
One may draw a conclusion that: advertising is created to induce the consumer to any action e.g. to purchase goods. Founders of 
social advertising are not confronted with such problem nor do they have the same motivation as the individuals working in the sphere of commerce. Purpose of Public Service Announcement (PSA): is aimed at changing the attitude of the public inrespect of any problem, and in long-term prospect - to generate new social values for the audience. A subject of social advertising is the idea which should possess certain social values. 
  


Social advertising mentions universal problems (struggle against violence, wildlife management, health of children, AIDS etc.) It is directed at the widest audience. PSA can also reflect interests of narrower groups of the population, for example, the inhabitants of any city worried about cleanliness of water in a local reservoir. The government of the USA began to use PSA even in days of civil war, publishing free announcements of vacancies in the army, about sale of the state bonds, thereby having transformed social advertising into a powerful propagation tool. 



When America has entered the First World War, the "Committee on Public Information" explained to the population why the country wages war and that it is necessary to win as well as explaining the population the reason for formation of the committee. In 1942 the Committee was transformed into the Advertising Board which main objective was to "mobilise the nation for a victory". In post-war years Council was engaged in planning of a policy of 
social advertising. 
  


Experience of Americans proves that PSA – is an effective remedy of struggle against social harm. Such advertising changes the approach of people to the daily reality and after this their behavior varies too.

"The 1917 poster reproduced below, from the photograph published in This Fabulous Century: Sixty Years of American Life, vol. 2, 1910-1920 (New York: Time-Life Books, 1969), p. 234, illustrates the domestic intelligence-gathering efforts of the American government's "Committee on Public Information" during the First World War. Although it would have people believe that German spies were everywhere, this threat was greatly exaggerated. Posters like this encouraged Americans to spy upon one another, to be "vigilant" against those who criticized American involvement in the war. Citizens were urged to inform the Department of Justice if anyone "spreads pessimistic stories ... cries for peace, or belittles our efforts to win the war." The U.S. Congress had passed war-time sedition laws that established heavy penalties for people who criticized the government and its war policies." (link)

Good Publicity Starts At Home



Chapter five of Stuart Ewen's,"PR!", touches on the notion of where does good public relations start from. This notion is introduced by Ewen through a statement made by Ivy Lee a long time public relations representative of John D. Rockefeller, which states:

"Publicity is not a game; it is a science. The difference between the two is as wide as the discrepancy between a press agent and a doctor of publicity. The function of a press agent is to put things across. The problem of a doctor of publicity is to induce his patient to behave in such a way as to commend himself unto the approval of a good city editor."(p84)
Lee's statement proposes that good publicity is more then just giving a client a remedy and telling them what to do. Good publicity requires the willingness and sincerity of the client to try and make the plan work. Looking deeper into this statement it seems as if Lee also believed that good publicity comes from the client first.

It is the client's face that the public see's and it is the clients behavior that the public reacts to. A publicist no matter how good they are can not change the image of a client into a positive one if the client is not willing to change his/herself. If the willingness to change their image does not come from their selves then they are just merely puppets, that can be compared to Walt Disney's Pinocchio.

This in the end hurts the client because not only do they become puppets pulled by the strings of their "doctor's of publicity". But the charade all turns into a show for the public eyes to see, causing negative feedback because of their lack of sincerity. Which in the end makes for bad public relations over all.

George Creel; Getting the Job Done

"Do not discuss in public, or with strangers, any news of troop and transport movements, of bits of gossip as to our military preparations, which come into your possession....You are in contact with the enemy today, just as truly as if you faced him across No Man's Land. In your hands are two powerful weapons with which to meet him--discretion and vigilance. Use them." (Committee on Public Information, 1914)

The "Spies and Lies" excerpt from the Cartoons of Hatred packet really revealed how well George Creel was working to gain support for WWI from the general public. This quote shows how the Committee on Public Information was making everyone feel like they were fighting this war and they all needed to work together for America's success.

The nationalism and patriotism that was going on in America during WWI is greatly highlighted by ads, flyers, and notices from George Creel and his committee. George Creel helped make the average citizen feel like a soldier, and this truly helped government gain the publics support of the war.

George Creel did his job, and he did it well.

Needed Support...

At the beginning of every grade school day or at sporting events we all can remember hearing The Star Spangled Banner either being sung or played for all to hear. As much as this is embaressing to admit, I myself have never really read and anaylzed the words - only sung them; simply because I had to.

"In spite of exapansive oratory aboutAmerica as thegreat and democratic 'melting pot,' there was thesobering recognitionamoung officials --as the American war effort commenced--that for manyimmigrants, 'the melting pot had failed to 'melt'; the 'Landof Opportunity'hadnot delivered on its promises" (Ewen,105).

Isn't it "O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!" ? (The Star Spangled Banner)
Immigrants flood America everyday, some of whom barely speak the English language, have little education or have under paying jobs; if any. Not many instituitions or aid tend to be avaliable to them. A country who embraces outsiders should at least put in effort into making them confortable and safe. Unfortunately, we hear about hate crimes against immigrants who heard these stories about immagrants who come here to experience this wonderful land, all the time. The truth is that everyday is a constant struggle for them, unless you are an immigrant with a thick accent, barely knowing English or working paycheck to paycheck you would only be able to understand it to a certain extent.
George Creel and others realized that with immigrants not knowing much of what was going on, they couldn't possibly be able to participate in the American war effort (Ewen, 105). Much of the working class didn't even see the war as useful; a "rich man's war" as they called it. In order to gain support for the war, it was clear that a compromise of needs between the working class, public opinion and the higher ones had to be met.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

AT&T: A Caring and Revolutionary Monopoly that the Public Needs

As highlighted in Stuart Ewen’s book, PR!: A Social History of Spin, AT&T was a clear-cut pioneer in the “public relations” aspect of business. Formerly, the “Robber Barons,” which consisted of industries such as “finance, transportation, capital-goods production, coal, and petroleum,” (pp.100, Ewen), were not in need of a public relations strategy in order to accomplish their greed-drenched goals. Yet, AT&T was truly in a league of its own, as its sights were set on the horizon of a new and modern idea of social life, a new form of communication, in addition to a new way to set forth a monopoly. This company saw no other destination than being the one and only nationwide telephone service provider.
The big difference however, was the fact that AT&T required the “public’s” or “middle-class’s’” approval and funding to grow into the super-power that it desired to be. Therefore, the concept that the middle-class lived in fear of the most: a continuous stream of corporate-takeovers and loss of governance due to monopolies, had to be reshaped to favor AT&T’s business. Some of the ways that this was inevitably accomplished through the leadership of Theodore Newton Vail beginning in 1907, and as is quoted by Ewen on pp. 93 was through, “cut-rate local phone bills, the friendly greetings of Ma Bell, employee spirit de corps programs and presenting things through the public’s eyes.”

It was with AT&T that for the first time the public was being sought out by a soon-to-be corporate-giant and convinced through ads, that the company was the only solution imaginable to fit nicely into their life. Ewen demonstrated this idea by bringing it to light on pp. 94 of PR!: A Social History of Spin, by stating that:

“(AT&T would be) the Center of the Bell System,” and this “encouraged telephone users to view the company not as a dark monopolistic leviathan, but as a beneficent mother figure who would make each and every one of them the center of her attentions.”

As localized telephone companies were still being newly-grasped by the public and seemed innovative as it was, AT&T’s emergence was, an idea that was ground-breaking or even unrealistic to most of the “public” during that era. However, through AT&T’s tremendous public relations outreach, the “public” had come to fall into the corporate-fed message that if they bought the telephone service, they would actually be purchasing a “dream.” The advanced methodology of and connections created by AT&T as advertized and editorialized, was eventually proven to be the revolutionary cornerstone of the middle-class’s community, that was missing all along. Yet, for the “public” to understand that they were lacking something that would be life changing and “necessary,” advertisements had to and did illustrate the future of Americans with AT&T’s phone system already incorporated into their daily living, in order to paint the picture that we now live by in our capitalistic society: “I want that product…No, I actually need it…As a matter of fact, I can’t live without it.”

Monday, February 16, 2009

A New Form of Technology for the Future

Numbers, tables and other statistics are used today for many observations. Sports is a great example. Whether we want to know how many career homeruns Hank Aaron has or what plays to run on a certain football team, we use these numbers to help us in different areas of research.

Lippmann was deemed one of the first social scientists in American history in the 1910's. This is the dawn of muckraking and yellow journalism. He joined the Socialist Party, but then left it four years later.

It is always wise to plan ahead for the future. Most of the tabloids in the papers leads citizens into a misguided view of what is going on in the world. This factor leads to chaos.

"For the first generation of twentieth-century reformers, the scientific gathering of empirical data-social surveys-had been seen as a mighty instrument of social improvement. Social surverys, they had believed, would provide the public with a social agenda for the future. To Lippmann and a growing number of others, however, the social sciences appealed less in their ability to create an informed public and more in their promise to help establish social control." (Stuart Ewen, PR!, page 64)

Social improvement was the main goal for Lippmann. These studies didn't help the problem at the time, but it was a start. If we get to the root of the problem as soon as possible, then it will stop from growing.

Ma Bell in the Big Bad World of Monopolies




In chapter five of Stuart Ewan's PR!, he examines the growth of AT&T in the anti-monoplistic setting of the first decade of the 1900's. Beginning under the lead of Boston based The Publicity Bureau and carried over to the ingenious Theodore Newton Vail, AT&T was able to turn public relations into a science; like chemistry in its ability to cause desired reactions and meteorology to forecast upcoming events and complications. Before further addressing this reading, I must make a point to note that the case Ewen presents is one in which I did not read a fault of the company. AT&T is presented as a service, superior in performance to its rivals that, while it may have manipulate public news outlets, played by the rules of the capitalistic game without sacrificing the customer.




The time in question was the time of trust busting and Progressives ripping down monopolies. While many public relations men of the time such Ivy Lee had their hands full trying to convince clients like John Rockefeller to act in a way which the public could perceive as endearing, one growing company better understood the complexities of not just surviving but thriving when it seemed the bigger the business, the more evil it is.




Since the turn of the century, AT&T (or the Bell System) had to struggle to grow when every new territory gained could present them as one of the robber barons of public scorn. There was already pressure to "postalize" the new telephone as it had been done in some European countries. The Publicity Bureau was brought in to address these concerns. They went to work changing the public's idea of the company (Bell System became Bell Companies to appear less like a trust) and through advertising pressure, flooded newspapers with "articles" humanizing the company and its product in new markets.




In 1907, Theodore Newton Vail replaced the Publicity Bureau when he became the new CEO. Ironically, this new business officer was also a man of his times; a Progressive of industry. He was able to see the folly in other large corporations quest for short term gains over long term success. He also acknowledged the dangers of business "muckrakers" that created a public "educated entirely by those whose entire capital is in exciting class prejudice and class feeling." He identified the middle class as the target base for consumption of the telephone and had their rates lowered at the expense of business long distance.


He was unapologetic about the breadth of his company and in many ways likened it to the first monopoly that a person knows: their mother. In the respect that a mother takes care of her child, he made sure to publicize the competitive wages for his workers and the "unprecedented employee health programs" they received. The soothing sound of a mother's voice was now the sound of another woman, a telephone operator who answered with a helpful "number please?" And like a mother supplying for her child in a world too large for them to care for themselves but that they must still live in, he believed in educating the public of the advantages of his nationwide system versus regional phone service. It is no surprise that it would soon be known also as "Ma Bell."



Whether it be accurate telling or omission of facts, Ewens recounting of AT&T is a triumph in public relations in which the public was cared for regarding their needs, calmed regarding their fears, educated in their misconceptions. They were not taken advantage of as was the case with the Rockefellers and Morgans of before. AT&T and their customers grew in what is the ideal relationship in capitalism: mutualistic symbiosis.