Propaganda, P.R., and the News - Essay Example

It will also explain the propaganda techniques used by the U.S government in post war 1 and discuss why some techniques were too arrogant towards government’s action. The First World War popularized the word propaganda and provided it with a negative implication; since all the key nations participated in the war used new approaches of modern propaganda to organize their populations for the conflict. In the US, the effort was chaired by President Woodrow Wilson in the development of the CPI (Committee on Public Information) as a key propaganda ministry.

The major theme of the Committee on Public Information was to improve the United States involvement into the war with the aim of establishing a world which is secure for democracy. This notion was particularly established by the leading scholar of the period, Walter Lippmann, who was 25 years old by then. Lippmann was interested majorly with the upholding of the nation’s capitalist system in the face of increased resistance, ideological opposition, and unrest, feeling that the field of science would require being employed to democracy, where social scientist and social engineers would give the current with a background upon which a latest stability might be achieved.

Because of this, Lippmann proposed the need for information and intelligence control in what he referred the development of consent. The major intellectual of the period then became mainly concerned with the matter of propaganda during time of peace, having experienced its success during war. According to Lippmann, propaganda has desirable and legitimate role to play in the democratic system. He further noted that public was a confused herd of meddlesome and ignorant outsiders, who must be maintained as interested spectators of activities, and separated from the actors and the powerful themselves.

Edward Bernays, the founder of public relations got his beginning with Wilson’s Committee on Public Information during the First World War, asserted that the intelligent and conscious manipulation of the organized opinions and habits of the masses is a crucial element in the democratic society. According to him, those who control this unseen approach of society form an imperceptible government that is the true proper ruling power of the nation. Bernays pointed out that modern society was conquered by few number of individual who understand the social patterns and mental processes of the masses.

This was consistent with the Lippmann assertion of a sequential result of the manner in which the current democratic society s arranged. Hence Barneys borrowed from Lippmann the concept of engineering of consent. According to Lippmann, influencing nations thinking with propaganda is not an easy task; it takes a higher ability concerning how public opinion works and how such opinions can be made to unite beliefs. Therefore, the political leaders should use the propanda techniques to achieve their political desires the same way American did.

During the First World War, the CPI (Communication on Public Opinion) attained this through making planned emotional appeals, demonizing Germany by connecting the warfare to the aims of different social groups and through lying outright. The CPI propaganda naturally appeals to the heart but not mind. Emotional protest is a preferred technique of propagandist, since every emotion