19960909
PROFESSION/BOOK REVIEW
September 9, 1996
New Book Describes Profession, Influence on Society
Those looking for a historical overview of the development of the public relations profession and its interactions with institutions and society should set aside some reading time after Thanksgiving.
"PR! A Social History of Spin," (HarperCollins) by City University of New York professor Stuart Ewen, is a 400-page treatise showing the developing of PR theory, and its practice.
"PR!" opens with a chapter about the late Edward Bernays and discusses his early work and writings, such as "Crystallizing Public Opinion" (1923) and "Propaganda" (1928).
Ewen also recognizes Ivy Lee as one of the founders of the PR profession in America. He quotes a statement by Lee to a group of railroad executives in 1916: "[Y]ou suddenly find you are not running a private business, but running a business of which the public itself is taking complete supervision. The crowd is in the saddle, the people are on the job, and we must take consideration of that fact, whether we like it or not."
Ewen points out that the dilemma of PR counselors' responsibility for the accuracy of information they distribute was an issue even in PR's early days. A 1915 quote of Ivy Lee's testimony before the U.S. Commission on Industrial Relations regarding a company's communications during a strike, reads: "I had no responsibility for the facts, and no duty beyond compiling them and getting them into the best form for publicity work. I took the facts that Mr. Welborn gave me on his word."
The book outlines the creation of the Corps of Press Agents, one of the U.S. government's most concerted efforts at building support for a policy--in this case, committing troops to fight in WWI.
Arthur Bullard, a former student of President Wilson when he taught at Princeton University, advocated creation of such a group to Wilson in a 1917 letter: "In order to make a Democracy fight wholeheartedly, it is necessary to make them understand the situation." About one month after the letter was written, the Corps of Press Agents was created.
The book also explores the role of high-profile intellectual Walter Lippmann, and his two 1920s books, "Public Opinion" (1922) and "The Phantom Public" (1927).
Ewen credits Lippmann as one of the earliest to articulate the power of images to convey messages and motivate the public. "Pictures have always been the surest way of conveying an idea, and next in order, words that call up pictures in memory," he quotes Lippmann. In days when photographs and movies were becoming widespread, Lippmann saw the power of these media to project "authority over the imagination."
By the 1920s, these thoughts were being adopted pragmatically by a few large corporations. Ewen cites a 1923 speech by William Banning, director of public relations at American Telephone and Telegraph Co. to the company's publicity staff. "...if [the publicist] will remember that an appeal to the heart, to the sentiments, is more resultful than one based on logic, he has the beginnings of a good technique." He added, "...the average human animal will only receive logic or instruction when it is clothed in entertainment...That is what makes the motion picture so invaluable."
"PR! A Social History of Spin," will be in bookstores the first week of December. It can be ordered for $30 from HarperCollins at 800/331-3761.
(Ewen, 212/772-4949)