Page 34 - Myths for the Masses An Essay on Mass Communication

Mass Communication and the Promise of Democracy

change traditional norms of society, while avoiding conflict and
assimilating the masses through various forms of persuasion. Edward
Bernays, who had grasped the power of mass communication and
its potential uses for purposes of change, and who knew that human
nature is susceptible to modification, also confirmed the view that
society is dominated in politics or business by a few individuals who
understand the “mental processes of the masses.”
Mass persuasion utilizes any form of social myth or popular
culture for circulation by various social institutions, from newspa-
pers and magazines to education. In modern times, state propaganda
has become an organized effort to indoctrinate society and to ward
off the adversarial endeavors of mass persuasion. Thus, large-scale
political persuasion came of age during World War I in the United
States, where George Creel, who had roused Americans to religious
fervor against Germany, considered his work the “world’s greatest
adventure in advertising.” His activities not only disclosed the con-
sequences of government propaganda, but revealed the possibilities
of manipulation through mass communication. Although social
scientists agreed by the late 1930s that propaganda had only limited
effects, Americans remained wary, when the threat of World War II
called for renewed government propaganda. Indeed, Harold Laswell,
who saw propaganda as a management of collective attitudes through
manipulation of significant symbols, characterized it in 1927 as a
“new dynamic of society.” His observation continues to reverberate
with the contemporary activities of public relations and advertising
in politics and commerce.The idea that persuasive power could be
an important weapon ultimately shifted to the field of psychologi-
cal warfare and carried propagandists beyond World War II.
Although the institutional framework for government propaganda
was dismantled after the war, the idea of propagandizing society for
purposes of ideological warfare – against communism, for instance,
or terrorism, for that matter – resurfaced as various government
agencies began to employ public relations as a legitimate means of
informing their respective publics. The realization that mass com-
munication was vital to the success of creating and sustaining world
views that serve government policies was a powerful incentive to
convert public media, such as the press or broadcasting, into major
carriers of official information. Consequently, privately owned

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