THE APPLICATION OF THESE PRINCIPLES
Both Trotter, Martin and the other writers we have quoted confirm what
the actual experience of the public relations counsel shows--that the
cause he represents must have some group reaction and tradition in
common with the public he is trying to reach. This must exist before
they can react sympathetically upon one another. Given these common
fundamentals, much can be done to capitalize or destroy them. It is
as untrue to contend that public opinion is manufactured as it is to
contend that public opinion governs the agencies which mould it.
The public relations counsel must continually realize that there are
always these limitations to his effectiveness.
The very “leaders,” men who have been selected from the mass to “lead
the nation,” live with their ears to the ground for every slight
rumbling of public sentiment. Preachers, acknowledged to be the ethical
leaders of their flocks, express obedience to public opinion.
The critics who hold these extreme points of view about public opinion
have too easily confused cause and effect. The sympathy between the
orator and his audience is not one which the orator can create. He
can intensify it, or by tactless speaking he can dissipate it, but he
cannot manufacture it from thin air.
Margaret Sanger, a leader in the fight for education on birth control,
will evoke enthusiasm when she addresses an audience that approves
of her sentiments. When, however, she injects her point of view into
groups that have a preconceived aversion to them, she is in danger
of abuse, if not of actual physical violence. Likewise, a man who
would talk of prison reform at a time when the public is aroused by
an unwonted crime wave will find little response. On the other hand,
when Madam Curie, co-discoverer of radium, came to America, she found
a country that was prepared to meet her because of intensive effort on
the part of a large radium corporation and a committee of women formed
by Marie B. Meloney, to apprise the public of the importance of her
visit. Had she come two years sooner, she might have been ignored save
by a few scientists.
A historic incident illustrative of the interaction between a leader
and a public is that of the sudden turn in the affairs of Rear
Admiral Dewey. The idol of the Spanish American War, he nevertheless
alienated popular affection by giving to his wife a house which had
been presented to him by an admiring public. For some reason the public
failed to sympathize with Admiral Dewey’s own undoubtedly sound and
worthy reasons.
To say, therefore, as some persons have said at great length and
with considerable vehemence, that the public relations counsel is
responsible for public opinion, is not true. The public relations
counsel is not needed to persuade people to standardize their points of
view or to persist in their established beliefs. The established point
of view becomes established by satisfying some real or assumed human
need.
In common with the scenario writer, the preacher, the statesman, the
dramatist, the public relations counsel, has his share in making up the
mind of the public. The public quite as truly makes up the mind of the
journalist, the pamphleteer, the scenario writer, the preacher and the
statesman. The main direction of the public mind is often irrevocably
set for its leaders.
Hendrik Van Loon, in his “Story of Mankind,” paints a picture of the
action and interaction between Napoleon the Great and his public in
a way that might well have been made to illustrate our point. When
Napoleon led the public truly in the direction towards which it was
headed, that is, towards democracy and equality, he was its successful
leader and its idol, says Van Loon. When in the latter part of his
career he turned back to a goal which the public had discarded and was
eager to forget, that is, Bourbonism, Napoleon met with irresistible
defeat.
“Damaged Goods” was able to make the American public accept the word
“syphilis” because the counsel on public relations projected the
doctrine of sex hygiene through those groups and sections of the public
which were prepared to work with him.
Public opinion is the resultant of the interaction between two forces.
This may help us to see with greater clarity the position the public
relations counsel holds in relation to the world at large, and what the
factors are with which he is concerned and by which he accomplishes his
work.
We have gone somewhat elaborately into the fundamental equipment of
the individual mind and its relation to the group mind because the
public relations counsel in his work in these fields must constantly
call upon his knowledge of individual and group psychology. The public
relations counsel can come forward, first, as the representative of
established things when their security is shaken, or when they desire
greater power; and second, as the representative of the group which is
struggling to establish itself.
Mr. Lippmann says propaganda is dependent upon censorship. From my
point of view the precise reverse is more nearly true. Propaganda is a
purposeful, directed effort to overcome censorship--the censorship of
the group mind and the herd reaction.
The average citizen is the world’s most efficient censor. His own mind
is the greatest barrier between him and the facts. His own “logic-proof
compartments,” his own absolutism are the obstacles which prevent him
from seeing in terms of experience and thought rather than in terms of
group reaction.
The training of the public relations counsel permits him to step out
of his own group to look at a particular problem with the eyes of an
impartial observer and to utilize his knowledge of the individual and
the group mind to project his clients’ point of view.
PART III
TECHNIQUE AND METHOD
CHAPTER I
THE PUBLIC CAN BE REACHED ONLY THROUGH ESTABLISHED MEDIUMS OF
COMMUNICATION
When the United States was made up of small social units with common
traditions and a small geographic and social area, it was comparatively
simple for the proponent of a point of view to address his public
directly. If he represented a social or a political idea, he could, at
no very great expense and with no very great difficulty in the early
Eighteenth Century, cover New England with his pamphlets. He could
arouse the thirteen colonies with his journals and brochures. That was
because the heritage of these groups made them sensitive to the same
stimuli. One man, remarks Mr. Lippmann, then was able single-handed to
crystallize the common will of his country in his day and generation.
To-day the greatest superman as yet developed by humanity could not
accomplish the same result with the United States.
Populations have increased. In this country geographical areas have
increased. Heterogeneity has also increased. A group living in any
given area is now extremely likely to have no common ancestry, no
common tradition, as such, and no cohesive intelligence. All these
elements make it necessary to-day for the proponent of a point of view
to engage an expert to represent him before society, an expert who
must know how to reach groups totally dissimilar as to ideals, customs
and even language. It is this necessity which has resulted in the
development of the counsel on public relations.
Now it must be understood that the proponent of a point of view,
whether acting alone or under the guidance of a public relations
counsel, must utilize existing avenues of approach. Modern conditions
are such that it is not feasible to build up independent organs.
Innovators and innovations cannot create their own channels of
communication. They must for a great part work through the existing
daily press, the existing magazine, the existing lecture circuit,
existing advertising mediums, the existing motion picture channels
and other means for the communication of ideas. The public relations
counsel, on behalf of the groups he represents, must reach majorities
and minorities through their respective approaches.
If the public relations counsel can succeed in presenting ideas and
facts to the public in spite of the heterogeneity of society, in
spite of the vast psychological and geographic problems, in spite of
the difficulties, monetary and otherwise, of reaching and influencing
populations numbering millions--if he can succeed in overcoming
these difficulties by a skillful understanding of the situation, his
profession is socially valuable.
Absolute homogeneity, resulting in a dead level of uniformity in public
and individual reaction, is undesirable. On the other hand, agreement
on broad social purposes is essential to progress. Agreement on broad
industrial purposes may be equally desirable. Without such agreement,
without unified purposes, there can be no progress and the unit must
fall. The men who were most effective in stimulating national morale
during the war never lost sight of these underlying needs, whether they
stimulated a whole nation to ration itself voluntarily and give up the
eating of sugar, or whether they stimulated knitting and Red Cross
activities and voluntary contributions to funds.
Three ways are cited by Mr. Lippmann to obtain cohesive force among
the special and local interests which make up national and social
units. The public relations counsel avails himself only of the third.
The first method which is described is that of “patronage and pork.”
This is very largely the method relied upon by certain legislative
bodies to-day to maintain cohesive force. As an instance of this, the
investigations of the methods used in connection with the bills to
secure the building of local post offices or the dredging of harbors or
rivers seem to point out that a representative from one community will
promise reciprocal support to the member from another community, if he
in turn will act favorably on another item. This method intensifies
the feeling that all are working together, even though they may not be
working for the highest interests of the country. Similarly the chief
executive of a city may institute certain measures to placate school
teachers. He will expect the school teachers to support him on some
other project at some other period.
The second method named by Mr. Lippmann[24] is “government by terror
and obedience.”
The third method is “government based on such a highly developed system
of information, analysis and self-consciousness that ‘the knowledge
of national circumstances and reasons of state’ is evident to all
men. The autocratic system is in decay. The voluntary system is in
its very earliest development and so, in calculating the prospects
of associations among large groups of people, a league of nations,
industrial government, or a federal union of states, the degree to
which the material for a common consciousness exists determines how
far coöperation will depend upon force, or upon the milder alternative
to force, which is patronage and privilege. The secret of great state
builders, like Alexander Hamilton, is that they know how to calculate
these principles.”
The method of education by information, which was to a great extent
relied upon by the United States, for example, was evidenced in the
formation during the war of such agencies as the Committee on Public
Information. The public relations counsel, through the mediums chosen
by him, presented to the public the information necessary to aid in
understanding America’s war aims and ideals. George Creel and his
organization reached vast groups, representing every phase of our
national elements, in every modern method of thought communication. But
even in the United States the other two methods were used to obtain
cohesive force.
In fact the method least relied upon in any of the belligerent
countries was that of “government based on such a highly developed
system of information, analysis and self-consciousness that ‘the
knowledge of national circumstances and reasons of state’ is evident to
all men.”
This breakdown did not occur among small, inefficiently organised
groups. It occurred among the representatives of the highest
development in social organization.
If this was the fate of the most highly organized social groups,
consider then the problem which confronts the social, economic,
educational or political groups in peace time, when they attempt to
obtain a public hearing for new ideas. Innumerable instances have shown
the difficulty that any group faces in gaining an acceptance for its
ideas.
The development of the United States to its present size and
diversification has intensified the difficulty of creating a common
will on any subject because it has heightened the natural tendency of
men to separate into crowds opposed to one another in point of view.
This difficulty is further emphasized by the fact that often these
crowds live in different traditional, moral and spiritual worlds. The
physical difficulties of communication make group separation greater.
Mr. Trotter’s conclusions from a study of the gregarious instinct are
singularly apt on this point. He says that[25] “the enormous power
of varied reaction possessed by man must render necessary for his
attainment of the full advantages of the gregarious habit a power
of inter-communication of absolutely unprecedented fineness. It is
clear that scarcely a hint of such power has yet appeared, and it is
equally obvious that it is this defect which gives to society the
characteristics which are the contempt of the man of science and the
disgust of the humanitarian.”
When the worker was of the same ancestry as his employer, labor
difficulties, for example, could be discussed in terms which were
comprehensible to both parties. To-day the United States Steel
Corporation must exert tremendous effort to present its view to its
thousands of employees who are South Europeans, North Europeans,
Americans.
Czechoslovakia, during the Peace Conference, wanted to appeal to
its countrymen in America, but this group was vague and scattered
in a population that lived in many cities throughout the country.
The public relations counsel who was engaged to reach this scattered
population had, therefore, to translate his appeals so that they
might be understood logically and emotionally by the educated and the
uneducated, the urban, the rural, the laboring and the professional man.
The same problem in a quite different guise presented itself to the
public relations counsel who wanted to insure a public response to
the appeal of the Diaghileff Russian Ballet, of which the public knew
nothing. He had, therefore, to surmount the difficulties of dissimilar
geographic and artistic heritage and taste, of unwillingness to accept
novelty and of interests already firmly attached to other forms of
amusement.
Dominant groups to-day are more secure in their position than was the
most successful autocrat of several hundred years ago, because to-day
the inertia which must be overcome in order to displace these groups
is so much greater. So many persons with so many different points of
view must be reached and unified before anything effective can be
done. Unity can be secured only by finding the greatest common factor
or divisor of all the groups; and it is difficult to find one common
factor which will appeal to a large and unhomogeneous group.
A very simple and broadly appealing campaign for reaching the public
was undertaken recently by the railroads in combination. They utilized
the poster in graphic, fundamental appeal to awaken an instinct of
carefulness in regard to crossing railroad tracks. When the government
sought to reëstablish ex-service men, the public relations counsel
had to appeal vividly and quickly to employers and returned soldiers
out of the vast complexity of their interests. He selected the most
fundamental appeals of loyalty, fairness and patriotism in order to be
understood actively.
Domination to-day is not a product of armies or navies or wealth or
policies. It is a domination based on the one hand upon accomplished
unity, and on the other hand upon the fact that opposition is generally
characterized by a high degree of disunity. The institution of electing
representatives to Congress is so firmly established that no existent
force to-day can overthrow it. More specifically, why is it that the
two parties, Republican and Democrat, have maintained themselves as
the dominant force for so many years? Only the leadership of Theodore
Roosevelt seemed for a time to supersede them; and events since then
have shown that it was Roosevelt and not his party who succeeded. The
Farmer-Labor Party, the Socialist Party despite years of campaigning
have failed to become even strongly recognizable opponents to the
established groups. The disunity of forces which seek to overthrow
dominant groups is illustrated every day in every phase of our
lives--political, moral and economic. A new point of view, although
faced by the difficulty of unifying a group to concerted will or
action, can seldom establish new mediums by which to approach those
people to whom it wishes to appeal.
It is possible for advertising and pamphletizing to blanket the country
at a cost. To establish a new lecture service in order to reach the
public would be expensive, and effective only to a limited extent.
To establish an independent radio station to broadcast an idea would
be difficult and probably disproportionately expensive. To create a
new motion picture and a distributing agency would be slow, and very
difficult and costly, if possible at all.
The difficulty of establishing and building new channels of approach
to the public is shown best by an examination of the principal mediums
which are available to the public relations counsel who desires to
direct public thought to the problems of the group he represents.
It is only necessary to picture the newspaper and magazine situation
in the United States to-day to realize the difficulty of establishing
a new medium for the representation of a point of view. Americans are
accustomed to first-rate service from their press. They demand a high
standard not only in the physical appearance of their newspapers but
in the news service as well. Their daily paper must provide them with
items of local, state and international interest and importance. In the
complex activities of modern life, the newspaper must find and select
the subjects which interest its readers. It must also give to its
readers the news fresh from the making. Whatever vagueness there may be
about the definition of news itself, one admitted constant is that it
must be fresh.
The cost of establishing a paper with a wide appeal, which will have
the facilities of gathering news, of printing and distributing it,
is such that groups can no longer depend upon their own organs of
expression. The Christian Science church does not depend upon its
admirable publication, the _Christian Science Monitor_ in order to
reach its own and new publics. Even where the issue demands a partisan
or class origin of a newspaper, as in the case of a political party,
the results achieved by so expensive and laborious a step seldom
justify it.
Mr. Given in his book “Making a Newspaper,” points out the great
expense that is attached to the publication of a large metropolitan
daily. In proportion to their field of appeal and potential income, the
smaller dailies undoubtedly face the same economic problems. Mr. Given
says:[26] “Few persons not having intimate knowledge of a newspaper
have any idea of the great amount of money required to start one, or to
keep one running which is already established. The mechanical equipment
and delivery service alone may demand an investment of several hundred
thousand dollars--there is one New York paper whose mechanical
equipment cost $1,000,000--supplies are in constant demand, and the
salary list is a long and heavy one. For a new paper the salary list
of the editorial department is especially formidable, as editors and
reporters who have employment with well-established publications are
always reluctant to change to a venture that at best is in for a rough
voyage, and can be attracted only by high pay.
“A good many of the newspapers that are started soon become memories,
and fewer than are generally supposed are paying their own way. The
sum of $3,000,000 would hardly suffice at the present time to equip a
first-class newspaper establishment in New York City, issue a morning
and an evening edition paper, build up a circulation of 75,000 for
each, and place the establishment on a money-making basis. Run on the
lines of those already established and possessing no extraordinary
features to recommend them to the public, the two papers might
continue to lose money for twenty years. When one learns that there
are in New York business managers who are compelled to reckon with an
average weekly expense account of nearly $50,000, he can understand
the possibility of heavy losses. And it might be added, in contrast,
that there are in New York newspapers which could not be bought for
$10,000,000.”
Discussing substantially the same point, Mr. Oswald Garrison Villard
observes the narrowing down of the number of newspapers in our large
cities and points out the imminent danger of a news monopoly in
the United States. He says:[27] “It is the danger that newspaper
conditions, because of the enormously increased costs and this tendency
to monopoly, may prevent people who are actuated by passion and
sentiment from founding newspapers, which is causing many students of
the situation much concern. What is to be the hope for the advocates
of new-born and unpopular reforms if they cannot have a press of their
own, as the Abolitionists and the founders of the Republican party set
up theirs in a remarkably short time, usually with poverty-stricken
bank accounts?”
The public relations counsel must always sub-divide the appeal of his
subject and present it through the widest possible variety of avenues
to the public. That these avenues must be existing avenues is both a
limitation and an opportunity.
People accept the facts which come to them through existing channels.
They like to hear new things in accustomed ways. They have neither the
time nor the inclination to search for facts that are not readily
available to them. The expert, therefore, must advise first upon the
form of action desirable for his client and secondly must utilize the
established mediums of communication, in order to present to the public
a point of view. This is true whether it is that of a majority or
minority, old or new personality, institution or group which desires to
change by modification or intensification the store of knowledge and
the opinion of the public.
CHAPTER II
THE INTERLAPPING GROUP FORMATIONS OF SOCIETY, THE CONTINUOUS SHIFTING
OF GROUPS, CHANGING CONDITIONS AND THE FLEXIBILITY OF HUMAN NATURE ARE
ALL AIDS TO THE COUNSEL ON PUBLIC RELATIONS
The public relations counsel works with public opinion. Public opinion
is the product of individual minds. Individual minds make up the
group mind. And the established order of things is maintained by the
inertia of the group. Three factors make it possible for the public
relations counsel to overcome even this inertia. These are, first,
the interlapping group formation of society; second, the continuous
shifting of groups; third, the changed physical conditions to which
groups respond. All of these are brought about by the natural inherent
flexibility of individual human nature.
Society is not divided into two groups, although it seems so to many.
Some see modern society divided into capital and labor. The feminist
sees the world divided into men and women. The hungry man sees the
rich and the poor. The missionary sees the heathen and the faithful. If
society were divided into two groups, and no more, then change could
come about only through violent upheaval.
Let us assume, for example, a society divided into capital and labor.
It is apparent on slight inspection that capital is not a homogeneous
group. There is a difference in point of view and in interests between
Elbert H. Gary or John D. Rockefeller, Jr., on the one hand, and the
small shopkeeper on the other.
Occasions arise, too, upon which even in one group sharp differences
and competitive alignments take place.
In the capital group, on the tariff question, for example, the retailer
with a net income of ten thousand dollars a year is apt to take a
radically different position from the manufacturer with a similar
income. In some respects the capitalist is a consumer. In other
respects he is a worker. Many persons are at the same time workers and
capitalists. The highly paid worker who also draws income from Liberty
Bonds or from shares of stock in industrial corporations is an example
of this.
On the other hand, the so-called workers do not consist of a
homogeneous group with complete identity of interests. There may be
no difference in economic situation between manual labor and mental
labor; yet there is a traditional difference in point of view which
keeps these two groups far apart. Again, the narrower field of manual
labor, the group represented by the American Federation of Labor,
is frequently opposed in sympathies and interests to the group of
Industrial Workers of the World. Even in the American Federation of
Labor there are component units. The locomotive engineer, who belongs
to one of the great brotherhoods, has different interests from the
miner, who belongs to the United Mine Workers of America.
The farmer is in a class by himself. Yet he in turn may be a tenant
farmer or the owner of an estate or of a small patch of tillable soil.
That group so vaguely called “the public” consists of all sorts and
conditions of men, the particular kind or condition depending upon
the point of view of the individual who is making the observation or
classification. This is true likewise of great and small subdivisions
of the public.
The public relations counsel must take into account that many groups
exist, and that there is a very definite interlapping of groups.
Because of this he is enabled to utilize many types of appeal in
reaching any one group, which he sub-divides for his purposes.
The Federation for the Support of Jewish Charities recently instituted
a campaign to raise millions of dollars for what it called its
United Building Fund. The directors of that campaign might have
subdivided society for their purpose into two groups, the Jewish and
the non-Jewish group, or they might have decided that there were
rich people who could give and poor people who could not give. But
they realized the interlapping nature of the groups they wanted to
reach. They analyzed these component groups closely and divided them
into groups which had common business interests. For instance, they
organized a group of dentists, a group of bankers, a group of real
estate operators, a group of cloak-and-suit-house operators, a group of
motion picture and theatrical owners and others.
Through an approach to each group on the strongest appeal to which the
members of the group as a group would respond, the charity received the
support of the individuals who made it up. The social aspirations of
the group, the ambitions for leadership of the group, the competitive
desires and philanthropic tendencies of the individuals who made up
these groups were capitalized.
The interlapping nature of these groups made it possible, too, for the
public relations counsel to reach all the individuals by appeals that
were directed not merely to the individual as a member of the business
group with which he was aligned, but also as a member of a different
group. For instance, as a humanitarian, as a public-spirited citizen,
or as a devoted Jew. Because of this interlapping characteristic of
groups, the organization was able to accomplish its purpose more
successfully.
Society is made up of an almost infinite number of groups, whose
various interests and desires overlap and interweave inextricably. The
same man may be at the same time the member of a minority religious
sect, supporter of the dominant political party, a worker in the sense
that he earns his living primarily by his labor, and a capitalist in
the sense that he has rents from real estate investments or interest
from financial investments. In an issue which involves his religious
sect he will align himself with one group. In an issue which involves
the choice of a President of the United States he aligns himself with
another group. In an industrial issue between capital and labor it
might be very nearly impossible to estimate in advance how he would
align himself. It is from the constant interplay of these groups and of
their conflicting interests upon each other that progress results, and
it is this fact that the public relations counsel takes into account
in pleading his cause. A movement called “The Go-Getters,” instituted
by a magazine, as much to keep itself before the public eye as to
stimulate commercial activity, found rapid acceptance throughout the
country because it appealed to trades of every description, because
each group had among its members men who belonged also to a large
group, the group of salesmen.
Let us examine for a moment the personnel of the Horseshoe at the
Metropolitan Opera House. It is composed of people who are rich,
but this economic classification is only one, for the men and women
who assemble there are presumably music lovers. But we may again
break up this classification of music lovers and discover that
this group contains art lovers as well. It contains sportsmen. It
contains merchants and bankers. There are philosophers in it. There
are motorists and amateur farmers. When the Russian Ballet came to
America the essential parts of this group attended the performances,
but in going after his public, the public relations counsel based his
actions upon the interlapping of groups, and appealed to his entire
possible audience through their various interlapping group interests.
The art lover had been stimulated by hearing of the Ballet through
his art group or the art publications and by seeing pictures of the
costumes and the settings. The music lover, who might have had his
interest stimulated through seeing a photograph, also had his interest
stimulated by reading about the music.
Every individual heard of the Russian Ballet in terms of one or more
different appeals and responded to the Ballet because of these appeals.
It is naturally difficult to say which one of them had its strongest
effect upon the individual’s mind. There was no doubt, however, that
the interlapping group formation of society made it possible for more
to be reached and to be moved than would have been the case if the
Ballet had been projected on the world at large only as a well-balanced
artistic performance.
The utilization of this characteristic of society was shown recently in
the activities of a silk firm which desired to intensify the interest
of the public in silks. It realized that fundamentally women were its
potential buying public, but it understood, too, that the women who
made up this public were members of other groups as well. Thus, to
the members of women’s clubs, silk was projected as the embodiment of
fashion. To those women who visited museums, silk was displayed there
as art. To the schools in the same town, perhaps, silk became a lesson
in the natural history of the silkworm. To art clubs, silk became color
and design. To newspapers, the events that transpired in the silk
mills became news matters of importance.
Each group of women was appealed to on the basis of its greatest
interest. The school teacher was appealed to in the schoolroom as an
educator, and after school hours as a member of a women’s club. She
read the advertisements about silk as a woman reader of the newspapers,
and as a member of the women’s group which visited the museums, saw
the silk there. The woman who stayed at home was brought into contact
with the silk through her child. All these groups made up the potential
market for silk, reached in this way in terms of many appeals to each
individual. These are the implications present for the public relations
counsel, who must take into account the interchange and interplay of
groups in pleading his cause.
For society, the interesting outcome of this situation is that progress
seldom occurs through the abrupt expulsion by a group of its old ideas
in favor of new ideas, but rather through the rearrangement of the
thought of the individuals in these groups with respect to each other
and with respect to the entire membership of society.
It is precisely this interlapping of groups--the variety, the
inconsistency of the average man’s mental, social and psychological
commitments which makes possible the gradual change from one state
of affairs or from one state of mind to another. Few people are life
members of one group and of one group only. The ordinary person is a
very temporary member of a great number of groups. This is one of the
most powerful forces making for progress in society because it makes
for receptivity and open-mindedness. The modification which results
from the inconstancy of individual commitments may be accelerated
and directed by conscious effort. These changes which come about so
stealthily that they remain unobserved in society until long after they
have taken place, can be made to yield results in chosen directions.
Changed external conditions must be taken into account by the public
relations counsel in his work.
Such changes carry with them modifications in the interests and points
of view of those they affect. They make it possible to modify group and
individual reaction. The public relations counsel, too, can modify the
results of the changed external condition by calling attention to it or
interpreting it in terms of the interest of those affected.
The radio might be taken as an example. In considering the radio from
the standpoint of his work, the public relations counsel has a new
medium which can readily reach huge sections of the public with his
message. The public relations counsel must be ready to estimate, too,
what difference in viewpoint the radio will produce or has produced in
any given section of the public it reaches. He will have to consider,
for instance, that due to it the average farmer is much more closely in
contact with the world’s events than formerly.
In the case of the radio, too, if his clients be, for instance, large
manufacturers of radio supplies and demand acceleration of this changed
external condition in order to increase their business, he may enlarge
the radio’s field, activity and effectiveness. Or, he may stress to
the public the importance of this new instrument and strengthen its
prestige, so that it may better fulfill its mission as a modifier of
conditions.
Changed conditions can make possible modifications in the public point
of view, as can be instanced by a campaign carried on by savings
banks to encourage thrift. This campaign was successful at that time
because inflation made it easy for the public to see the wisdom of the
doctrines preached and to act upon them.
Another example of this modification in the public point of view due to
a changed condition was the demand made by the Executive Committee of
the Central Trades and Labor Council of New York for the government to
take over the railways of the country. Public ownership had been a pet
subject for school debate for more than two decades, but it had seldom
passed into the field of serious consideration by the general public.
Yet the conditions of hardship created by the last strike of the
railroad shopmen caused a much greater receptivity in the public mind
to this idea.
The airplane slowly emerges as an important factor in the daily life
of the people. What it will mean in the psychology of the nation when
commuters can settle within a radius of a hundred or more miles of
cities is only to be guessed at. Cities may cease to exist except as
industrial centers. There will be greater groups and broader interests.
There will be fewer geographic divisions.
When the automobile was first used motoring was a dangerous and
thrilling sport. To-day it is found that the automobile has altered the
fundamental conception of daily life held by thousands of people, both
in the urban and the rural population. The automobile has removed much
of the isolation of country districts. It has increased the possibility
of education in them. It has caused millions of miles of excellent
roads to be laid.
Changed conditions can be national or local in their import and
significance. They can be as national in scope as the revolutionary
introduction over night of a national prohibition law or as local as a
police captain’s edict in Coney Island against stockingless feminine
bathers. But they must be taken into consideration by the public
relations counsel in his work if they concern in the slightest degree
his particular public.
The basic elements of human nature are fixed as to desires and
instincts and innate tendencies. The directions, however, in which
these basic elements may be turned by skillful handling are infinite.
Human nature is readily subject to modification. Many psychologists
have attempted to define the component parts of human nature, and while
their terminology is not the same, they do follow more or less the same
general outlines.
Among the universal instincts are--self-preservation, which includes
the desire for shelter, sex hunger and food hunger. It is only
necessary to look through the pages of any magazine to see the way
in which modern business avails itself of these three fundamentals
to exert a coercive force upon the public it is trying to reach. The
American Radiator advertisement with its cozy home, the family gathered
around the radiator, the storm raging outside, definitely makes its
appeal to the universal desire for shelter.
The Gulden Mustard advertisements with their graphic delineation of
cold cuts and an inviting glass of what is presumably near-beer
definitely appeal to our gustatory sense.
As for the sex appeal, the soap advertisements run a veritable race
with these ends in view. Woodbury’s “the skin you love to touch” is a
graphic illustration.
The instinct of self-preservation, one of the most basic of human
instincts, is most flexible. The dispensers of raisins, upon the
advice of an expert on public opinion, adopted a slogan to appeal
to this instinct: “Have you had your iron to-day?”--iron presumably
strengthening a man and increasing his powers of resistance. The same
man appealed to here will respond to the sales talk which persuades him
that insurance may save him at a time of need.
An important hair-net manufacturer wanted to increase the sales of
his product. The public relations counsel, therefore, appealed to the
instinct of self-preservation of large groups of the public. He talked
of self-preservation with respect to hygiene for food dispensers. He
talked of self-preservation with respect to safety for women who work
near exposed machinery.
The same instinct of preservation which may cause a worker to give up
necessary food so that he may save a little money will cause him to
contribute money to a common fund if he can be shown that this too is a
safety measure.
The public relations counsel extracts from his clients’ causes ideas
which will capitalize certain fundamental instincts in the people he
is trying to reach, and then sets about to project these ideas to his
public.
William MacDougall, the psychologist, classifies seven
primary instincts with their attendant emotions. They
are flight-fear, repulsion-disgust, curiosity-wonder,
pugnacity-anger, self-display-elation, self-abasement-subjection,
parental-love-tenderness. These instincts are utilized by the public
relations counsel in developing ideas and emotions which will modify
the opinions and actions of his public.
The action of public health officials in stressing the possibility of
a plague or epidemic is effective because it appeals to the emotion
of fear, and presents the possibility of preventing the spread of the
epidemic or plague. Of course, the element of flight in this particular
situation is not one of movement, but of a desire to get away from the
danger.
The instinct of repulsion with its attendant emotion of disgust is not
often called upon by the public relations counsel in his work.
On the other hand, curiosity and wonder are continually employed. In
Governmental work, particularly, the statesman who has an announcement
to make is continually exhausting every effort to arouse public
interest in advance of the actual announcement. Feelers are often sent
out to the public to help create curiosity.
It is interesting to note, too, that even book publishers rely upon the
element of wonder, termed suspense in drama, to increase their public
and their sales. Our now famous “What is wrong with this picture?”
advertisements, and those used for the O. Henry books illustrate this
point.
Pugnacity with its attendant emotion of anger is a human constant.
The public relations counsel uses this continually in constructing
all kinds of events that will call it into play. Because of it, too,
he is often forced to enact combats and create issues. He stages
battles against evils in which the antagonist is personified for
the public. New York City, when it wants to reduce the death rate
from tuberculosis, aligns its citizens yearly in a fight against the
disease and continues the idea of combat by announcing the number of
victims from year to year. It uses the terminology of warfare in these
bulletins. Such phrases in this or other health campaigns as “kill the
germs,” “swat the fly,” illustrate this point. The public responds to
a battle in a way that it might not respond to a plea to take care of
itself or to do its civic duty.
Under pugnacity would come that technique of the public relations
counsel which is continually devising tests and contests. Mr. Martin,
in his experience as director of the Cooper Union Forum, noticed that
the sort of interest which will most easily bring an assemblage of
people together is most commonly an issue of some kind.
On the one hand, says Mr. Martin:[28] “I have seen efforts made in New
York to hold mass meetings to discuss affairs of the very greatest
importance, and I have noted the fact that such efforts usually fail
to get out more than a handful of specially interested persons, no
matter how well advertised, if the subject to be considered happens
not to be of a controversial nature. On the other hand, if the matter
to be considered is one about which there is keen partisan feeling and
popular resentment--if it lends itself to the spectacular personal
achievement of one whose name is known, especially in the face of
opposition or difficulties--or if the occasion permits of resolutions
of protest, of the airing of wrongs, of denouncing a business of some
kind, or of casting statements of external principles in the teeth of
‘enemies of humanity,’ then, however trivial the occasion, we may count
on it that our meeting will be well attended.
“It is this element of conflict, directly or indirectly, which plays
an overwhelming part in the psychology of every crowd. It is the
element of contest which makes baseball so popular. A debate will
draw a larger crowd than a lecture. One of the secrets of the large
attendance of the forum is the fact that discussion--‘talking back’--is
permitted and encouraged. The Evangelist Sunday undoubtedly owes the
great attendance at his meetings in no small degree to the fact that he
is regularly expected to abuse some one.
“Nothing so easily catches general attention and creates a crowd as a
contest of any kind. The crowd unconsciously identifies its members
with one or the other competitor. Success enables the winning crowd
to ‘crow’ over the losers. Such an occasion becomes symbolic and is
utilized by the ego to enhance its feeling of importance.”
The public relations counsel finds in the instinct of pugnacity a
powerful weapon for enlisting public support for or public opposition
to a point of view in which he is interested. On this principle, he
will, whenever possible, state his case in the form of an issue and
enlist, in support of his side, such forces as are available.
The dangers of the method must be recognized and borne in mind.
Pugnacity can be enlisted on the side of decency and progress. He who
looks at it from that point of view will agree with Mr. Pulitzer,
the great publisher, that it seems neither extraordinary nor culpable
that “people and press should be more interested in the polemical than
in the platitudinous; in blame than in painting the lily; in attack
than in sending laudatory coals to Newcastle.” On the other hand, the
instinct of pugnacity can be utilized to suppress and to oppress. From
the point of view of the public relations counsel, who is interested
from day to day in accomplishing definite results on specific issues,
the dangers of the method are only the ordinary dangers of every
weapon, physical or psychological, which has been devised.
It is interesting in this connection to note that a newspaper uses
the same methods to encourage interest in itself as do others. The
_New York Times_ promoted public interest in heavier-than-air-machines
by creating sporting issues of contests between aviators on altitude
records, continuous stays in the air, distance flying and so forth.
Mr. Lippmann comments on this same characteristic:
“But where pugnacity is not enlisted, those of us who are not directly
involved find it hard to keep up our interest. For those who are
involved the absorption may be real enough to hold them even when no
issue is involved. They may be exercised by sheer joy in activity or
by subtle rivalry or invention. But for those to whom the whole problem
is external and distant, these other faculties do not easily come into
play. In order that the faint image of the affair shall mean something
to them, they must be allowed to exercise the love of struggle,
suspense, and victory.”[29]
We have to take sides. We have to be able to take sides. In the
recesses of our being we must step out of the audience onto the stage
and wrestle as the hero for the victory of good over evil. We must
breathe into the allegory the breath of our life.
Recently a philanthropic group was advised to hold a prize fight
for charity. This recognition of the importance of the principle of
pugnacity was correct. It is a question whether the application was
not somewhat ill advised and in bad taste. The Consumer’s Committee
of Women opposed to American Valuation was avowedly aligned to fight
against a section of the tariff presented by Chairman Fordney. The Lucy
Stone League, a group who wish to make it easy for married women to
maintain their maiden names, dramatized the fight that they are making
against tradition by staging a debate at their annual banquet.
Very often the public relations counsel utilizes the
self-display-elation motive and draws public attention to particular
people in groups, in order to give them a greater interest in the
work they are espousing. It is often found to be true that when a
man’s adherence or allegiance to a movement is lukewarm and he is
publicly praised for his adherence to it, he will become a forceful
factor in it. That is why the intelligent hospital boards name rooms
or beds after their donors. It is one of the reasons for the elaborate
letterheads so many of our philanthropic organizations have.
Self-abasement and subjection, its attendant emotion, are seldom called
upon. On the other hand, parental love and tenderness are continually
employed, viz., the effort of the baby-kissing candidate for public
office or the attempt to popularize a brand of silk by having a child
present a silk flag to a war veteran at a public ceremony. The whole
flood of post-war charity-drives was keyed to this pitch. The starving
Belgian orphan personified in every picture, the starving Armenian, and
then the hungry Austrian and German orphans appeared, and the campaigns
all succeeded on this issue. Even issues where the child was not the
predominant factor used this appeal.
Four other instincts are listed in this
classification--gregariousness, individualism, acquisition and
construction. We have already dealt with the first at length.
The gregarious instinct in man gives the public relations counsel
the opportunity for his most potent work. The group and herd show
everywhere the leader, who because of certain qualifications, certain
points that are judged by the herd to be important to its life, stands
out and is followed more or less implicitly by it.
A group leader gains such power with his group or herd that even on
matters which have had nothing to do with the establishment or gaining
of that leadership he is considered a leader and is followed by his
group.
It is this attribute of men and women that again gives the public
relations counsel free play.
A group leader of any given cause will bring to a new cause all those
who have looked to his leadership. For instance, if the adherence
of a prominent Republican is secured for the League of Nations, his
adherence will probably bring to the League of Nations many other
prominent Republicans.
The group leadership with which the public relations counsel may work
is limited only by the character of the groups he desires to reach.
After an analysis of his problem the subdivisions must be made. His
action depends upon his selective capacity, and the possibility of
approach to the leaders. These leaders may represent therefore a wide
variety of interests--society leaders or leaders of political groups,
leaders of women or leaders of sportsmen, leaders of divisions by
geography, or divisions by age, divisions by language or by education.
These subdivisions are so numerous that there are large companies in
the United States whose business it is to supply lists of groups and
group leaders in different fields.
This same mechanism is carried out in many other cases. In looking for
group leaders, the public relations counsel must realize that some
leaders have more varied and more intensified authority than others.
One leader may represent the ideals and ideas of several or numerous
groups. His coöperation on one basis may bring into alignment and may
carry with it the other groups who are interested in him primarily for
other reasons.
The public relations counsel, let us say, enlists the support of a
man, president of two associations; (a) an economic association, (b)
a welfare association. The issue is an economic one, purely. But
because of his leadership, the membership of association (b), that
is, the welfare group, joins him in the movement as interestedly as
association (a) does, which has the more logical, direct reason for
entering the field.
I have given this in general terms rather than as a specific instance.
The principle which governs the interlapping and continually shifting
group formation of society also governs the gregariousness.
Individualism, another instinct, is a concomitant of gregariousness,
and naturally follows it. The desire for individual expression is
always a trait of the individuals who go to make up the group. The
appeal to individualism goes closely in hand with other instincts, such
as self-display.
The instincts of acquisition and construction are minor instincts as
far as the ordinary work of the public relations counsel is concerned.
Examples of this type of appeal come readily to mind in the “Own your
own home” and “Build your own home” campaigns.
The innate tendencies are susceptibility to suggestion, imitation,
habit and play. Susceptibility to suggestion and imitation might well
be classified under gregariousness, which we have already discussed.
Under habit would come one very important human trait of which the
public relations counsel avails himself continually. The mechanism
which habit produces and which makes it possible for the public
relations counsel to use habit is the stereotype we have already
touched upon.
Mental habits create stereotypes just as physical habits create certain
definite reflex actions. These stereotypes or reflex images are a great
aid to the public relations counsel in his work.
These short-cuts to reactions make it possible for the average mind
to possess a much larger number of impressions than would be possible
without them. At the same time these stereotypes or _clichés_ are not
necessarily truthful pictures of what they are supposed to portray.
They are determined by the outward stimuli to which the individual has
been subject as well as by the content of his mind.
To most of us, for example, the stereotype of the general is a stern,
upright gentleman in uniform and with gold braid, preferably on a
horse. The stereotype of a farmer is a slouching, overall-clad man
with straw sticking out of his mouth and a straw hat on his head. He
is supposed to be very shrewd when it comes to matters of his own farm
and very ignorant when it comes to matters of culture. He despises
“city fellers.” All this is the connotation brought up by the one word
“farmer.”
The public relations counsel sometimes uses the current stereotypes,
sometimes combats them and sometimes creates new ones. In using them
he very often brings to the public he is reaching a stereotype they
already know, to which he adds his new ideas, thus he fortifies his
own and gives a greater carrying power. For instance, the public
relations counsel might well advise Austria, which in the public mind
might still represent a belligerent country, to bring forward other
Austrian stereotypes, namely the Danube waltz stereotype and the Danube
blue stereotype. An appeal for help would then come from the country
of the well-liked Danube waltz and Danube blue--the country of gayety
and charm. The new idea would be carried to those who accepted the
stereotypes they were familiar with.
The combating of the stereotype is seen in the battle waged against
the American Valuation Plan by the public relations counsel. The
formulators of the plan dubbed it “American Valuation” in order to
capitalize on the stereotype of “American.” In fighting the plan, its
opponents put the word “American” in quotation marks whenever reference
was made to the subject in order to question the authenticity of the
use of this stereotype. Thus patriotism was definitely removed from
what was evidently an economical and political issue.
The public relations counsel creates new stereotypes. Roosevelt, his
own best adviser, was an apt creator of such stereotypes--“square
deal, de-lighted, molly-coddle, big stick,” created new concepts for
general acceptance.
Stereotypes sometimes become shop-worn and lose their power with the
public that has previously accepted them. “Hundred per cent American”
died from over use.
Visible objects as stereotypes are often used by the public relations
counsel with great effectiveness to produce the desired impression.
A national flag on the orator’s platform is a most common device. A
scientist must of necessity be in juxtaposition with his instruments.
A chemist is not a chemist to the public unless test tubes and
retorts are near him. A doctor must have his kit, or, formerly, a
Van Dyke beard. In photographs of food factory buildings white is a
good stereotype for cleanliness and purity. In fact, all emblems and
trade-marks are stereotypes.
There is one danger in the use of stereotypes by the public relations
counsel. That is, by the substitution of words for acts, demagogues in
every field of social relationship can take advantage of the public.
Play as an innate tendency is utilized by the public relations counsel
whenever conditions merit such an appeal. When a charity committee is
advised to institute a street fair to gather money, the committee is
recognizing this tendency. When a city government arranges fireworks
for its citizens, when a metropolitan news-daily stages marble contests
or horseshoe pitching events, the play tendency of human society finds
an outlet and the initiators of the event find friends.
CHAPTER III
AN OUTLINE OF METHODS PRACTICABLE IN MODIFYING THE POINT OF VIEW OF A
GROUP
On the question of specific devices upon which the public relations
counsel relies to accomplish his ends, volumes could probably be
written without exhausting the subject. The detailed presentation
is potentially endless. Pages could be filled with instances of the
stimuli to which men and women respond, the circumstances under
which they will respond favorably or unfavorably, and the particular
application of each of these stimuli to concrete conditions. Such
an outline, however, would have less value than an outline of
fundamentals, since circumstances are never the same.
These principles, by and large, consist of fundamentals already
defined, to which the public relations counsel has recourse in common
with the statesman, the journalist, the preacher, the lecturer and all
others engaged in attempting to modify public opinion or public conduct.
How does the public relations counsel approach any particular problem?
First he must analyze his client’s problem and his client’s objective.
Then he must analyze the public he is trying to reach. He must devise a
plan of action for the client to follow and determine the methods and
the organs of distribution available for reaching his public. Finally
he must try to estimate the interaction between the public he seeks
to reach and his client. How will his client’s case strike the public
mind? And by public mind here is meant that section or those sections
of the public which must be reached.
Let us take the example of a public relations counsel who is confronted
with the specific problem of modifying or influencing the attitude
of the public toward a given tariff bill. A tariff bill, of course,
is primarily the application of theoretical economics to a concrete
industrial situation. The public relations counsel in analyzing must
see himself simultaneously as a member of a large number of publics. He
must visualize himself as a manufacturer, a retailer, an importer, an
employer, a worker, a financier, a politician.
Within these groups he must see himself again as a member of the
various subdivisions of each of these groups. He must see himself, for
example, as a member of a group of manufacturers who obtain the bulk of
their raw material within the United States, and at the same time as a
member of a group of manufacturers who obtain large portions of their
raw material from abroad and whose importations of raw material may be
adversely affected by the pending tariff bill. He must see himself not
only as a farm laborer but also as a mechanic in a large industrial
center. He must see himself as the owner of the department store and as
a member of the buying public. He must be able to generalize, as far as
possible, from these points of view in order to strike upon the appeal
or group of appeals which will be influential with as many sections of
society as possible.[30]
Let us assume that our problem is the intensification in the public
mind of the prestige of a hotel. The problem for the public relations
counsel is to create in the public mind the close relationship between
the hotel and a number of ideas that represent the things the hotel
desires to stand for in the public mind.
The counsel therefore advises the hotel to make a celebration of its
thirtieth anniversary which happens to fall at this particular time
and suggests to the president the organization of an anniversary
committee of a body of business men who represent the cream of the
city’s merchants. This committee is to include men who represent a
number of stereotypes that will help to produce the inevitable result
in the public mind. There are to be also a leading banker, a society
woman, a prominent lawyer, an influential preacher, and so forth until
a cross section of the city’s most telling activities is mirrored in
the committee. The stereotype has its effect, and what may have been an
indefinite impression beforehand has been reënforced and concretized.
The hotel remains preëminent in the public mind. The stereotypes have
proved its preëminence. The cause has been strongly presented to the
public by identification with different group stereotypes.
Here is another example. A packing company desires to establish in the
public mind the fact that the name of its product is synonymous with
bacon. Its public relations counsel advises a contest on “Bring home
the Beech-Nut,” the contest to be open to salesmen and to be based on
the best sale made by salesmen throughout the country during the month
of August. But here again it is necessary to use a stereotype to help
the possible contestant identify the cause. A committee of nationally
known sales-managers is chosen to act as judges for the contest and
immediately success is assured. Thousands of salesmen compete for the
prize. The stereotype has bespoken the value of the contest.
The public relations counsel can try to bring about this identification
by utilizing the appeals to desires and instincts discussed in the
preceding chapter, and by making use of the characteristics of the
group formation of society. His utilization of these basic principles
will be a continual and efficient aid to him.
He must make it easy for the public to pick his issue out of the great
mass of material. He must be able to overcome what has been called “the
tendency on the part of public attention to ‘flicker’ and ‘relax.’” He
must do for the public mind what the newspaper, with its headlines,
accomplishes for its readers.
Abstract discussions and heavy facts are the groundwork of his involved
theory, or analysis, but they cannot be given to the public until
they are simplified and dramatized. The refinements of reason and the
shadings of emotion cannot reach a considerable public.
When an appeal to the instincts can be made so powerful as to secure
acceptance in the medium of dissemination in spite of competitive
interests, it can be aptly termed news.
The public relations counsel, therefore, is a creator of news for
whatever medium he chooses to transmit his ideas. It is his duty to
create news no matter what the medium which broadcasts this news.
It is news interest which gives him an opportunity to make his idea
travel and get the favorable reaction from the instincts to which he
happens to appeal. News in itself we shall define later on when we
discuss “relations with the press.” But the word news is sufficiently
understood for me to talk of it here.