4 ms·

What's the difference between propaganda and good PR?

by djmips 5y ago

armagon 5y ago
I tend to think the word PR is the result of propaganda applied to the word propaganda. It isn't obvious to me that there is a good form of propaganda. Useful, perhaps, but not upright and positive.
- arminiusreturns 5y ago
  Actually you arent wrong. It was either Ivy Lee or Edward Bernays who were the primary people behind the shift to "public relations". One of their first triumphs? Selling cigarettes to women as " freedom sticks". It always cracks me up when I meet a pr person and ask about Ivy Lee and Edward Bernays and they dont know anything about them. Some sort of sadly delicious irony.
NikolaeVarius 5y ago
Its the exact same thing. Also under the same definition: misinformation, disinformation, actual information.
ajkdhcb2 5y ago
The term Public Relations was coined by Edward Bernays, whom wrote the incredibly influential book quite literally called 'Propaganda' in 1928. That should make it clear enough.
- Lammy 5y ago
  Bernays was also a director for the Committee on Public Information during World War 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_on_Public_Information https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_on_Public_Informatio... “[George] Creel urged [Woodrow] Wilson to create a government agency to coordinate "not propaganda as the Germans defined it, but propaganda in the true sense of the word, meaning the 'propagation of faith.'"” à la https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congregation_for_the_Evangelization_of_Peoples https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congregation_for_the_Evangeliz... "Creel later published his memoirs of his service with the CPI, How We Advertised America, in which he wrote: “In no degree was the Committee an agency of censorship, a machinery of concealment or repression. Its emphasis throughout was on the open and the positive. At no point did it seek or exercise authorities under those war laws that limited the freedom of speech and press. In all things, from first to last, without halt or change, it was a plain publicity proposition, a vast enterprise in salesmanship, the world's greatest adventures in advertising… We did not call it propaganda, for that word, in German hands, had come to be associated with deceit and corruption. Our effort was educational and informative throughout, for we had such confidence in our case as to feel that no other argument was needed than the simple, straightforward presentation of the facts.”"
- CyanBird 5y ago
  Propaganda 1928 is just my favorite book ever, it is written in such a tone as to both be a perfect introductory and a hard authoritative first hand source and compilation of Bernays experiences Excerpt > “Universal literacy was supposed to educate the common man to control his environment. Once he could read and write he would have a mind fit to rule. So ran the democratic doctrine. But instead of a mind, universal literacy has given him rubber stamps, rubber stamps inked with advertising slogans, with editorials, with published scientific data, with the trivialities of the tabloids and the platitudes of history, but quite innocent of original thought. Each man's rubber stamps are the duplicates of millions of others, so that when those millions are exposed to the same stimuli, all receive identical imprints. It may seem an exaggeration to say that the American public gets most of its ideas in this wholesale fashion. The mechanism by which ideas are disseminated on a large scale is propaganda, in the broad sense of an organized effort to spread a particular belief or doctrine.”- Edward L. Bernays, Propaganda
RugnirViking 5y ago
Whats the difference between a regime and a government? One word for people we like doing a thing, one word for people we don't
- fidesomnes 5y ago
  one the cia likes, the other cia doesn't like. all you have to do is see what the blue checkmarks on twatter like and compare to what they dislike to find the official cia consensus.

What's the difference between propaganda and good PR?

by djmips 5y ago

What's the difference between propaganda and good PR?

I tend to think the word PR is the result of propaganda applied to the word propaganda. It isn't obvious to me that there is a good form of propaganda. Useful, perhaps, but not upright and positive.

arminiusreturns 5y ago
Actually you arent wrong. It was either Ivy Lee or Edward Bernays who were the primary people behind the shift to "public relations". One of their first triumphs? Selling cigarettes to women as " freedom sticks". It always cracks me up when I meet a pr person and ask about Ivy Lee and Edward Bernays and they dont know anything about them. Some sort of sadly delicious irony.

NikolaeVarius 5y ago

Its the exact same thing. Also under the same definition: misinformation, disinformation, actual information.

ajkdhcb2 5y ago

The term Public Relations was coined by Edward Bernays, whom wrote the incredibly influential book quite literally called 'Propaganda' in 1928. That should make it clear enough.

Lammy 5y ago
Bernays was also a director for the Committee on Public Information during World War 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_on_Public_Information https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_on_Public_Informatio... “[George] Creel urged [Woodrow] Wilson to create a government agency to coordinate "not propaganda as the Germans defined it, but propaganda in the true sense of the word, meaning the 'propagation of faith.'"” à la https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congregation_for_the_Evangelization_of_Peoples https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congregation_for_the_Evangeliz... "Creel later published his memoirs of his service with the CPI, How We Advertised America, in which he wrote: “In no degree was the Committee an agency of censorship, a machinery of concealment or repression. Its emphasis throughout was on the open and the positive. At no point did it seek or exercise authorities under those war laws that limited the freedom of speech and press. In all things, from first to last, without halt or change, it was a plain publicity proposition, a vast enterprise in salesmanship, the world's greatest adventures in advertising… We did not call it propaganda, for that word, in German hands, had come to be associated with deceit and corruption. Our effort was educational and informative throughout, for we had such confidence in our case as to feel that no other argument was needed than the simple, straightforward presentation of the facts.”"
CyanBird 5y ago
Propaganda 1928 is just my favorite book ever, it is written in such a tone as to both be a perfect introductory and a hard authoritative first hand source and compilation of Bernays experiences Excerpt > “Universal literacy was supposed to educate the common man to control his environment. Once he could read and write he would have a mind fit to rule. So ran the democratic doctrine. But instead of a mind, universal literacy has given him rubber stamps, rubber stamps inked with advertising slogans, with editorials, with published scientific data, with the trivialities of the tabloids and the platitudes of history, but quite innocent of original thought. Each man's rubber stamps are the duplicates of millions of others, so that when those millions are exposed to the same stimuli, all receive identical imprints. It may seem an exaggeration to say that the American public gets most of its ideas in this wholesale fashion. The mechanism by which ideas are disseminated on a large scale is propaganda, in the broad sense of an organized effort to spread a particular belief or doctrine.”- Edward L. Bernays, Propaganda

RugnirViking 5y ago

Whats the difference between a regime and a government? One word for people we like doing a thing, one word for people we don't

fidesomnes 5y ago
one the cia likes, the other cia doesn't like. all you have to do is see what the blue checkmarks on twatter like and compare to what they dislike to find the official cia consensus.