Crystallizing Public Opinion

Crystallizing Public Opinion is a book written by Edward Bernays and published in 1923. It is perhaps the first book to define and explain the field of public relations.

Bernays defines the counsel on public relations, as, more than a press agent, someone who can create a useful symbolic linkage among the masses. Appropriate messages should be crafted based on careful study of group psychology, and disseminated by not merely purveying but actually creating news.

He gives examples from his early career and cites ideas from theorists including Walter Lippmann and Wilfred Trotter.

Bernays describes how he solved various problems as a public relations counsel. These include:

Public opinion, he writes, is becoming more and more a matter of interest, as people seek out information about the world, and as various organizations attempt to create favorable impressions. Especially interested in public opinion are those companies—the public utilities—which especially are supposed to serve the public. (pp. 41–46)

The public relations counsel is a student of psychology, but also "a practitioner with a wide range of instruments": the circumstances he creates, followed by advertising, movies, letters, booklets, parades, articles, etc. (pp. 52–54)

"Public opinion", according to Bernays, is an amorphous group of judgments which are not well elaborated even in the head of a single average individual. He extracts a quotation from by Wilfred Trotter, which states that this average man has many strong convictions whose origin he can't explain (Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War, p. 36). People's minds have "logic-proof compartments" which must be approached by means beyond the rational. (pp. 61–68)

After discussing the mutual influence between the press and the public, suggesting that the public relations counsel should understand the established public opinion in its complexity. He invokes the concept of "stereotype" described by Walter Lippmann, noting that the stereotypes people already hold govern what new facts they will absorb. He cites Everett Dean Martin's 1920 book The Behavior of Crowds, discussing how herd mentality can exaggerate people's unconscious urges, lower inhibitions, and heighten antagonism to other groups. Educated people can display this mentality just as the ignorant can. Bernays quotes Trotter stating that herd mentality affects people all the time, not only when they are part of an actual mob in the street. (pp. 98–110)

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