Propaganda
by Edward L. Bernays · first published 1928
52% recommend48% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Short, plainly written 1928 account by the father of public relations of how public opinion is deliberately shaped; suits readers wanting to understand media, marketing and persuasion, and it reads almost like satire.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
“Bernays' honest and practical manual provides much insight into some of the most powerful and influential institutions of contemporary industrial state capitalist democracies.”—Noam Chomsky
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…are so big words but these were pretty cool: - Douglas Hofstadter's GEB: An Eternal Golden Braid - Debt: The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber - Ursula K. LeGuin's The Word for World is Forest - Propaganda by Edward Bernays - Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond - Empires: The Logic of World Domination from Ancient Rome to the United States by Herfried Münkler - Smedley…
on “Ask HN: What books fundamentally changed the way you think about the world?” ↗Are you saying there are no mechanisms that allow wealthy people to influence human behavior on a large scale? Please read "Propaganda" by Edward Bernays.
on “The global fertility rate is falling” ↗…the search when you fact-checked this story right @NPRHealth ? Just say you want a straight white American tech bro to do it. NPR is rife with bias, if you know how to look for it. I recommend reading Propaganda by Ed Bernays & then thinking about why the people who make huge donations to NPR make those donations (IMO, it's because NPR largely exists to reinforce the existing social structure).
on “Decades after polio, Martha is among the last to still rely on an iron lung” ↗Have you read Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent, Public Opinion by Walter Lippman, or Propaganda by Edward Bernays? If so, I don't think you would come to the conclusion that the media landscape prior to social media was bastion of truth and honesty.
on “I resigned from Twitter” ↗…blurb? In any case, the heavily ingrained belief of government benevolence in contemporary Western societies, is horrific. But not surprising, with minds like Edward L. Bernays at work (his 1928 book Propaganda should be mandatory reading for everyone).
on “TPP Leak Confirms the Worst: US Still Trying to Trade Away Internet Freedoms” ↗See the classic 1928 short book Propaganda by Edward Bernays, early public relations specialist. Bernays estimates around 80% (or around there, I don't remember) of news articles are placed by PR agents. And he explains how and why they do this.…
on “Internal Tensions at Facebook Are Boiling Over” ↗Edward Bernays truly was a morally ambiguous vanguard. His 1928 book Propaganda is just as relevant and chilling a tract 87 years later.
on “When did men stop wearing high heels?” ↗"We, marketers, are selfish, lying, short-term thinking scum. We believe that our job is to manipulate people as we market to them." The book Propaganda by Edward Bernays is an excellent read about how to think long-term about marketing. Define your ultimate goals -> dial out several levels and think about what conditions drive people to participate…
on “How Seth Godin would launch a business on a $1,000 budget” ↗You might be interested in reading the 1928 book "Propaganda" by Edward Bernays, the so-called "father of public relations". It describes at length how, among many other techniques, paid influencers are effective for making people value your product more (e.g.…
on “Two Celebrities Charged with Unlawfully Touting Coin Offerings” ↗Regarding Public Relations, maybe the classic from Edwards Bernays called "Propaganda" [0], should got into your list. [0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/493212.Propaganda
on “Ask HN: Is there any good literature on Offensive PR/Communications Theory?” ↗Don't forget Edward Bernays' Propaganda[1]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_(book)
on “Neal Stephenson recommends 6 books on information manipulation” ↗I highly recommend everyone here read Edward L. Bernays' seminal 1928 work titled Propaganda. It is absolutely key to understanding how the modern world works, and it has influenced countless propagandists since then, including Joseph Goebbels.
on “How ‘Bacon and Eggs’ Became the American Breakfast” ↗There's great chapter in Edward Bernays' Propaganda where he takes apart a stereotypical set of newspaper stories and categorises them according to the type of agenda they serve; surpirise surprise almost none are real news (if that's actually a thing?…
on “Censorship 2.0: Shadowy forces controlling online conversations” ↗The BBC made a great documentary on this subject: "Century of the Self." The best source is to just read Bernays' own book: Propaganda (1929).
on “Literary Magazines for Socialists Funded by the CIA, Ranked” ↗I did enjoy it. It was worthwhile, and not so long (for anyone else reading this). I'm aware of the role of propaganda in society. Just yesterday I recommended to you and others Edward Bernays' Propaganda and a good post by Paul Graham on the same subject. As I wrote then, I haven't formed a strong belief on Bernays'…
on “Pediatricians say farm use of antibiotics harms children” ↗