Reply #4: If you look at the roots of advertising

[formercia]

it takes you back to Bernays and WWI propaganda.


http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Edward_Berna...


in the early 1920s

Born November 22, 1891(1891-11-22)
Vienna, Austria
Died March 9, 1995 (age 103)
Cambridge (MA), United States
Occupation Public relations, advertising



Edward Louis Bernays (November 22, 1891 – March 9, 1995) is considered one of the fathers of the field of public relations along with Ivy Lee. As a member of the Creel Committee, he helped U.S. President Woodrow Wilson propagandize in support of allied war aims during World War I. He went on to design PR campaigns for politicians and companies such as General Motors, Procter & Gamble and American Tobacco. Combining the ideas of Gustave Le Bon and Wilfred Trotter on crowd psychology with the psychoanalytical ideas of his uncle, Sigmund Freud, Bernays was one of the first to attempt to manipulate public opinion using the subconscious.

He felt this manipulation was necessary in society, which he regarded as irrational and dangerous as a result of the 'herd instinct' that Trotter had described. Adam Curtis's award-winning 2002 documentary for the BBC, The Century of the Self, pinpoints Bernays as the originator of modern public relations, and Bernays was named one of the 100 most influential Americans of the 20th century by Life magazine.<1>

--snip--