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

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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

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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.

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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

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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

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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.

in order to appeal to the instincts and fundamental emotions of the public, discussed in previous chapters, the public relations counsel must create news around his ideas. news will, by its superior inherent interest, receive attention in the competitive markets for news, which are themselves continually trying to claim the public attention. the public relations counsel must lift startling facts from his whole subject and present them as news. he must isolate ideas and develop them into events so that they can be more readily understood and so that they may claim attention as news.

the headline and the cartoon bear the same

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relation to the newspaper that the public relations counsel’s analysis of a problem bears to the problem itself.

the headline is a compact, vivid simplification of complicated issues. the cartoon provides a visual image which takes the place of abstract thought. so, too, the analyses the public relations counsel makes, lift out the important, the interesting, and the easily understandable points in order to create interest.

“yet human qualities are themselves,” says mr. lippmann,31 “vague and fluctuating. they are best remembered by a physical sign. and therefore the human qualities we tend to ascribe to the names of our impressions, themselves tend to be visualized in physical metaphors. the people of england, the history of england, condense into england, and england becomes john bull, who is jovial and fat, not too clever, but well able to take care of himself. the migration of a people may appear to some as a meandering of a river, and to others like a devastating flood. the courage people display may be objectified as a rock, their purpose as a road, their doubts as forks of the road, their difficulties as ruts and rocks, their progress as a fertile valley. if they mobilize their dreadnaughts they unsheath a sword. if their army surrenders they are thrown

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to earth. if they are oppressed they are on the rack or under the harrow.”

perhaps the chief contribution of the public relations counsel to the public and to his client is his ability to understand and analyze obscure tendencies of the public mind. it is true that he first analyzes his client’s problem—he then analyzes the public mind; he utilizes the mediums of communication between the two, but before he does this he must use his personal experience and knowledge to bring two factors into alignment. it is his capacity for crystallizing the obscure tendencies of the public mind before they have reached definite expression, which makes him so valuable.

his ability to create those symbols to which the public is ready to respond; his ability to know and to analyze those reactions which the public is ready to give; his ability to find those stereotypes, individual and community, which will bring favorable responses; his ability to speak in the language of his audience and to receive from it a favorable reception are his contributions.

the appeal to the instincts and the universal desires is the basic method through which he produces his results.