| Introduction | Early Years | Campaigns | Timeline | References |
With the publication of Crystallizing Public Opinion in 1923, Edward Bernays introduced both the public and academia to the field of public relations. This book was the first to formally present the public relations process with regard to theory. Here, Bernays made the first mention of the two-way concept of public relations in which a pr practitioner served not only as a means of disseminating information from an organization to the public, but also as means for relaying messages from the public back to an organization. It is also in this book that Bernays introduced the term “public relations counsel” for the first time and emphasized the importance of the social sciences in the field.
The concepts and theories laid out in Crystallizing Public Opinion are those which have come to define the public relations industry today. Bernay’s philosophy as presented in this book is summarized below in an excerpt from Scott Cutlip's The Unseen Power: Public Relations. A History (1994, p. 178).
| EDWARD L. BERNAYS – HIS PHILOSOPHY |
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— There is probably no single profession which within the past years has extended its field of usefulness more remarkable and touched upon intimate and important aspects of the everyday life of the world more significantly than the profession of public relations counsel. |
— The counsel directs and supervises the activities of his clients wherever they impinge upon the daily life of the public. He interprets the client to the public and he interprets the public to the client. |
— The training of the public relations counsel permits him to step out of his own group to look at a particular problem with the eyes of an impartial observer and to utilize his knowledge of the individual and the group mind to project his client’s point of view. |
— How does the public relations counsel approach any particular problem? First, he must analyze 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. |
— 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. He first analyzes his client’s problem—he then analyzes the public mind. |
— The public relations counsel is first of all a student. His field of study is the public mind. |
By the time of his death in 1995 at the age of 103, Bernays had contributed to the field of public relations more than any other individual or institution in the history of the field. He had developed the theories which defined the field; he had taught the first course in public relations at New York University in 1923, and he had been named on of Life magazine’s 100 most important Americans of the 20th century (Smith, 1995). Working with clients until his 100th birthday, Bernays actively campaigned for the licensure of public relations practitioners (Times, 1995).