Aside from his reading of Karl Marx, Lippmann was also influenced by the readings of other academics. Of particular importance to the work of the propaganda/mass communication theorists in general was the work of Sigmund Freud. Freud’s influence can be seen not only in the work of Lippmann, but also in the work of Lippmann’s contemporaries.
Sigmund Freud was initially trained as a medical doctor and later founded ***psychoanalytic theory*** (Rogers, 1994). Of particular importance to psychoanalytic theory was the understanding of an individual’s mind. According to Rogers (1994), Freud was able to divide the human consciousness into three states; the conscious, preconscious, and unconscious. The conscious consists of those things which we know about ourselves, the preconscious consists of those things which we could pay conscious attention to if we so desired, and the unconscious consists of those things which we do not understand or know about ourselves (Rogers, 1994). From these three levels of individual analysis, Freud attempted to understand human behavior. Both Freud’s general theories of psychoanalysis, as well as one of Freud’s writings in particular, The Interpretation of Dreams, came to be of particular importance to the propaganda theorists.
The Interpretation of Dreams dealt with the idea that dreams are a form of wish fulfillment; they represent a desire of the unconscious that can be achieved during sleep
through the creation of a dream to fulfill a need (Levin, 1929). Lippmann applied this idea to his work in Public Opinion (1922). In Public Opinion, Lippmann (1922) stressed the idea of
The World Outside and the Pictures in Our Heads
(p. 3). This concept involves the idea that a person’s perceptions of an event or situation may not match what is actually
happening in their environment (Lippman, 1922). This idea was influenced by The Interpretation of Dreams, in that Lippmann used this book to develop his idea of a pseudo-environment
that existed in the minds of individuals (Rogers, 1994, p. 234).
Bernays' (1928) understanding of human motives was also based on the study of Freud’s work. Bernays was Freud's nephew, and at various times in his life the American travelled to Vienna to
visit with his uncle. Bernays had a special interest in adopting psychoanalytic theory into his public relations work, and this influenced his thinking in relation to public opinion. In
Propaganda, Bernays (1928) claims it is the Freudian school of thought that recognized man's thoughts and actions are compensatory substitutes for desires which he has been obliged
to suppress
(p. 52). Bernays (1928) goes on to show that propagandists cannot merely accept the reasons that men give for their behavior. If they are truly hiding their real mo tives, as
Freud suggests, then the successful propagandist must understand the true motives and not be content to accept the reasons which men give for what they do
(Bernays, 1928, p.
52). By getting to the root of a man’s wants and needs, Bernays suggests that propaganda can become more effective and influential.
Overall, Freud’s theories were a strong guiding framework for understanding individuals. By helping theorists such as Lasswell, Lippmann, Bernays, and Ellul to understand individuals, Freud was also helping them to understand the public that they aimed to manipulate.
- 1535 reads
