mass-communication-theory

78 Section 2 The Era of Mass Society and Mass Culture
engineering of
consent
Official use of
communication
campaigns to
reach “good”
ends
THINKING
about
THEORY
blamed the people for the necessity of engaging in lies and manipulation. They
thought people so irrational, so illiterate, or so inattentive that it was necessary to
coerce, seduce, or trick them into learning bits of misinformation. The propagandists’
argument was simple: If only people were more rational or intelligent,
we could just sit down and explain things to them, person to person. But most
aren’t—especially the ones who need the most help. Most people are children
when it comes to important affairs like politics. How can we expect them to listen
to reason? It’s just not possible. In the post–World War II United States, for example,
this became known as the engineering of consent, a term coined by “the father
of modern public relations,” Edward L. Bernays. Sproule quotes Bernays as wanting
to expand freedom of press and speech to include the government’s “freedom
to persuade…. Only by mastering the techniques of communication can leadership
be exercised fruitfully in the vast complex that is modern democracy,” because in a
democracy, results “do not just happen” (Sproule, 1997, p. 213).
The propagandist also uses similar reasoning for suppressing opposition messages:
Average people are just too gullible. They will be taken in by the lies and
tricks of others. If opponents are allowed to freely communicate their messages, a
standoff will result in which no one wins. Propagandists are convinced of the
validity of their cause, so they must stop opponents from blocking their actions.
You can test your thinking about the engineering of consent in the box entitled
“Engineering Consent: WMD and the War in Iraq.”
A nation divided over the wisdom of the 2003 invasion
of Iraq found itself even more torn when, after
months of war and the loss of tens of thousands of
lives, the main justifications for the invasion and
occupation—Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass
destruction (WMD)—proved to be false (Powers,
2003). Had the United States been victimized by
poor or inadequate intelligence, or had our leaders
intentionally overestimated the threat in order to
lead us into a conflict they sought for other reasons
(Suskind, 2004; Clarke, 2004; Bamford, 2004)? The
debate raged in homes, at work, on editorial pages,
and in several congressional hearings. Typically,
those who favored the invasion blamed poor intelligence;
those who opposed it saw something a bit
less benign at work—the no-holds-barred use of
communication to propagate the belief that our country
was at risk from a madman who possessed WMD
and the expectation that he would use them against
us—in other words, propaganda.
The tone of the debate shifted, however, when
in May 2003 Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul
ENGINEERING CONSENT: WMD AND THE WAR IN IRAQ
Wolfowitz, one of the war’s architects and primary
advocates, told an interviewer for Vanity Fair that
“from the outset, contrary to so many claims from
the White House, Iraq’s supposed cache of WMD
had never been the most important casus belli. It
was simply one of several reasons. ‘For bureaucratic
reasons we settled on one issue, weapons of mass
destruction, because it was the one reason everyone
could agree on’” (Black, 2003, p. 1A).
To the war’s opponents, many of whom doubted
the existence of Iraqi WMD all along, this admission
was vindication of their opposition to the conflict. It
too closely mirrored Nazi Germany’s second-incommand
Hermann Goering’s recipe for marshaling
public support for conflict:
It is always a simple matter to drag people
along whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship,
or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship.
Voice or no voice, the people can always
be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is
easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being
(Continued)
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