Engineering Consent

Whether it's Kim Kardashian uploading picture after picture to Instagram or your roommate posting a mid-vacation shot to Facebook, selfies receive mixed reactions. But are selfies more than, as many critics lament, a symptom of a self-absorbed generation?

by Sayavur I. Bakhtiyarov (Author)

by Sayavur I. Bakhtiyarov (Author)

Nicknamed "the father of public relations," Edward Bernays (1891–1995) was a pioneer in the fields of propaganda and PR. Combining theories on crowd psychology with the psychoanalytical ideas of his uncle, Sigmund Freud, Bernays elucidated how corporations and politicians could manipulate public opinion. His seminal 1928 book, Propaganda laid out how propaganda could be used to regiment the collective mind in a variety of areas, including government, politics, art, science and education, while his 1923 classic, Crystallizing Public Opinion, set down the principles that business and government have used to influence public attitudes over the past century.