PR’s “Nostradamus” Had Home at NYU

Edward L. Bernays, regarded among the founders of modern-day public relations practice, taught what many believe to be the first course in public relations in 1923 at New York University. This industry pioneer remains connected to NYU and the PR&CC program through new adjunct faculty member Shelley Spector, founder and head of the Museum of Public Relations that houses Bernays’ papers and memorabilia. They are shown here in a 1990 photo.

“Bernays was so ahead of his time,” says Spector, a historian of the profession and founder and head of New York-based PR firm Spector & Associates. “He was able to anticipate changes in society much better than most sociologists.” His seminal book Crystallizing Public Opinion, also written in 1923, includes glimpses into the future of business and communication that resonate today, she explains.

Clearly, he did not foresee social media. But he did seem to glimpse the future. Or is our lesson simply that the more things change the more they remain the same? To wit, here are some excerpts from Crystallizing Public Opinion: “Program groups so vaguely called ‘the public’ consists of all sorts and conditions of men, the particular kind or condition depending upon the point of view of the individual who is making the observation or classification. This is true likewise of great and small subdivisions of the public.

“The public relations counsel must take into account that many groups exist, and that there is a very definite interlapping of groups.

Because of this he is enabled to utilize many types of appeal in reaching any one group, which he subdivides for his purposes.

“...Society is made up of an almost infinite number of groups, whose various interests and desires overlap and interweave inextricably.

“...It is from the constant interplay of these groups and of their conflicting interests upon each other that progress results, and it is this fact that the public relations counsel takes into account in pleading his cause.

“...For society, the interesting outcome of this situation is that progress seldom occurs through the abrupt expulsion by a group of its old ideas in favor of new ideas, but rather through the rearrangement of the thought of the individuals in these groups with respect to each other and with respect to the entire membership of society. “