EDWARD BERNAYS

Após a aula de Teoria das Relações Públicas, fiquei bastante fascinado pela "persona" mítica que a Professora criou a respeito de Edward Bernays, numa narrativa quase apaixonada (e consequentemente apaixonante) sobre o homem. Na minha opinião, nossa melhor Professora até aqui!!

Procurei saber mais sobre esta grande personalidade (que eu desconhecia), e realmente todos os louvores que nossa Professora fez a ele são justificados. Para quem quiser ler a respeito de Bernays, sugiro a página da Wikipedia (link clicável direcciona à página em inglês.)

Encontrei também um interessantíssimo documentário (em 6 partes) que refere-se a ele e sua relação com o nascimento das Relações Públicas. Quem puder e tiver facilidade com o inglês, sugiro que assistam, vale muito a pena!!

DOCUMENTÁRIO DE ADAM CURTIS, PRODUZIDO PARA A BBC, CHAMADO "THE CENTURY OF THE SELF - HAPPINESS MACHINES"







DESCRIÇÃO DO VÍDEO, SEGUNDO O ORIGINAL:

The story of the relationship between Sigmund Freud and his American nephew, Edward Bernays. Bernays invented the public relations profession in the 1920s and was the first person to take Freud's ideas to manipulate the masses. He showed American corporations how they could make people want things they didn't need by systematically linking mass-produced goods to their unconscious desires.

Bernays was one of the main architects of the modern techniques of mass-consumer persuasion, using every trick in the book, from celebrity endorsement and outrageous PR stunts, to eroticising the motorcar.

His most notorious coup was breaking the taboo on women smoking by persuading them that cigarettes were a symbol of independence and freedom. But Bernays was convinced that this was more than just a way of selling consumer goods. It was a new political idea of how to control the masses. By satisfying the inner irrational desires that his uncle had identified, people could be made happy and thus docile.

It was the start of the all-consuming self which has come to dominate today's world.