笔记
2012-12-09
为写太平洋战争时期日本propaganda电影的论文，借了这本古董书来扫一眼，权当背景了解。本来只想写个笔记，结果豆瓣这笔记一次只让填一个页数，太麻烦。
Bernays的论述材料主要是一战之后美国国内的政界和商界的propaganda，强调其作为一个invisible而omnipresent的manipulator，引导和改造个人（其中也包括精英），which is not to be taken as an independent individual, but as a member of the mass, who is no different from another, that can only be analysed within the boundaries of mass psychology，使得他们最终向集团规范性、同一性靠拢。
Bernays把propaganda放在美国政治和社会对民主精神的高度推崇这个框架里进行讨论。他认为民主对个人主义的推崇导致了选择太多、无法选择的困境，在政治中体现为决策的低效性，which demands a narrow-down of options；同样的，商品经济中爆炸式的多样性也使得消费者无从选择。故，政治中，为了确保效率，商业中，为了确保收益，就需要propagandists。他们所做的就是把公民/消费者"应该”去选的选项推到前台，反复涂抹，重新包装，使得1）the propagandized眼中只看得到这些选项并从中做出选择；2）选择之后，他们依然以为自己是出于一些有理有据的个人原因进行了这样的选择，却意识不到所谓的个人考虑早已被集体意识所替代。至于如何判断什么是“应该”选的选项（这种永远也讨论不清楚的问题），便决定了propaganda一词会逐渐由中性转化成大众眼中的贬义词。
这本书的侧重点似乎在于点醒读者：你往往一直处于the propagandized的队伍里而不自知。但对于propaganda的具体手段这本书没什么特别深入的剖析。当然这也有可能是因为我没看仔细，因为时间关系我只挑了些可能对我论文有用的部分看，以下即是我做的一点相关笔记。
P44 This invisible, intertwining structure of groupings and associations is the mechanism by which democracy has organized its group mind and simplified its mass thinking.
P52 Modern propaganda is a consistent, enduring effort to create or shape events to influence the relations of the public to an enterprise, idea or group.
P71 Trotter and Le Bon, who approached the subject in a scientific manner, and Graham Wallas, Walter Lippmann, and others who continued with searching studies of the group mind, established that the group has mental characteristics distinct from those of the individual, and is motivated by impulses and emotions which cannot be explained on the basis of what we know of individual psychology. (mass psychology)
P73 Trotter and Le Bon concluded that the group mind does not think in the strict send of the word. In place of thoughts it has impulses, habits, and emotions. In making up its mind, its first impulse is usually to follow the example of a trusted leader. This is one of the most firmly established principles of mass psychology.
P74 But when the example of the leader is not at hand and the herd must think for itself, it does so by means of clichés, pat words or images which stand for a whole group of ideas or experiences.
By playing upon a[n] old cliché, or manipulating a new one, the propagandist can sometimes swing a whole mass of group emotions.
Men are rarely aware of the real reasons which motivate their actions.
P75 It is chiefly the psychologists of the school of Freud who have pointed out that many of man’s thoughts and actions are compensatory substitutes for desires which has been obliged to suppress.
This general principle, that men are very largely actuated by motives which they conceal from themselves, is as true of mass as of individual psychology.
P76 The old-fashioned propagandist, using almost exclusively the appeal of printed word, tried to persuade the individual reader to buy a definite article, immediately.
The new salesmanship has found it possible, by dealing with men in the mass through their group formations, to set up psychological and emotional currents which will work for him. Instead of assaulting sales resistance by direct attack, he is interested in removing sales resistance. He creates circumstances which will swing emotional currents so as to make for purchaser demand.
P77 The modern propagandist therefore sets to work to create circumstances which will modify that custom.
P78 Under the old salesmanship the manufacturer said to the prospective purchase, “Please buy a piano.” The new salesmanship has reversed the process and caused the prospective purchaser to say to the manufacturer, “Please sell me a piano.”
P166 The American motion picture is the greatest unconscious carrier of propaganda in the world today. It is a great distributor for ideas and opinions.
The motion picture can standardize the ideas and habits of a nation. Because pictures are made to meet market demands, they reflect, emphasize and even exaggerate broad popular tendencies, rather than stimulate new ideas and opinions. The motion picture avails itself only of ideas and facts which are in vogue.
查字典图书网