[1] Bernays defines the counsel on public relations, as, more than a press agent, someone who can create a useful symbolic linkage among the masses.
Appropriate messages should be crafted based on careful study of group psychology, and disseminated by not merely purveying but actually creating news.
These include: Public opinion, he writes, is becoming more and more a matter of interest, as people seek out information about the world, and as various organizations attempt to create favorable impressions.
41–46) The public relations counsel is a student of psychology, but also "a practitioner with a wide range of instruments": the circumstances he creates, followed by advertising, movies, letters, booklets, parades, articles, etc.
He extracts a quotation by Wilfred Trotter, which states that this average man has many strong convictions whose origin he can't explain (Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War, p. 36).
He cites Everett Dean Martin's 1920 book The Behavior of Crowds, discussing how herd mentality can exaggerate people's unconscious urges, lower inhibitions, and heighten antagonism to other groups.
Bernays quotes Trotter stating that herd mentality affects people all the time, not only when they are part of an actual mob in the street.
He encourages the public relations counsel to imagine himself in turn as a member of the different groups he must reach, and thereafter construct a campaign which will appeal to as many as possible.
(p. 171) Bernays continues his discussion of news and observes that journalists see public relations practitioners as important sources of newsworthy information.
He stresses the centrality of newspapers to culture and writes that the public relations counselor must supply "truthful, accurate, and verifiable news" to remain in the journalists' good graces.
191–198) Beyond the newspaper, there is radio, lecture tours, meetings, advertising (including billboards and any other type of paid space), plays, cinema, and direct mail.
199–207) Defending the role of the public relations counsel as a "special pleader", Bernays writes that the viewpoints which he fosters are not necessarily worse than those he would discourage.
(p. 216) Bernays concludes with a quotation from Ferdinand Tönnies which warns that civilization is under threat from lower instincts and that the "higher strata of society" must "inject moral and spiritual motives into public opinion."
(p. 217) Commentators acknowledged that Bernays was mapping out new territory with his book, which claimed to define the "counsel on public relations" for the first time.
Whereas Lippmann treated the stereotype as a sort of blind spot, or obstacle to rational thinking, Bernays viewed it as "a great aid to the public relations counsel" despite being "not necessarily truthful".