Bernays and Lippmann

Bernays:
Atlanta, hats, and salad- oh my!
That public relations was used to consciously veer the public on such a wide range of issues- it's fascinating.
I wish that more had been addressed regarding the good and bad sides of rhetoric and public relations. A great deal of the pages were devoted to what and how. It's only a very small section that says that these skills can be used in negative ways. This article makes public manipulation seem quite necessary, prevalent, and not at all malicious. (Though the use of the word 'manipulation' does add to any thoughts of ill intent.) This seemed a lot more persuasive than coercive, though I can't be sure.

Lippmann:
He seemed to deal more with the audience than with individual instances in which public relations contrived the appeal of an issue or thing. Lippmann seems to view the audience as bored and disenchanted with the seeming pomp and importance of things around them. He goes on for quite a bit about the apathy of the general populace. For the first half, he had me. But somewhere around page five, I began to get a little confused. I think I was waiting for him to get to a point- regarding public relations/manipulations and how it's done- but he never got there.

Regarding Ramage, it's probably a sign of how little I care for the book when I'm so dismissive over someone hearing from the author. It's so unlike me. Especially knowing that I was one of the people who criticized him. But I can't really bring myself to care.
Or maybe it's because I spent two and a half hours sitting in traffic this morning. Whatev'.