Manipulating Public Opinion

Cultivation of public opinion occupies an important place only in the programs of organizations able to finance the costly task of manipulating mass attitudes. Public-relations efforts are essentially of two sorts. An intensive, short-term campaign may be designed to whip up public opposition to or support of a particular legislative measure. In contrast is the long-term effort to manage basic public attitudes toward support of a broad viewpoint or to create a favorable sentiment toward a particular corporation or industry.

Although labor and farm organizations seek public favor, the peculiar position of business creates for it a special reliance on programs to influence basic public attitudes. The public utilities have perhaps been the most consistent large-scale operators in opinion management; they seek to implant in the public mind the notion that there is something essentially good about electric power produced by "investor-owned" utilities, an endeavor that costs them hundreds of thousands of dollars annually. The American Petroleum Institute tells of the accomplishments of the oil industry in advertisements scented with ideological overtones: "... this will continue only as long as we maintain our American system of private free enterprise – the greatest force for scientific and industrial development the world has ever known." Individual corporations, through their institutional advertising, help carry the burden of long-term opinion-molding.

The assumption of these campaigns is that the creation of favorable public attitudes generally will make for smoother sailing when particular questions of public policy arise. The technique is that of the so-called "new lobby." In their origins these public-relations programs were thought to be a way of avoiding the malodorous practices of the "old lobby,'' which relied mainly on direct contacts with legislators, sometimes on a pecuniary basis. Thus, in 1956 a spokesman for the Natural Gas and Oil Resources Committee explainedwhy his committee had spent about $1,750,000 for the education of the public on natural gas but had done no legislative lobbying: "... if the consumer understood he couldn't get supplies in a free economy unless the producer had an incentive, the problem was two-thirds solved.” His committee left the other one-third of the job to others.

Though public-relations campaigns may build a status for a group in the public mind, a group's deeds may have more effect on the public's impression of the group. Its record may put it in the doghouse beyond easy reprieve by ransom paid to the public-relations specialist. Or its record may command for it a public deference. The status of the group supposedly bears importantly on its political effectiveness. The group may be accepted, respected, feared, heeded, or it may be regarded as ridiculous, inconsequential, irresponsible, suspect, even contemptible. The spokesmen for one group may be heard with respect; those of another may even have little opportunity to state its case. The views of one group may carry great weight; those of another may be deemed unworthy of much consideration.

In contrast with long-term campaigns are efforts to mobilise popular views on a specific legislative proposal. These campaigns in magnitude from a few newspaper advertisements to those that involve outlays of millions of dollars. Illustrative of the large-scale programs was the 1950 AMA campaign against health insurance. At its beginning congressional mail – in the offices of the 100 Representatives studied – was running 2,5 to 1 in favor of health insurance; nine months later it ran 4 to 1 against it.

Both in their long-term campaigns and in their efforts to obtain passage of particular legislation, private associations give attention to the communications media, which are, within limits, independent centers of power in the political system. Organized interests "lobby" the press and television-radio, just as they do the government, and in so doing use means running from artifice to economic pressure. Professor Casey finds that newspaper editors regard religious and nationalistic groups as the most importunate in their demands. People seem to be extraordinarily sensitive about their religion and their national origin; communications media must tread lightly on these subjects or suffer the consequences. Some newspapers have even accepted clerical censorship of religious stories in order to stave oft a boycott. With respect to economic and social policy, the fact that publishing is a business of considerable scale itself contributes to the differentials among groups in their access to the press. Some readily obtain newspaper support; others cannot hope even to make their views known through the press.