Barnum's Public Relations Thought: The Casual Newspaper Opens the Public Relations barnum Period.

in the mid-19th century, with the mass distribution of American tabloids, the publicity activities of American newspapers rose. This kind of propaganda has brought a revolutionary change in the history of western news communication. A series of new news concepts, new reporting methods and new management methods foreshadow the birth of the mass media era, and open a real modern public relations era, and even create a new discipline-public relations.

Later generations named the predecessor of this modern public relations activity "barnum Period". However, barnum's stunt propaganda is indeed somewhat disgraceful, so later generations often refer to this period as "the period of public being fooled", or even "the period of anti-public relations" or "the dark period of public relations".

The People's Daily was very popular as soon as it appeared.

Before the Great Revolution, American newspapers were few and expensive, with a small circulation, mainly targeting a limited number of readers. Even in 1765, there were only 23 weekly newspapers and no daily newspapers in the United States. Each newspaper costs 6 cents, which is relatively expensive for the average person, because the average worker's salary is only 1 dollar a day, so only those who have money can afford it. Newspapers are usually four pages long, mainly covering commercial affairs related to navigation, such as the arrival of merchant ships, pirates, legal disputes and so on. It was not until 1783 that the first daily newspaper, Minnesota Evening News, appeared.

during and after the American revolution, political newspapers became popular. In the 193s, during the American Industrial Revolution, the printing cost of newspapers dropped sharply, and large-scale newspapers began to appear. At the same time, education is becoming more and more popular, the literacy rate is rising and the population is increasing, which provides a large number of potential readers for newspapers. In 183, Philadelphia's first tabloid, Cent, was born. But it didn't take long for it and two other newspapers to die quickly. Among the earliest tabloids, the most famous ones are new york's three tabloids: The New York Sun founded in 1833, The New York Herald founded in 1835 and The new york Tribune founded in 1841.

these newspapers are quite different from those in the past. Take The New York Sun as an example, it improved its reporting content, swept away the lifeless and long-winded style of old newspapers and periodicals, and published a large number of social news and local news that could attract people's attention. Since the summer of 1835, The New York Sun has published some novel and abnormal news, such as practical jokes, murders, train accidents, cannibalism, freaks, etc., which are very popular with readers.

In addition, it also innovated the distribution mode and pioneered the method of using newsboys to retail newspapers on the street, which not only had a low retail price, but also gave newsboys a big discount. For example, if you sell 1 newspapers to a newsboy, you only receive 67 cents. As long as you sell 1 newspapers, the newsboy can earn 33 cents equivalent to 1/3 of the adult's daily salary, which greatly stimulates the newsboy's enthusiasm. The mystery that supports the operation of newspapers is advertising. The New York Sun has published a large number of advertisements, even in the masthead in a pioneering way. For these reasons, The New York Sun is very popular. When it was first published, its circulation was only 1,, and it reached 8, in half a year, 15, in two years and 5, in 1839.

The unprecedented circulation of The New York Sun shocked the press, and there were 12 newspapers in new york. Commercial centers such as Boston, Philadelphia and Baltimore have also appeared. The Boston Daily Times was founded on February 16th, 1836. It became the largest newspaper in Boston in just a few weeks, and its circulation reached 8, copies a month later. The cornerstone newspaper of Philadelphia was founded on March 25th, 1836, with a circulation of 1, copies eight months later and 2, copies 18 months later. Nine months after the publication of The Baltimore Sun in 1837, its circulation exceeded 1,, which was three times that of other Baltimore newspapers.

The emergence of the Casual Newspaper quickly opened up a new situation for the American newspaper industry, and the newspaper industry quickly prospered. The annual circulation soared from 68 million in 1828 to 14.8 billion in 184, an increase of 117%, while the population of the United States increased by only 4% in the same period. By 191, there were 2,433 daily newspapers in the United States alone, and this peak record has not been broken since then.

Advertising has greatly facilitated the promotion of gimmicks.

Casual newspapers are cheap but increasingly prosperous. Like The New York Sun, their survival is the advertisements in the newspapers. Advertising directly brings cash income, rather than unreliable deposits like traditional newspaper subscribers in the past. The content of advertisements caters to the public and is closely related to people's life needs. Patented drugs, talent recruitment, lottery sales and other advertisements that newspapers used to disdain to publish are popular. As long as they pay advertising fees, everyone is equal and anyone can publish news.

This way is a little deviant for the tradition, and the traditional newspapers are angry and attack these tabloids. In order to compete, the tabloids also attacked each other. The new york Tribune criticized The New York Sun and The New York Herald, saying that it was shameless for them to publish advertisements of Ms. Restel, a famous abortion doctor in new york. In fact, the new york Tribune also published a large number of advertisements for patented medicine. In 1852, The New York Times criticized The New York Herald as a "recognized mouthpiece of quack doctors", but it also published an advertisement for Dr. Kellinger, who boasted of being an "American psychiatrist".

but these arguments have little impact on business. Stimulated by profits, the people's daily newspaper is more willing to publish these lucrative advertisements. The effectiveness of advertising has stimulated a substantial increase in the advertising cost of the newspaper. In order to save the advertising cost, some companies and individuals employ specialized personnel to create gimmicky inflammatory news in newspapers and periodicals to promote their products or services. Casual newspaper is also willing to adopt these gimmicks, cater to the public and expand its influence. Under the wishful thinking, Casual newspaper took the opportunity to appear the newspaper propaganda movement.

At present, the birth of this newspaper propaganda mode is a revolutionary change in the history of western news communication, which has brought a series of new news concepts, new reporting methods and new management methods, heralded the birth of the mass media era, opened a real modern public relations era, and even created a new discipline-public relations.

But at that time, almost no one realized this. People were more interested in seeing gimmicks flying all over the sky through the people's daily newspaper, thinking that the world was wonderful or in a mess. I often read such news in the People's Daily: a circus said that the most dangerous animal had escaped, an actress said that her jewelry had been stolen, and a few days later it was reported that the actress had eloped with someone ... These news actually came from the stunt makers, and three of them were famous, namely Harry Richebach, James Moran and Feniasz Taylor barnum.

Richebach works as an advertising planner for a film company. He is good at designing some eye-catching but harmless gimmicks, so as to get free publicity for the company. He himself said that he made these gimmicks look as newsworthy as he saw them with his own eyes, and people had to report them at this time.

Moran is also an expert in stunt making, and was once called "the last clever deception artist in the propaganda field". He used to be a journalist, and then he was engaged in publicity for 4 years. He invented many classic gimmicks. In order to help a dairy company do publicity, he dyed a cow purple and then promoted the company's purple cow in the newspaper. In order to promote a refrigerator, he went to Alaska to sell the refrigerator to Eskimos, and then publicized his travels. In order to promote a movie, he spent 19 days sitting on an ostrich egg until an ostrich hatched.