As I was reading through these sources and documents I felt a growing sense of wariness and a nagging sense of familiarity with Bernays, which frankly was confirmed to be a feeling of evil as the BBC documentary reminded me that he was one of the chief architects of the United Fruit Company coup. Working to manipulate & create the conditions required to manufacture consent is an inherently fascist methodology, whether with good or ill intention. The belief that people have to be controlled will inevitably lead to the conclusion that someone needs to do the controlling.
Bernays could only have dreamed of the influential power he could have wielded in this modern media landscape. It is no surprise that the US Military is heavily engaged in recruitment using new media models. In an article written by the publication Dazed at least one of the influencers, Haylujan, that is profiled is explicitly a member of the Psy-Ops division of the US Army (Yalcinkaya, 2023). Due to the post-ironic nature of some internet subcultures it does not matter that the viewers are aware of Haylujan's status as a Psy-Ops agent -- her audience is willingly participating in what amounts to a very effective recruitment strategy. Whether it is due to the nature of TikTok as the platform Haylujan uses or not, the subculture is easily manipulated into expressing support for and potentially enlisting in the military.
As Bernays says however, there must be clear objectives and plans before taking on a consent engineering project. In recent years the US Military has also tried to engage their recruitment tactics on Twitch where they have met with significantly less success. In a Vice produced documentary and podcast, several experts and interviews seem to conclude that they struggle to connect with their youth targets for recruitment (Waypoint, 2022). In fact during several of the streams a US Navy recruiter was frequently asked what his favourite war crime was and ended up playing games with users who had named themselves 'Gamer Word', a synonym for the n-word, or used other offensive screen names. After a short while, this effort was shut down by the military. Frankly, I consider it a positive that regular citizens were able to cyberbully an institution such as the US military.
It seems that the more people know about the engineering of consent as a practice, the more likely they are to recognise it when it is in progress. The effectiveness is called into question and is no longer a guarantee of success. The failed coup by Juan Guaido and US backed interests is a direct parallel to the successful coup that Bernays took part in -- I wonder whether that would have worked as well today as it did then.
References
Bernays, E. L. (1947). The Engineering of Consent. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 250(1), 113–120. https://doi.org/10.1177/000271624725000116
RESET Roundtable: War Games part 1 and 2. (2021, February 12). VICE. Retrieved February 14, 2021, from https://play.acast.com/s/vicegamingsnewpodcast/resetroundtable-wargamespart1and2
Waypoint. (2022, June 2). How the Army uses Esports & Twitch to Recruit | Reset [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zalOT7PXCDM Y
alcinkaya, G. (2023, January 10). How E-girl influencers are trying to get Gen Z into the military. Dazed. https://www.dazeddigital.com/life-culture/article/57878/1/the-era-of-military-funded-e-girl-warfare-army-influencers-tiktok