Tony Schwartz - The Responsive Chord: How Media Manipulate You: What you buy... Who you vote for... And how you think

How media manipulate you:

what you buy...

who you vote for...

and how you think.

Tony Schwartz

Mango Publishing

Copyright 1973 by Anthony Schwartz

Additional content copyright 2017 by Anton Schwartz

Foreword copyright 2017 by John Carey

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, file transfer, or other electronic or mechanical means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations included in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses as permitted by copyright law.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Schwartz, Tony, author. | Carey, John, forewordist.

Title: The responsive chord : how media manipulate you: what you buy, who you

vote for, and how you think / Tony Schwartz ; [foreword by John Carey].

Description: Second edition. | Miami, FL : Mango Media Inc, 2017. | Originally published: New York : Anchor Press, 1973. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016052627 | ISBN 9781633536050 (pbk.) |

ISBN 9781633536081 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: CommunicationSocial aspects. | AdvertisingPsychological aspects. | BISAC: SOC052000 SOCIAL SCIENCE / Media Studies | POL065000 POLITICAL SCIENCE / Political Process / Media & Internet.

Classification: LCC HM258 .S32 2017 | DDC 302.2dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016052627

www.mango.bz

www.tonyschwartz.org

Cover design by Islam Farid and Cheryl Lynn F. Hermann

Interior design by Kevin Callahan

First edition 1973, Anchor Press/Doubleday. Paperback edition 1974, Anchor Books.

Second edition 2017, published by Mango Publishing Group, a division of Mango Media Inc.

Printed in the United States of America

To my parents,

my wife, Reenah,

and my children, Kayla and Anton.

Additional Online Materials

For additional content, including audio and video of examples discussed in this book, visit:

www.tonyschwartz.org/extras

As a communication professor who teaches about new media and a researcher who has studied new media technologies for companies such as Google, Comcast NBCUniversal and the New York Times, why do I rely so heavily on a book written decades ago? Its because The Responsive Chord describes with great clarity how media affect our lives and gives us practical guidelines that are just as relevant today as when the book was first published.

The Responsive Chord analyzes how and why our modern media environment works on us and in us. For example, why do some video bloggers who talk about things of little importance to anyone attract millions of followers? Tony Schwartz explains, People are more likely to choose programming on the basis of some personal function it serves, rather than for specific content. In many instances, it does not matter what a program is about . (p. ) As Sam Roberts of the New York Times writes, Mr. Schwartz presciently anticipated camcorders and also cellphones, iPods and other [modern] electronic devices. Insights from the book also help us understand current media phenomena such as viral media, social media, virtual reality, and mobile media.

Tony Schwartzs work in advertising, audio documentaries, political communication, public service media and soundscapes of everyday life is voluminous and legendary. He worked on five presidential campaigns, dozens of senatorial and gubernatorial campaigns, and thousands of television and radio commercials for hundreds of major corporations as well as countless social causes, including public health, crime prevention, educational funding, civil rights, environmental conservation, police-community relations and nuclear disarmament. This output was complemented by more than a dozen commercial records, sound for Tony Award winning Broadway shows and Oscar-winning films, two books and hundreds of radio programs. The entirety of his collection of audio recordings and related works was acquired by the Library of Congress in 2007, shortly before his death. Transporting it there required three large trucks.

In order to understand the principles that underlie The Responsive Chord , it is helpful to know a few things about Tony Schwartz and his work. Early on, Schwartz was heavily influenced by posters and poster art. He worked as a graphic artist for the Navy during World War II, creating and studying posters that urged support of the war effort. After college, he worked for the famous French poster designer, Jean Carlu. Many of the TV commercials he discusses in the book have the characteristics of a poster: a strong visual image that evokes emotions to convey a simple message. Though the audio is often complex, in the end the commercial usually communicates only one thing, e.g., people who drink Coca Cola have fun , or, when you flee a room that has caught fire, close the door .

Another of Tonys qualities that helped define his work was his strong populist sensibility. As a Jewish child growing up in rural New York, he was frequently beaten up at school. He developed a great compassion for the underdog and, more generally, for common folk. You can see evidence of this throughout his work. For instance, in his passionate work for social causes, frequently without pay; also in his rejection of slick productions in favor of lower-budget approaches that lacked pretense but hit hard; and in his custom of using real sounds and real people. Though Tony Schwartz worked with some of the best announcers of the 20th century, such as Bob Landers and Bob Marcato, he did not like to use actors playing people. If, for example, a commercial called for a postman, he would find a real postman for the part. He reasoned that because announcers were only a product of the mediathere were no real announcers in everyday lifelisteners would accept them for who they were. However, there were real postmen, teenagers, firemen, etc. in everyday life and, properly directed, they came across as more authentic than actors. This led to some interesting consequences. At one point, when a Coca Cola commercial called for teenagers at a party, Tony decided to use the students of a class he taught at the Dalton School. The commercial that resulted, Coke Party, won several awards and ran nationally for many months. Because of the commercials success, the teens in the commercial earned the equivalent of a semesters tuition at their very expensive school. Schwartzs class was very popular after that.

Articles about Tony Schwartz often call out another of his personal traits: Tonys agoraphobia, a fear of being far from home or in vast open spaces. While those accounts often exaggerate his conditionin reality, he left his house every day, owned a car and drove it around Manhattan, and once even took a cruise to the Caribbeanthe phobia nonetheless helped shape his work. Since he did not like to travel far from his home, he relied heavily on media to stay in touch with others who were at a distance. He came to understand at the most microscopic level how we all rely on media to communicate and how he could use this understanding to communicate with anyone. Media education scholar John Culkin famously said, I dont know who discovered water but I know it wasnt a fish. We all live in a media space but few of us can see it. Tony Schwartz could see the media space we all live in and use it to powerful effect.