Surrealistic communication as symbolic terrorism: The example of Marcel Mariën’s theory of political campaigning

Abstract

The article discusses communicative campaigning based on some ideas related to surrealism, arguably one of the most prominent and influential artistic avant-garde movements of the 20th century, and compares these ideas with relevant elements of Edward Bernays’ concept of propaganda, which is one of the main references of public relations research and public relations (PR) practice since the first half of the 20th century. Its main objective is to retrace the campaigning theory by Belgian surrealist Marcel Mariën, which moves between well-known campaigning concepts and cultural terrorist action. The article aims at analyzing the theory’s background in psychoanalytic theory and its vision of society in order to compare the different theories by Bernays and Mariën. Taking into account the well-known ‘revolutionary’ spirit of surrealism and its attribution as a kind of ‘cultural terrorism’, the question arises, whether Marcel Mariën’s surrealistic campaigning theory represents a kind of anti-propaganda terrorism? The article provides a detailed and balanced analysis of the relatedness of communicative practices and social organization.