Stuart Ewen
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Stuart Ewen (born 1945) is a New York-based author,
historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the st ...
and lecturer on
media Media may refer to: Communication * Media (communication), tools used to deliver information or data ** Advertising media, various media, content, buying and placement for advertising ** Broadcast media, communications delivered over mass e ...
, consumer culture, and the compliance profession. He is also a Distinguished
Professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professo ...
at
Hunter College Hunter College is a public university in New York City. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools. It also admin ...
and the City University of New York Graduate Center, in the departments of
History History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...
,
Sociology Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of empirical investigation an ...
and
Media Studies Media studies is a discipline and field of study that deals with the content, history, and effects of various media; in particular, the mass media. Media Studies may draw on traditions from both the social sciences and the humanities, but mostl ...
. He is the author of six books. Under the pen name Archie Bishop, Ewen has also worked as a
graphic artist A graphic designer is a professional within the graphic design and graphic arts industry who assembles together images, typography, or motion graphics to create a piece of design. A graphic designer creates the graphics primarily for published, ...
,
photographer A photographer (the Greek φῶς (''phos''), meaning "light", and γραφή (''graphê''), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light") is a person who makes photographs. Duties and types of photographers As in oth ...
,
pamphleteer Pamphleteer is a historical term for someone who creates or distributes pamphlets, unbound (and therefore inexpensive) booklets intended for wide circulation. Context Pamphlets were used to broadcast the writer's opinions: to articulate a poli ...
, and
agitprop Agitprop (; from rus, агитпроп, r=agitpróp, portmanteau of ''agitatsiya'', "agitation" and ''propaganda'', " propaganda") refers to an intentional, vigorous promulgation of ideas. The term originated in Soviet Russia where it referred ...
activist for many years. As a young man, in 1964 and early 1965, Ewen was a field secretary for the
civil rights Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life ...
organization the
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC, often pronounced ) was the principal channel of student commitment in the United States to the civil rights movement during the 1960s. Emerging in 1960 from the student-led sit-ins at segreg ...
(
SNCC The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC, often pronounced ) was the principal channel of student commitment in the United States to the civil rights movement during the 1960s. Emerging in 1960 from the student-led sit-ins at segreg ...
). After working as a volunteer in the
Freedom House Freedom House is a non-profit, majority U.S. government funded organization in Washington, D.C., that conducts research and advocacy on democracy, political freedom, and human rights. Freedom House was founded in October 1941, and Wendell Wi ...
in
Columbus, Mississippi Columbus is a city in and the county seat of Lowndes County, on the eastern border of Mississippi, United States, located primarily east, but also north and northeast of the Tombigbee River, which is also part of the Tennessee-Tombigbee Water ...
, he became part of the SNCC staff, earning the standard pay of $9.66 per week. After working in Columbus, he and Isaac Coleman, who was the project director, opened up a new field office in
Tupelo, Mississippi Tupelo () is a city in and the county seat of Lee County, Mississippi, United States. With an estimated population of 38,300, Tupelo is the sixth-largest city in Mississippi and is considered a commercial, industrial, and cultural hub of North ...
. In 1966, Ewen was one of the founding editors of an early underground newspaper, ''Connections'', in
Madison, Wisconsin Madison is the county seat of Dane County and the capital city of the U.S. state of Wisconsin. As of the 2020 census the population was 269,840, making it the second-largest city in Wisconsin by population, after Milwaukee, and the 80th ...
, where he was a student. In 1989, his book ''All Consuming Images'' provided the basis for
Bill Moyers Bill Moyers (born Billy Don Moyers, June 5, 1934) is an American journalist and political commentator. Under the Johnson administration he served from 1965 to 1967 as the eleventh White House Press Secretary. He was a director of the Counci ...
' four-part award-winning series, "The Public Mind." In 2004, another of his books, ''PR! A Social History of Spin'', was the foundation of a four-part BBC series, " The Century of the Self," produced by
Adam Curtis Adam Curtis (born 26 May 1955) is an English documentary filmmaker. Curtis began his career as a conventional documentary producer for the BBC throughout the 1980s and into the early 1990s. The release of '' Pandora's Box'' (1992) marked t ...
. "PR!" also provided the foundation for the 2018 French documentary, "Propaganda: La fabrique du consentement," directed by Jimmy Leipold and produced by Arte Television and INAfr. It was also the foundation of a 2020 Russian television documentary, "Стюарт Юэн. PR: как создается правда?" Ewen has become a spokesman against violations of
academic freedom Academic freedom is a moral and legal concept expressing the conviction that the freedom of inquiry by faculty members is essential to the mission of the academy as well as the principles of academia, and that scholars should have freedom to teach ...
in the period since
9/11 The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commerci ...
, and is the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Frederic Ewen Academic Freedom Center at NYU, which is named after his great uncle, a professor at
Brooklyn College , mottoeng = Nothing without great effort , established = , parent = CUNY , type = Public university , endowment = $98.0 million (2019) , budget = $123.96 m ...
who was forced to resign after refusing to testify before
HUAC The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), popularly dubbed the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives, created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloy ...
.About Frederic Ewen,"
NYU Libraries: Tamiment Library & Robert F. Wagner Archives website. Accessed Dec. 12, 2013.


Personal life

He was married to Elizabeth Ewen (1943-2012), a Distinguished Teaching Professor in the Department of
American Studies American studies or American civilization is an interdisciplinary field of scholarship that examines American literature, history, society, and culture. It traditionally incorporates literary criticism, historiography and critical theory. Schol ...
at the State University of New York at Old Westbury. He has two sons, Paul Ewen and Sam Ewen, both of New York, and two grandchildren. Sam Ewen is currently a lecturer at Hunter College, Teaching media studies.


Works


Books

* ''Captains of Consciousness: Advertising and the Social Roots of the Consumer Culture''. New York:
McGraw-Hill McGraw Hill is an American educational publishing company and one of the "big three" educational publishers that publishes educational content, software, and services for pre-K through postgraduate education. The company also publishes refere ...
(1976). .
''Channels of Desire: Mass Images and the Shaping of American Consciousness''
(co-authored with Elizabeth Ewen). New York:
McGraw-Hill McGraw Hill is an American educational publishing company and one of the "big three" educational publishers that publishes educational content, software, and services for pre-K through postgraduate education. The company also publishes refere ...
(1982). . * ''All Consuming Images: The Politics of Style in Contemporary Culture''. New York:
Basic Books Basic Books is a book publisher founded in 1950 and located in New York, now an imprint of Hachette Book Group. It publishes books in the fields of psychology, philosophy, economics, science, politics, sociology, current affairs, and history. H ...
(1988). . * ''PR!: A Social History of Spin''. New York:
Basic Books Basic Books is a book publisher founded in 1950 and located in New York, now an imprint of Hachette Book Group. It publishes books in the fields of psychology, philosophy, economics, science, politics, sociology, current affairs, and history. H ...
(1996). . *''The New Media Reader: Introduction to Media Studies Critical Texts''. Boston:
Houghton Mifflin Company Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (; HMH) is an American publisher of textbooks, instructional technology materials, assessments, reference works, and fiction and non-fiction for both young readers and adults. The company is based in the Boston Fina ...
(2001). . * ''Typecasting: On the Arts and Sciences of Human Inequality'' (co-authored with Elizabeth Ewen). New York:
Seven Stories Press Seven Stories Press is an independent American publishing company. Based in New York City, the company was founded by Dan Simon in 1995, after establishing Four Walls Eight Windows in 1984 as an imprint at Writers and Readers, and then incorpo ...
(2006). . **Revised ed. (2008). .


Articles and essays

* "Mass Culture, Narcissism and the Moral Economy of War". ''
Telos Telos (; ) is a term used by philosopher Aristotle to refer to the final cause of a natural organ or entity, or of a work of human art. Intentional actualization of potential or inherent purpose,"Telos.''Philosophy Terms'' Retrieved 3 May 2020. ...
'' 44 (Summer 1980). New York
Telos Press
*''Crystallizing Public Opinion'' (Edward Bernays, Introduction by Stuart Ewen), New York: IG Publishing, 2011.


References


External links


Appearances
on
C-SPAN Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network (C-SPAN ) is an American cable and satellite television network that was created in 1979 by the cable television industry as a nonprofit public service. It televises many proceedings of the United States ...

"PR, Social Control and Revolt: An interview with Stuart Ewen,"
''State of Nature'', March 2009 * An interview with Stuart Ewen by David Barsamian, '' Z Magazine,'' May 2000.
"The Stay Free Interview" Part I
Stuart Ewen talks with ''Stay Free'' magazine about his history of hype, the public relations industry, saving the planet, etc.
"Stereotype and Society"
Informative, sometimes humorous website expanding on issues raised in Ewen and Ewen's ''Typecasting, On the Arts and Sciences of Human Inequality.'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Ewen, Stuart Anti-corporate activists 20th-century American historians American male non-fiction writers 21st-century American historians Historians of the United States Historians of public relations American public relations people Public relations theorists Advertising theorists Mass media theorists Propaganda theorists Graduate Center, CUNY faculty Hunter College faculty State University of New York at Old Westbury faculty 1945 births Living people 20th-century American male writers