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Notes -
I'm not sure if it constitutes a 'handbook' but I strongly recommend Walter Lippmann's Public Opinion (1922), who quite literally wrote the book (haha), on public communication and how to manage/manipulate public opinion.
I would also recommend Edward Bernays's Propaganda (1928) or Public Relations (1945). Bernays was kind of Lippmann's protégé.
These two men are basically created the foundation for our understanding modern mass communication, mass media and mass culture. Now-ubiquitous terms like propaganda (in its modern meaning) and stereotype were coined or popularized by these men. Both of them made some highly topical political arguments to our present political environment. Lippmann basically advocated for a technocratic elite/agency that used propaganda benevolently to shape public opinion, believing that (simplifying here) that the informed member of the public/voter is oxymoron, no member of the public is effectively capable of making informed decisions on any number of issues. Bernays has broadly similar views to Lippmann, although where as Lippmann more saw propaganda as a tool to be used by a (benevolent) elite, Bernays more sees propaganda as the inevitable result of an mass liberal democratic society, the alternative is chaos. Bernays is also responsible for making bacon and eggs a stable breakfast food and partially responsible for all the bad shit United Fruit Company did in Central America.
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