Long before social media, three pioneering scholars explained how crowds form, how opinions spread, and how influence works — principles that now shape the modern influencer economy.
The Original Influencers
The internet has created a new kind of public figure: the influencer.
The job title is clear about their role. Influencers exist to influence — to shape what people buy, what they think about current events, and how they see the world around them.
Through posts, videos and livestreams they recommend products, explain the news, promote ideas and build communities that adopt their views and repeat their messages.
What many people don’t realise is that the methods behind this kind of influence were being studied long before the internet existed.
This is the main introduction to a three-part series exploring how modern influencer culture reflects the ideas of early thinkers.
- By Patrick
- Everyday Persuasion Articles, Real World Examples, The Theory
- Reading Time 8 Minutes
Table of Contents
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Today’s influencers often operate as trusted intermediaries between brands, ideas and audiences — a classic persuasion technique known as third-party endorsement.
If you’d like to explore this idea further, you can download our free ebook Trust Me: The Secret Life of the Third-Party Technique.
The Influencer
The title “influencer” may be new, but shaping what people think and believe has always been part of public life.
The label “influencer” is relatively new in marketing, becoming popular in the early days of social media. But the role itself is much older.
Long before follower counts and engagement metrics, writers and social observers were already trying to understand why certain individuals could attract large audiences and shape what those audiences believed.
Among those early thinkers were three men whose ideas would quietly shape the modern world of media, marketing and persuasion.
Gustave Le Bon
In 1895, Gustave Le Bon wrote The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind, one of the first works to examine how individuals behave when they become part of a crowd.
He observed that people in groups often respond less to careful reasoning and more to confidence, emotion and repeated ideas from a strong leader.
More than a century later, these same dynamics are visible across digital platforms, where personalities gather large online audiences and guide the mood and direction of their communities.
Walter Lippmann
In 1922, Walter Lippmann published Public Opinion, exploring how people form their understanding of the world through simplified images and narratives rather than direct experience.
He argued that media and trusted voices help shape these “pictures in our heads.”
Today, social media feeds, news commentary and influencer channels perform a similar role, interpreting events and presenting audiences with clear explanations of what is happening and what it means.
Edward Bernays
Building on earlier ideas about crowds and public opinion, Edward Bernays helped turn persuasion into a profession.
Through his work in public relations and his 1928 book Propaganda, he demonstrated how opinion could be shaped through trusted intermediaries, media narratives and carefully framed messages.
Many of these techniques now appear as standard practice in marketing, branding and digital communication, where influence is measured through engagement, reach and audience response.
Taken together, these three figures trace the intellectual roots of modern influence.
- Gustave Le Bon described how crowds behave and why they follow confident leaders.
- Walter Lippmann examined how people interpret the world through simplified narratives shaped by media and trusted voices.
- Edward Bernays then showed how these insights could be applied deliberately in the fields of public relations and mass communication.
Over time, their ideas filtered into journalism, marketing, advertising and communications training, eventually becoming standard practice in the digital platforms and influencer culture we see today.
The Lineage of Modern Influence
Download Our Free PDF: The Architects of Influence
A free infographic tracing the lineage of 'Consent Manufacturing' from the early theories to modern-day digital platforms.
Modern influencers are not secretly studying the work of Le Bon, Lippmann or Bernays. Instead, the principles these men described have slowly become embedded in the fields of media, marketing and public relations, where they are now taught as part of standard professional training.
Crowd psychology explains how individuals behave differently when part of a large group.
Public opinion is shaped by simplified narratives and “pictures in our heads” created by media and trusted voices.
These insights are applied deliberately through public relations, advertising and mass communication.
Late 20th century — Media & Marketing Education
Ideas about audience psychology become embedded in journalism, marketing and communications training.
21st century — Digital Platforms & Influencers
Modern creators use these same principles under new labels such as engagement, community building and viral content.
To understand the modern world of influencers and online audiences, it helps to start where these ideas first took shape. Join us soon where our journey begins with Gustave Le Bon and his study of the psychology of crowds.
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