Michael Faraday may have invented an electricity generator, but he was also an unstoppable media dynamo. An analysis of the 19th-century physicist鈥檚 rise to fame shows he was an arch manipulator of a burgeoning mass media.
Patricia Fara, a science historian at the University of Cambridge, says the increasing use of the steam-powered printing press (invented in 1812) and the invention of photography (1822) gave Faraday the perfect chance to promote himself.
In a paper to be published in the science history journal Endeavour, Fara says that Faraday 鈥渨as well aware that pictures could provide powerful propaganda鈥�. In portraits for books, newspapers and portrait cards he adopted seemingly nonchalant poses that would make him look like a solid, honest and practical person to whom genius came easily.
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Faraday took lessons in drama and elocution to temper his cockney accent, and the spin spun by the blacksmith鈥檚 son appears to have worked. 鈥淔araday was a working class hero,鈥� says Fara.