Library:Public Opinion
| Public Opinion | |
|---|---|
| Author | Walter Lippmann |
| First published | 1922 |
| ISBN | 978-0-684-83327-4 |
| Role | Analysis |
| Domains | Politics & Elections Technology & Media |
| Tactics | Propaganda Technique |
Public Opinion is a 1922 book by Walter Lippmann.
Summary
Walter Lippmann, one of the most influential American journalists of the twentieth century, published this book in 1922. Having worked on propaganda and intelligence during the First World War, he set out to examine how people actually form their picture of the world, and concluded that democratic theory had badly misunderstood the process.
The pictures in our heads
The book opens with a chapter on the world outside and the pictures in our heads. Lippmann argues that people cannot experience most of the world directly. They act instead on a "pseudo-environment": a simplified mental model built from news, hearsay and imagination. Their actions take place in the real world, but their decisions are based on the picture, and the gap between the two is where error, manipulation and conflict arise.
Stereotypes
Lippmann gave the word "stereotype" its modern meaning. He argues that people do not first see and then define; they define first and then see. Stereotypes are mental shortcuts inherited from culture that tell people what to expect before they look. They are economical and in some ways unavoidable, but they filter out whatever does not fit and make people resistant to evidence that would disturb them.
Why the news cannot fix it
The book examines the barriers between people and facts: censorship and secrecy, limited time and attention, the compression of complex events into short words and headlines, and the economics of newspapers. Lippmann concludes that the press cannot supply citizens with all the knowledge self-government requires. News signals that an event has happened; it is not the same as truth, which requires bringing hidden facts to light and relating them to one another.
The manufacture of consent
Lippmann observes that persuasion had become a self-conscious art, and that the "manufacture of consent" was now a regular part of government. His proposed remedy, expert bodies that would gather and analyse information for decision-makers, provoked a famous reply from the philosopher John Dewey, who argued in The Public and Its Problems (1927) that the answer was a better-educated and more engaged public, not rule by experts.
Relevance to Bullshitopedia
This is the intellectual root of the field. Lippmann's pseudo-environment explains why misinformation works at all: people act on their pictures of the world, and whoever shapes those pictures shapes the action. The Lippmann–Dewey debate, experts versus an informed public, remains a live question for any project like this one.