Public opinion
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- This article is about the book by Walter Lippman; for the BBC television panel game see Public Opinion (television series)
Public Opinion is a 1922 book on media and democracy by Walter Lippmann. Among other things, it argues that 20-th century advances in the technology of "the manufacture of consent" amount to "a revolution" in "the practice of democracy" because they allows elites to control public opinion about the world and about the public's interests in that world. Control of public opinion is a means to controlling public behavior.
When properly utilized, the manufacture of consent, Lippmann argues, is useful and necessary for modern society because "the common interests"—the general concerns of all people—are not obvious in many cases and only become clear upon careful data collection and analysis, which most of the people are either uninterested in or incapable of doing. Most people, therefore, must have the world summarized for them by those who are well-informed.
Since Lippmann includes much of the political elite within the set of those incapable of properly understanding by themselves the complex "unseen environment" in which the affairs of the modern state take place, he proposes having professionals (a "specialized class") collect and analyze data and present the conclusions to the decision makers. The decision makers then take decisions and use the "art of persuasion" to inform the public about the decisions and the circumstances surrounding them.
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