Public Opinion

The founding text of media criticism, and it reads like a description of this morning. Lippmann asked how the public can possibly know enough to govern when the world is too large to see directly, and answered that people act on the pictures in their heads, pictures the press and the propagandist help to paint. A century old and entirely current. To understand why an informed public is so hard to sustain, and so easy to manipulate, begin here.

The journalist and theorist who founded modern media criticism by asking how the public can possibly know enough to govern. Public Opinion argues that the world is too large and complex to grasp directly, so people act on the pictures in their heads, pictures the press and propaganda help to draw. The book is a century old and reads like a description of this morning's feed.