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Public Opinion Walter Lippmann 9780684833279 Books

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Public Opinion Walter Lippmann 9780684833279 Books

Buy ANY OTHER printing of this book. "Public Opinion" is an expired copywrite / public domain text, so someone published this through a self-publish service called "Createspace" (by Amazon). SHAME on amazon for producing such terrible quality. Cover is cheap, low resolution, text is mismatched fonts, the contents page just lists "Chapter I, II, etc." without chapter titles. The original text is great but this edition is crap. Sending it back. Buy a better edition or read this book online through Project Gutenberg.


Tags : Public Opinion [Walter Lippmann] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. In what is widely considered the most influential book ever written by Walter Lippmann, the late journalist and social critic provides a fundamental treatise on the nature of human information and communication. As Michael Curtis indicates in his introduction to this edition. Public Opinion qualifies as a classic by virtue of its systematic brilliance and literary grace. The work is divided into eight parts,Walter Lippmann,Public Opinion,Free Press,0684833271,Communication Studies,Public opinion,Public opinion - United States,Public opinion.,Public opinion;United States.,Social psychology,Social psychology - United States,Social psychology.,United States - Politics and government,American Government - General,Language Arts & Disciplines,Language Arts & Disciplines Communication Studies,POLITICAL SCIENCE General,POLITICAL SCIENCE Political Process General,Political Process - General,Political Science : Government - General,Political ScienceAmerican Government - General,Politics & government,Politics Current Events,PoliticsInternational Relations,Psychology : Social Psychology,PsychologySocial Psychology,Public opinion & polls,United States,POL040000,PSY031000,Politics and government

Public Opinion Walter Lippmann 9780684833279 Books Reviews

This is Lippmann's classic critique on media and public opinion written in the 1920s. His prose is easy to read and filled with a slew of anecdotes and casual asides. The book focuses on newspapers because they were the dominant news medium in his day, but many of his criticisms are still applicable to television and the internet today. Ironically, Lippmann was a strong opponent of socialism but his concern about the "manufacture of consent" inspired Noam Chomsky's scathing critique of the free-market media industry in Manufacturing Consent.

One thing to keep in mind when ordering this book has been reprinted numerous times by a variety of publishers with results of varying quality. Some of the publishers cut out Lippmann's footnotes or tack them onto the end of sentences rather than formatting them properly. I chose the version published by Free Press in 1997 because the formatting and typefaces they used are clean and remain true to the way the book was originally published. Check the "Look Inside" option to make sure you get a good-looking edition.
I bought this book after reading Chomsky's, "Manufacturing Consent." I recommend to everyone that they check up on the sources that are cited by others. I was actually a huge fan of Chomsky until I read Public Opinion, because I couldn't believe how much he misrepresented, not only details in the book, but Lippmann's main thesis, which is nothing more than a detailed exploration of how people come to know what they think they know.
From the Intro

"Our first concern with fictions and symbols is to forget their value to the existing social order and to think of them simply as an important part of the machinery of human communication. Now in any society that is not completely self contained in its interests and, so small that everyone can know all about everything that happens, ideas deal with events that are out of sight and hard to grasp. Miss Sherwin of Gopher Prairie is aware that a war is raging in France [WWI] and tries to conceive it. She has never been to France and certainly she has never been along what is now the battlefront.
Pictures of French and German soldiers she has seen, but it is impossible for her to imagine three million men. No one, in fact, can imagine them, and the professionals do not try. They think of them as, say, two hundred divisions. But Miss Sherwin has no access to the order of battle maps, and so if she is to think about the war, she fastens upon Joffre and the Kaiser as if they were engaged in a personal duel. Perhaps if you could see what she sees with her mind's eye, the image in its composition might be not unlike an Eighteenth Century engraving of a great soldier. He stands there boldly unruffled and more than life size, with a shadowy army of tiny little figures winding off into the landscape behind. Nor it seems are great men oblivious to these expectations. M. de Pierrefeu tells of a photographer's visit to Joffre. The General was in his "`middle class office, before the worktable without papers, where he sat down to write his signature. Suddenly it was noticed that there were no maps on the walls. But since according to popular ideas it is not possible to think of a general without maps, a few were placed in position for the picture, and removed soon afterwards.'"

From this very basic and incontestable base, he then explores the implication of these facts upon democratic theory, socialist theory, economic theory (he tears apart the notion of a harmonious collection of selfish interests in free market capitalism), etc... He then talks in detail about exactly how the news is made, and even what constitutes news, and why. This doesn't come until the end of the book, and I'm convinced that Chomsky never got that far, because Lippmann tears holes in much of his Manufacturing Consent thesis in 1925, by simply noting the details of why some facts become news and some things simply don't. He is able to highlight the effects of press publicists and special interest lobbyists on the system long before anyone else was talking about them in the 1990's. I think everyone else is just now catching up with Lippmann, and many have yet to come close.
The philosopher John Dewey once referred to this book as "perhaps the most effective indictment of democracy as currently conceived ever penned." Like Dewey, I believe that imperfect democracy is preferable to rule by a technocratic elite. Nevertheless, Lippmann makes a powerful case for his position. This book does what works of political philosophy are supposed to do it challenges and upsets the reader while refusing to offer any easy answers.
We find some interesting discussion on the social state of the early 20th Century, but biased by his secular and humanistic view, the author describes his completely distorted view of mankind. He spouses education as the solution for the human plight, basically what was defended by his contemporary John Dewey. Arrogant view of the activity of the news media personnel, pretty much of what we encounter today.
It's 100 pages too long. I read more than half of it slowly, steadily, and absorbed some interesting insights from the mind of Mr. Lippmann. After about page 220 (out of 317) however, he begins droning on about... I really can't tell you because it seems to have nothing to do with the topic/title of the book. The first 2/3's of the book is accurate, meaning it speaks on Public Opinion Lippmann talks about how difficult it is to form a central government that has a realistic view of all of it's cities, provinces, etc.. He also speaks on how many filters there are between the "informed citizen" and the actual event taking place, let's say, across the world. He references many books that carry interesting titles, but the author loses focus 2/3's of the way and it caused me to lose focus as well. I was urging myself to continue. One more page, one more page, one more page. Though I didn't complete the book, I am finished reading it. If you're curious, give it a go. But basic curiosity will not hold you up through the dense, wild, intellectual forest that this book turns into towards the end. If you are a political scientist, a sociologist, or something of the like, you may make it through. thank you
Buy ANY OTHER printing of this book. "Public Opinion" is an expired copywrite / public domain text, so someone published this through a self-publish service called "Createspace" (by ). SHAME on for producing such terrible quality. Cover is cheap, low resolution, text is mismatched fonts, the contents page just lists "Chapter I, II, etc." without chapter titles. The original text is great but this edition is crap. Sending it back. Buy a better edition or read this book online through Project Gutenberg.