Walter Lippmann and Public Opinion

Walter Lippmann’s ideas have heav­ily influ­enced PR.

Walter Lippmann, one of the most prom­in­ent American journ­al­ists and polit­ic­al com­ment­at­ors of the 20^th cen­tury, left an indelible mark on media, pub­lic opin­ion, and democracy.

His intel­lec­tu­al leg­acy con­tin­ues to shape our under­stand­ing of media’s role in soci­ety, the form­a­tion of pub­lic opin­ion, and the func­tion­ing of demo­crat­ic institutions.

Here we go:

Walter Lippmann and Public Opinion

Born in 1889 in New York City, Lippmann began his career in journ­al­ism at an early age, writ­ing for vari­ous pub­lic­a­tions before even­tu­ally becom­ing a co-founder of The New Republic. 

Over the course of his illus­tri­ous career, Lippmann penned numer­ous books, essays, and news­pa­per columns, grap­pling with some of the most press­ing issues of his time. 

Central to Lippmann’s work was his explor­a­tion of the rela­tion­ship between media and democracy. 

In his sem­in­al book, “Public Opinion” (1922), Lippmann dis­sec­ted the pro­cess through which news is dis­sem­in­ated and con­sumed, arguing that the media shapes pub­lic per­cep­tion of real­ity by con­struct­ing a “pseudo-envir­on­ment” that often dis­torts the truth. This idea, which high­lighted journ­al­is­m’s lim­it­a­tions and poten­tial biases, under­scored the import­ance of accur­ate report­ing and the need for a well-informed cit­izenry in a func­tion­ing demo­cracy. ¹Lippmann, Walter. 1960. Public Opinion (1922). New York: Macmillan.

Lippmann’s con­tri­bu­tions to our under­stand­ing of media, pub­lic opin­ion, and demo­cracy have impacted journ­al­ism, polit­ic­al sci­ence, and com­mu­nic­a­tion studies.

His insights into the power dynam­ics in the media land­scape, the lim­it­a­tions of pub­lic know­ledge, and the respons­ib­il­it­ies of the press in a demo­crat­ic soci­ety remain as rel­ev­ant today as they were dur­ing his lifetime.

In the con­stantly evolving media land­scape, Walter Lippmann’s ideas on the inter­play between media, pub­lic opin­ion, and demo­cracy provide a valu­able frame­work for under­stand­ing the chal­lenges and respons­ib­il­it­ies that both media organ­isa­tions and indi­vidu­al cit­izens face. 

By draw­ing on Lippmann’s insights, we can strive to cre­ate more informed, engaged, and crit­ic­al pub­lics cap­able of nav­ig­at­ing the com­plex­it­ies of the mod­ern inform­a­tion land­scape and hold­ing decision-makers account­able in pur­su­ing a healthy, func­tion­ing democracy.

Learn more: Walter Lippmann and Public Opinion

Walter Lippmann and Perception Management

In his sem­in­al work Public Opinion (1922), Walter Lippmann laid the intel­lec­tu­al ground­work for the idea that per­cep­tion and real­ity are not the same — a core prin­ciple of mod­ern per­cep­tion man­age­ment. ²Lippmann, Walter. 1960. Public Opinion (1922). New York: Macmillan.

Lippmann argued that:

Lippmann’s ideas res­on­ate deeply with per­cep­tion man­age­ment in pub­lic relations.

“We are all cap­tives of the pic­ture in our head — our belief that the world we have exper­i­enced is the world that really exists.”
— Walter Lippmann (1889 – 1974)

On Creating Pseudo-Environments

Lippmann coined the term “pseudo-envir­on­ment,” which describes the filtered, biased, and often arti­fi­cial ver­sion of real­ity presen­ted by the media. He warned that influ­en­tial elites could exploit this man­u­fac­tured real­ity to manip­u­late pub­lic thought and behaviour.

Lippmann was scep­tic­al about the public’s abil­ity to dis­cern real­ity from the pseudo-envir­on­ment, which raises eth­ic­al concerns:

Perception man­age­ment is not inher­ently sin­is­ter, but as Lippmann warned, it places immense power in the hands of those con­trolling the narrative. 

In essence, per­cep­tion man­age­ment is the applied PR ver­sion of Lippmann’s media cri­tique. It acknow­ledges that facts alone do not win pub­lic trust—prim­ing, fram­ing, storytelling, and emo­tion­al appeal do.

Learn more: Perception Management

The Manufacturing of Consent

Walter Lippmann’s concept of the “man­u­fac­ture of con­sent” illus­trated the power dynam­ics in the media landscape.

Lippmann argued that a small group of elites, whom he called the invis­ible gov­ern­ment, wiel­ded sig­ni­fic­ant influ­ence over pub­lic opin­ion by con­trolling the nar­rat­ive presen­ted in the media. This idea laid the ground­work for future the­or­ies on media manip­u­la­tion and the role of pro­pa­ganda in shap­ing pub­lic discourse.

At the same time, Lippmann was acutely aware of the chal­lenges facing the aver­age cit­izen in mak­ing sense of the com­plex world around them. He pos­ited that indi­vidu­als often rely on ste­reo­types (i.e. sim­pli­fied men­tal con­structs to pro­cess inform­a­tion and make decisions), which can lead to biases and misconceptions.

These “ste­reo­types” have pro­found implic­a­tions for how media organ­isa­tions present news and how indi­vidu­als inter­pret it, emphas­ising the need for crit­ic­al think­ing and media lit­er­acy in nav­ig­at­ing the mod­ern inform­a­tion landscape.

Chomsky and Herman’s Radical Expansion

Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman took Lippmann’s idea and rad­ic­al­ised it in Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (1988). They argued that media does not just inform — it serves as a pro­pa­ganda sys­tem that main­tains élite con­trol by sys­tem­at­ic­ally fil­ter­ing inform­a­tion in ways that serve power­ful interests.

Chomsky and Herman cri­ti­cised the “man­u­fac­ture of con­sent” as an anti-demo­crat­ic pro­cess that manip­u­lates the pub­lic against their interests.

The book intro­duced the pro­pa­ganda mod­el, which explains how cor­por­ate own­er­ship, advert­ising, gov­ern­ment influ­ence, and ideo­lo­gic­al bias shape mass media to sup­port élite agendas.

Rather than see­ing per­cep­tion man­age­ment as a tool for sta­bil­ity (as Lippmann did), Chomsky and Herman viewed it as a mech­an­ism of con­trol, decep­tion, and sup­pres­sion of dissent.

Learn more: The Manufacturing of Consent (to be published)

The Omnicompetent Citizen

Despite his scep­ti­cism about the gen­er­al pub­lic’s abil­ity to mean­ing­fully engage with the com­plex­it­ies of con­tem­por­ary issues, Walter Lippmann remained a staunch advoc­ate for demo­crat­ic principles.

In his later work, The Phantom Public (1925), Lippmann grappled with the concept of the omni­com­pet­ent cit­izen and the role of pub­lic opin­ion in demo­crat­ic gov­ernance. He con­ten­ded that while the aver­age cit­izen may not pos­sess the expert­ise neces­sary to influ­ence policy decisions dir­ectly, they still have the power to hold decision-makers account­able through the bal­lot box. ³Lippmann, W. (1925). The phantom pub­lic. Harcourt, Brace and Company.

Lippmann’s ideas on the role of journ­al­ism in demo­cracy also exten­ded to his advocacy for a respons­ible and eth­ic­al press. He was a key pro­ponent of object­ive journ­al­ism, arguing that report­ers should strive to provide unbiased, fac­tu­al inform­a­tion to their audiences. 

THANKS FOR READING.
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Suggested Literature

Lippmann, W. (1922). Public opin­ion. Harcourt, Brace and Company.

Lippmann, W. (1925). The phantom pub­lic. Harcourt, Brace and Company.

Steel, R. (1980). Walter Lippmann and the American Century. Little, Brown and Company.

Schudson, M. (2008). Why demo­cra­cies need an unlov­able press. Polity.

McNair, B. (2011). An intro­duc­tion to polit­ic­al com­mu­nic­a­tion (5^th ed.). Routledge.

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Influencing PR: Notable Contributors

It’s noted that the gender bias is appar­ent here. I’m cur­rently research­ing a more bal­anced list.

Public Relations Contributors

• Edward Bernays — The Father of PR
• Ivy Lee and the First Press Release
• P.T. Barnum: “There’s No Such Thing as Bad Publicity”
• Walter Lippmann and Public Opinion
• John Dewey and the ‘P’ in Public Relations
• Marshall McLuhan: “The Medium is the Message”
• Leon Festinger — The Psychologist Behind Cognitive Dissonance
• Shep Gordon: “Make Parents Angry”

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