Walter Lippmann: Public Opinion and Perception Management

Walter Lippmann’s ideas have heav­ily influ­enced PR.

Walter Lippmann, one of the most prom­in­ent American journ­al­ists and polit­ic­al com­ment­at­ors of the 20th 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 goes:

Managing Perceptions of Reality

Walter Lippmann: Public Opinion and Perception Management

No one is basing their atti­tudes and beha­viours on real­ity; we’re basing them on our per­cep­tions of real­ity.

Walter Lippmann (1889 – 1974) pro­posed that our per­cep­tions of real­ity dif­fer from the actu­al real­ity. The real­ity is too vast and too com­plex for any­one to pro­cess. ¹Lippmann, Walter. 1960. Public Opinion (1922). New York: Macmillan.

• One who effect­ively man­ages the per­cep­tions of pub­lics acts as a mor­al legis­lat­or, cap­able of shap­ing atti­tudes and beha­viours accord­ing to the cat­egor­ic­al imperative.

The research on per­cep­tion man­age­ment is focused on how organ­isa­tions can cre­ate a desired repu­ta­tion:

“The OPM [Organizational Perception Management] field focuses on the range of activ­it­ies that help organ­isa­tions estab­lish and/or main­tain a desired repu­ta­tion (Staw et al., 1983). More spe­cific­ally, OPM research has primar­ily focused on two inter­re­lated factors: (1) the tim­ing and goals of per­cep­tion man­age­ment activ­it­ies and (2) spe­cif­ic per­cep­tion man­age­ment tac­tics (Elsbach, 2006).”
Source: Hargis, M. & Watt, John ²Hargis, M. & Watt, John. (2010). Organizational per­cep­tion man­age­ment: A frame­work to over­come crisis events. Organization Development Journal. 28. 73 – 87.

Today, our per­cep­tions are heav­ily influ­enced by news media and influ­en­cers, algorithms, and social graphs. Therefore, per­cep­tion man­age­ment is more crit­ic­al than ever before.

“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

Learn more: Walter Lippmann: Public Opinion and Perception Management

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Walter Lippmann and the Pseudo-Environment

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 legendary pub­lic­a­tion, 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 the lim­it­a­tions and poten­tial biases of journ­al­ism, under­scored the import­ance of accur­ate report­ing and the need for a well-informed cit­izenry in a func­tion­ing democracy.

The Manufacturing of Consent

Lippmann’s concept of the “man­u­fac­ture of con­sent” fur­ther illus­trated the power dynam­ics at play 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” or sim­pli­fied men­tal con­structs to pro­cess inform­a­tion and make decisions, which can lead to biases and misconceptions. 

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

The Omnicompetent Citizen

Despite his skep­ti­cism about the abil­ity of the gen­er­al pub­lic to engage mean­ing­fully with the com­plex­it­ies of con­tem­por­ary issues, 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 dir­ectly influ­ence policy decisions, they still hold the power to keep decision-makers account­able through the bal­lot box.

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.

Media, Public Opinion, and Democracy

In con­clu­sion, Walter Lippmann’s con­tri­bu­tions to our under­stand­ing of media, pub­lic opin­ion, and demo­cracy have left an endur­ing impact on the fields of journ­al­ism, polit­ic­al sci­ence, and com­mu­nic­a­tion studies. 

His insights into the power dynam­ics at play 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 the pur­suit of a healthy, func­tion­ing democracy.

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 (5th ed.). Routledge.