The Issue: Chapters one and two of Walter Lippmann’s Public Opinion discuss his idea of pseudo-environments and the concept of how the media/government can control the public’s view and understanding of certain situations due to barriers between the public and the events occurring.
Major Strength: Lippmann does a great job at thoroughly explaining how people perceive situations differently. Through examples he describes how pseudo-environments are each individuals understanding of what is real. He explains how people see the world through pictures they create in their minds. Lippmann discusses how two people in an argument can perceive that argument completely differently and how that affects the outcome of the dispute. He also gives really insightful examples about how propaganda happens.
Major Weakness: He explains how publics views are skewed based on what the controllers of the situation want people to think, however, he does not really explain how the public can overcome the barrier to understand what is really occurring. So it makes sense that propaganda occurs and what the media wants the public to think is what is perpetuated into the news, but he does not explain how the public is supposed to know what is real or not.
Underlying Assumption: Lippmann assumes that people believe everything that the government/media says. He also assumes that pseudo-environments are all the public knows.
Provocative Questions:
Since this book was published in 1922 the examples are all from the early 1900’s. What are some modern examples of government/media control that are in effect? Are the examples he gives regarding pseudo-environments still relevant?
In regards to propaganda and media control, how have social media and modern technologies changed human’s knowledge of real situations? How much can the media really control when people have access to blogs, Twitter, Facebook, community posts, etc. Are all of these social media platforms just building different ways for propaganda to be disseminated to the public or are they breaking down the barriers between real and pseudo or possibly both?