public opinion

I would say that ‘Public Opinion’ by Walter Lippmann is a very difficult read, but one that has a clear objective. Lippmann feels that consumers of media are controlled by a small group of elite people. This small group could be referred to as ‘gatekeepers’ because they control the medium. Lippmann attacks democracy and has a negative outlook on messages that are being received through media. He feels that democracy cannot exist, because this small group is controlling the consumers and that consumers have no choice of the messages they receive. This is where I think Lippmann is wrong.

If Lippmann’s theory was true then democracy would have fallen by now. I also think that Lippmann would have a hard time explaining the internet. Consumers of media can find anything they want on the internet and there is no group that is controlling those messages. With news channels and newspapers using the web to broadcast news on their sites, people can pick and choice what they want to take in. Also sites like Youtube.com allow consumers to create their own videos. People are able to search the web and find exactly what they are looking for with little or no difficulty. Consumers become gatekeepers.

I think back to Pecola and her fascination with Shirley Temple. She drove herself mad because the gatekeepers fed into her own insecurities. Pecola felt that she was not beautiful, but rather beauty looked more like Shirley Temple. People create pictures in their head from media, as we learned in class, and take the message to be fact. Lippmann felt that democracy wouldn’t work because the average citizen was not informed enough to make certain decisions. Overall, Lippmann makes sense, but he is pessimistic. If he were to consider today’s society, he may change his views a little bit.