Learning Unit 2:
Walter Lippmann
Introduction
Walter Lippmann (1889 – 1974) is probably the most influential journalist in the American History. For 50 years, he wrote his legendary daily column “Today and Tomorrow, first in the New York Herald Tribune and later in the Washington Post.
His opinions were highly respected among public and political actors. He was the personal advisor of several presidents of the United States. Still, he was always able to keep an independent mind, which made him a constant critic of public politics and morals.
Lippmann studied at Harvard, where he met some of the most relevant names of the American intellectual life in the first decades of the 20th century, such as George Santayana and William James. Both were impressed the skills and the potential of his young disciple.
During his extensive career, Lippmann always kept true to the values and principles of American Liberalism.
Lippmann started his career as an author at young age. He published his first book, A Preface to Politics, when he was 19 years old. Then, he had 15 years of intense activity during which he published some of the most relevant books in the field of politics and mass communication of the 20th century.
This career ended relatively early. His last book, The Cold War, appeared in 1947. After that, he dedicated all his energies to his journalistic activities. He was publishing his columns practically until his death in 1974.
The list of this books:
- “A Preface to Politics” (1913)
- “Drift and Mastery” (1914)
- “Public Opinion” (1922)
- “The Phantom Public” (1925)
- “A Preface to Morals” (1929)
- “The Good Society” (1937)
- “The Cold War” (1947)
In this online lecture, we will discuss his most important book, Public Opinion, published by the MacMillan Company in 1922.
Public Opinion (1922)
The importance of this book cannot be stressed enough. In 1922, when Radio were only a project and TV was not even a dream, Lippmann was able to anticipate the most important findings that mass communication research would produce in the 2oth century. The book is truly prophetic. Lippmann explains the agenda setting effect of media, the importance of cognitive dissonance in the perception of the message, the influence of frames of reference and the power of economic structures in the news business.
You will find only a selection of chapters in this lecture, the essential ones to understand how mass media, according to Lippmann, might affect our society.
Particularly relevant, in this regard, is to understand the triangular relationship between public opinion, mass media and political power.
Even though I recommend reading the whole book, only two sections of it are covered by our exams: Stereotypes and Newspapers. In this lecture you can find a pdf versions of both sections, as well as the whole book, also in pdf format, for those interested in exploring Lippmann’s work.
Stereotypes
Walter Lippmann was the first author who systematically used the term stereotype in the contemporary sense of the work.
A stereotype is a generalization about a group of people or things, but also about ideological constructs. We have stereotypes about people based on their race, ethnic background, ideology or religious beliefs, but also have stereotypes about brands of cars, food styles of fashion items.
Those generalizations that characterize the stereotype are always a simplification of the reality. In its complexity, Reality is very difficult to grasp. Thus, the stereotype reduces the natural complexity of things. In this regard, stereotypes are a fundamental perceptual tool. We could not cope with the actual complexity of the world around and need stereotype to work effectively. Stereotypes are not necessarily something bad or negative. The very nature of language is stereotypical. Every word we use stands for a complex reality that cannot be entirely encompassed by it. The word chair encompasses in only four letters a complex variety of objects that fulfill a particular function.
Yet, stereotypes are not neutral, cannot be. They are associated to positive or negative moral and ideological positions that imply a judgment about the reality they refer to. In this case, stereotypes can raise prejudices that cause discrimination, hatred or harassment. They also work as self-fulfilling prophecies.
Since, according to Lippmann, stereotypes are the natural vehicle for public opinion, he primarily defines public opinion as a “moralized and codified version of the facts.”
Click here to read the chapter on Stereotypes
Newspapers (Mass Media)
It is in his chapter on newspaper (remember that in 1922, newspapers were the mass medium per excellence) where Walter Lippmann discussed the already mentioned triangular relationship between media, public opinion and political power.
The starting premise in his arguments is that, in a democratic regime, public opinion is the only legitimate source of political power. Then, he studied to which extent newspaper can influence or control public opinion. Following a syllogistic logic, if newspapers do in fact have an impact on public opinion, they must at the same time influence political power. With this starting thought, Lippmann dissects the actual impact of newspapers on public opinion.
In the most meticulous way, Lippmann starts his argumentation asking himself about the role of newspaper in his society: What is the actual social function of newspapers? Why do we read them?
His answer to this question: newspapers are “our contact with the unseen environment”. We read newspapers to find out what is going on in the parts of the world that are beyond our direct experience.
Still, when it comes to evaluate a particular paper (or medium), we “judge it by its treatment of that part of the news in which we feel involved ourselves”.
In other words, we decide the media we use based on to which extent those media agree with our values and beliefs:
“What better criterion does the man at the breakfast table posses than the newspaper version checks up with his own opinion?”
Society, in general, sees mass media – and assess their ethical value – as it does with other institutions, such as the church or the school. These institutions fulfill a fundamental social function, as supposedly newspapers do. Mass media, that would be their social function, provide the citizens with the information they need to take well informed decisions.
Still, Walter Lippmann sees a radical difference between the school, or the church, and the newspapers.
What is this difference?
And What, according to Lippmann, makes news?
These two question, plus the following three, will help you as understand the role Walter Lippmann assigns to newspapers:
What is the difference between News and Truth, according to Lippmann?
For many theorists of democracy, newspapers were regarded as the panacea. Did Lippmann agree with them?
Which is the actual impact of newspapers on public opinion – and thus, on political power?
Click here to open the chapters on newspapers in Public Opinion
And here to download the entire book.