Lippmann Wrapped Up

Walter Lippmann addresses many issues in his book Public Opinion. He states that media creates the pictures that we have in our heads. One issue that he addresses is stereotypes, and he states that the reason that the public has the stereotypes that it does is because media (television, radio, film) puts these ideas into media consumers’ heads. In this way, media acts as the gatekeeper and agenda setter of society. Media chooses what it wants individuals to know and feeds it to us through various sources of medium. In this way, Lippmann hints to the idea that our society is not a democracy at all, but in fact, the public is controlled by the gatekeepers of media.
It can be seen how technological determinism ties into this idea. Technological determinism is the idea that technology determines history and drives society. In a more specific sense, technology (media) determines how individuals in society react and the choices that people make every day. We act on the pictures in our head implanted by the media. This creates society.
The solution that Lippmann proposes to stop the media from holding this power over the public, is a call for intellegencia. The intellegencia are individuals who are educated and thus will educate the public and cause individuals to participate and think critically. The intellegencia will help the public become media literate, and end the power that it has over society. In this way, media will not be able to set their agenda and act as the gatekeepers, but we as society will be guided by individuals who are educated and will lead us to become a better society.

Even though Lippmann was hard to read, “Public Opinion” truly was an interesting read. Until you have a chance to analyze the novel, one may not even think about the control media has over us as a society. It is only after we realize this, and become educated enough to stop it, that we can create a change in society and be our own gatekeepers