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by Walter Lippmann (Author)
Walter Lippmann's Public Opinion is one of the foundational twentieth-century works on democracy, journalism, propaganda, and the formation of public belief. Published in 1922, the book examines how citizens understand events they do not directly experience, how news and political language shape perception, and how simplified mental images-what Lippmann famously calls "the pictures in our heads"-influence public judgment. Written after the First World War and amid the rise of modern mass media, it remains a central text for readers interested in political communication, media studies, public opinion, and democratic theory.
Lippmann argues that modern society is too complex for citizens to grasp directly, making the press, experts, symbols, stereotypes, and institutional systems central to political life. His analysis is not a simple attack on journalism or democracy, but a sober account of how public knowledge is made, distorted, organised, and used. For readers of political science, journalism, propaganda studies, communication theory, social psychology, and American intellectual history, Public Opinion remains a disciplined and influential study of the modern public mind.
