Phantom Public (1925) focused on describing the characteristics of the public itself. Lippmann (1925) used this book to show the public’s inability to have vast knowledge
about their environment, and therefore, to show their failure to truly support a position. Lippmann (1925) gives a harsh view of the general public, stating, The individual man
does not have opinions on public affairs... I cannot imagine how he could know, and there is not the least reason for thinking, as mystical democrats have thought, that the compounding of
individual ignorances in masses of people can produce a continuous directing force in public affairs
(p. 39). This book seemed to show that democracy was not truly run by the public, but
rather, was being controlled by an educated elite. The public could not be truly well informed, so they were easily convinced to side with an educated minority, while convincing themselves that
they were actually in a system of majority rule. Lippmann (1925) claims that the book aimed to ...bring the theory of democracy into somewhat truer alignment with the nature of
public opinion... It has seemed to me that the public had a function and must have methods of its own in controversies, qualitatively different from those of the executive men
(p. 197).
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