The Phantom Public Lippmann Walter
2022 Reprint of the 1925 Edition. Lippmann's The Phantom Public expresses the author's lack of faith in the democratic system by arguing that the public exists merely as an illusion, myth, and…
Specifikacia The Phantom Public Lippmann Walter
2022 Reprint of the 1925 Edition. Lippmann's The Phantom Public expresses the author's lack of faith in the democratic system by arguing that the public exists merely as an illusion, myth, and inevitably a phantom. As Carl Bybee wrote, "For Lippmann the public was a theoretical fiction and government was primarily an administrative problem to be solved as efficiently as possible, so that people could get on with their own individualistic pursuits". Lippmann posits that society is made up of two types of people: agents and bystanders (also referred to as insiders and outsiders). The agent is someone who can act "executively" on the basis of his own opinions to address the substance of an issue, and the bystander is the public, merely a spectator of action. Only those familiar enough with the substance of a problem are able to then analyze it and propose solutions, to take