The purpose of this research is to examine the role of the government in the development of public opinion, chiefly as presented by Walter Lippmann's Public Opinion. The plan of the research will be to set forth Lippmann's view of the ways in which the government may set limits upon the free circulation of ideas in and among the community of the government, as well as the uses by the government to present positive and negative images to the community which will have the effect of affecting the form and content that public opinion may take. In this regard, the problems that may from time to time be created by the character of the government's role in shaping public opinion will be discussed with reference to several areas, including direct government censorship, the claims of privacy in an open society vis a vis the government and the public interest, and the position of the media in balancing the claims of various information based constituencies. Lippmann's views will be compared with those of two other commentators (Bagdikian and Parenti), with a view toward suggesting how the perceptions of the problems associated with the development of public opinion may have shifted from the earlier to the latter part of the twentieth century.
In order to understand why Lippmann considers the issue of public opinion to be an important one in the American society, it is useful to have some idea of the motives behind the creation of his book. He appears to place the issue of public opinion as a matter of basic importance for two reasons: first, because in a free and open democratic society the claims of the public as an important element in the fabric of society are bound to merit attention; secondly, because there may be a discrepancy between the opinions held by the public, at any given time and with regard to any given issue, and the facts or occurrences which determine those opinions. This is what Lippmann means when he refers to the "limite...