The World Outside and the Pictures in Our Heads

1. The World Outside and the Pictures in Our Heads Walter Lippmann

2. Famous Quotes • The world that we have to deal with is out of reach, out of sight, out of mind. It has to be explored, reported, and imagined. • My Quote: “The media may be our ears and eyes, but they must not take the place of our minds.”

3. Fact or Fiction: The Mystery of the Great Men • Great men, even during their lifetimes, are usually known to the public only through a fictitious personality • Hero worship: the experience of General Joffre • Imagined war: between two countries=between two opposing personages?

4. Two Environments • Real environments vs. pseudo-environment “To traverse the world men need maps of the world.” Men act upon their environment, moved by stimuli from their pseudo-environments; they live in the same world, but they feel and think in different ones.

5. Propaganda & Public Opinion • Public opinion deals with indirect, unseen, and puzzling facts, and there is nothing obvious about them • Public opinion: the pictures inside the heads of these human beings, the pictures of themselves, of others, of their needs, purposes, and relationships • Those pictures which are acted upon by groups of people, or by individuals acting in the name of groups

6. Conclusion • Public opinion must be organized for the press if they are to be sound, not by the press as is the case today.