Modern Public & Communications

Today’s readings conclude that there is no longer a rational, engaged well informed citizen that is sustaining democracy and that communication could be used to inform and guide opinion and to reengage the public. According to Dewey, the public must have the intelligence to engage in political affairs and be “omnicompetent” for a genuine democratic society and state – two elements that he did not think were present. People’s apathy and indifference to the operation of the government was reflected in the declining percentage of the population that votes. Dewey stated that the reasons for the confusion and apathy of the public were due 1) to the normal run of events, 2) to issues that were too complicated, 3) to the disintegration of the small communities and the emergence of too many diffuse publics, and 4) too many competitors for public attention (movies and other emerging leisure time activities).

The discussions and studies that were conducted during this time period time were important in trying to understand the effects that industrialization, new technologies, and communication media – radio, automobile, movies, mass media – were having on society and ultimately on democracy. It was understood that public institutions and opinion are formed locally, but for democracy to function effectively, the public must understand what’s needed for the national state. It is the role of communication to not only provide the public with knowledge and understanding, but to also help form public opinion through “communication of the results of social inquiry”(Dewey, p.177). As the amount of information and the number of communication channels grew, concern arose about the effect on the public. The studies that were done on media effects examined how people used various media, but didn’t really explore the actual outcome or effect from using the particular media. Media effects were implied based upon ethnicity, class and other factors.

The problem posed by a number of the writers was how to reengage the public in the democratic process and to create what Dewey called the “great community.” Public opinion was seen as a way to control political conduct. For Dewey public opinion was continuous inquiry, connected and persistent, which provides “material of enduring opinion about public matters” (p.178). Although Lippman felt that “opinions may now and then be able to define the acts of men, but these opinions do not execute these acts” (p.41), he also saw the need to shape or distill general public opinions in order for them to be effective in democracy. It was the role of communication, as publicity or propaganda, to shape public opinion through the “use of symbols, which assemble emotions after they have been detached from their ideas” (Lippman, p. 40). For Lasswell, propaganda was the “new hammer and anvil of social solidarity” and was an antidote to “willfulness” or individualism of the age by helping to crystallize public opinion. For others, these new technologies were isolating people, encouraging individualism and breaking down families,

The arguments and studies in these readings eerily echo what is being said today about the future of democracy because of an apparently indifferent and apathetic public and what role new communication technology might play in either reengaging or isolating the public further. There is the same tone of optimism about the potential for the new communication media, such as the Internet, to enable the public to form associations and to become better informed. However, today’s politicians have become much more sophisticated in their use of symbols to trigger emotions which would shape public opinion. And sadly, the warnings by Dewey and Lippman for the public to purge itself of self-interested groups, has not been heeded.