That's a wrap, Walter!

After reading Public Opinion and digesting all of the information, I've noticed that Walter Lippmann addresses many issues in this book. His main focus is on stereotypes, and also the fact that media creates the pictures that we have in our heads. The reason that the public has these stereotypes is because the media puts these ideas into our heads. The action that media takes is multifold. It acts as the gatekeeper and agenda setter of society. Media chooses what it wants individuals to know and feeds it to us through various sources of medium. In this way, Lippmann hints to the idea that our society is not a democracy at all, but in fact, the public is controlled by the gatekeepers of media.
Technological determinism ties into this idea. Technological determinism is the idea that technology determines history and drives society. In a more specific sense, technology (media) determines how individuals in society react and the choices that people make every day. We act on the pictures in our head implanted by the media. This creates society.

The solution that Lippmann proposes to stop the media from holding this power over the public, is a call for intellegencia- the individuals who are educated and thus will educate the public and cause individuals to participate and think critically. The intellegencia will help the public become media literate, and end the power that it has over society. In this way, media will not be able to set their agenda and act as the gatekeepers, but we as society will be guided by individuals who are educated and will lead us to become a better society.

This book was hard to read at times, but it was very interesting. It's hard to fathom that I knew so little before reading this book on how the media can have a chokehold on us as a society. It is only after we realize this, and become educated enough to stop it, that we can create a change in society and be our own gatekeepers.