Creating the Right Opinion

absinthe  Doober • 6 hours ago
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We won't be able to make an intelligible reply, because we don't know what you said. But Walter Lippmann said a century ago that the main job of American journalists was to manufacture opinion so as to create a consensus, regardless of whether one had to bend a truth here, suppress a truth there, tell a white lie, etc. That seems to be the vision that has guided America's corporate journalism ever since.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Lippmann
 Similarities between the views of Lippmann and Gabriel Almond produced what became known as the Almond–Lippmann consensus, which is based on three assumptions:[9]
Public opinion is volatile, shifting erratically in response to the most recent developments. Mass beliefs early in the 20th century were "too pacifist in peace and too bellicose in war, too neutralist or appeasing in negotiations or too intransigent"[10]
Public opinion is incoherent, lacking an organized or a consistent structure to such an extent that the views of U.S. citizens could best be described as "nonattitudes"[11]
Public opinion is irrelevant to the policy-making process. Political leaders ignore public opinion because most Americans can neither "understand nor influence the very events upon which their lives and happiness are known to depend.