Abstract

The aim of this essay is to re-analyze Public Opinion by W. Lippmann. Firstly the article proposes a reconstruction of the architecture of the book in terms of concepts, themes and connections between them. Then the article revisits the section of the book where the author strongly criticizes the permeability of journalism to public relation activities, linking Lippmann's historical complaint with the most recent literature on the relationship between news media and government (indexing theory). The last question derives from Lippmann's final proposal to set a capillary system of data processing.