Walter Lippmann’s Public Opinion, published in 1922, is built around one observation: People don’t respond to reality. They respond to pictures of reality in their heads.
If you follow Lippmann through the implications, it changes how we think about communication, persuasion, democracy, and our own judgment.
“The only feeling that anyone can have about an event he does not experience is the feeling aroused by his mental image of that event.”
Lippmann opens his book with a scene-setter on how the public responded to the announcement of the armistice at the end of World War 1. He paints a picture of people celebrating and behaving like the bloodshed had come to an immediate end.
Except the armistice hadn’t actually happened yet.
In fact, in the five days between the celebrated armistice and the real one, several thousand men died on the battlefields. The war was not over yet.
That gap between the picture in people’s heads (peace) and the reality on the ground (war) can come with severe consequences. It's also a vivid example of the disconnect between public opinion and reality.
Our own campaigns, and our own advocacy may carry less significance than the end of war, but we owe it to our cause to understand the gap that exists between the reality in people's heads versus our own. Bridging that gap is the only way we can influence the public and decision-makers alike.