ISBN: 0465008704
Godina izdanja: 1986
Jezik: Engleski
Autor: Strani

How Mass Opinion Promotes State Power

odlična očuvanost

A reviewer from The New York Times evaluated Ginsberg`s The Captive Public: How Mass Opinion Promotes State Power 1986. Ginsberg argued that people think they`re in control since they vote and answer public opinion polls, but he argues that such control is illusory. He thinks government used tactics such as extending rights of modern citizenship to diverse new groups, such as minorities and women, as well as encouraging voting as an alternative to more dangerous unwanted protests, such as striking or rioting, to tame a wary public. `To vote meant not to strike or riot, ` and the state preferred citizens to vote rather than mount more serious challenges to its power such as lawsuits, protests, organizing, parliamentary procedure, or lobbying. Schools taught children the benefits of voting with such repetition until it became a `tenacious myth of mass control, ` in his view. Since elections happen periodically, they limit citizen participation in politics to the selection of leaders and keep people away from policy formation. Ginsberg sees public opinion polling as a `subtle instrument of power` since it renders opinions `less dangerous, less disruptive, more permissive, and, perhaps, more amenable to governmental control. ` He sees policy based not on mass opinion but on managing mass opinion, a kind of giant public relations project. Reviewer Mark Crispin Miller found Ginsberg`s analysis compelling but `a bit too careful to do justice to the complex advertising mechanism that has swallowed up our politics, ` and found his focus `too narrow`, `too simple`, with a `libertarian bias. ` He criticizes Ginsberg`s terms as `too crude` such as using `the state` to describe regulatory agencies, and for equating agencies such as the Office of Economic Opportunity with Big Brother. Miller criticized Ginsberg for ignoring the `subtle and extensive interrelationships` between government, corporations, advertising agencies and the mass media. Miller thinks Ginsberg underestimated the public, and `has translated his fellow citizens into a featureless manipulated mass, without fears or desires worth taking seriously.