THE GROUP AND HERD ARE THE BASIC MECHANISMS OF PUBLIC CHANGE
The institutions that make public opinion carry on against a background
which is in itself a controlling factor. The real character of this
controlling background we shall take up later. Let us first consider
some examples that prove its existence--then we can look into its
origin and its standards.
Powerful standards control the very institutions which are supposed to
help form public opinion. It is necessary to understand the origin, the
working and the strength of these institutions in order to understand
the institutions themselves and their effect upon the public.
In tracing the interaction of institution upon public and public upon
institution, one finds a circle of obedience and leadership. The press,
the school and other leaders of thought are themselves working in a
background which they cannot entirely control.
Let us turn to the press again for a text.
That the press is so frequently unable to achieve a result on which
its combined members are unanimously set makes it evident that the
press itself is working in a medium which it cannot entirely control.
The _New York Times_ motto, “All the news that’s fit to print,” drives
this point home. The standards of fitness created in the minds of
the publishers express the point of view of a mass of readers, and
this enables the newspapers to achieve and maintain circulation and
financial success.
The very fact that newspapers must sell to the public is an evidence
that they must please the public and in a measure obey it. In the press
there is a very human tendency to compromise between giving the public
what it wants and giving the public what it _should_ want. This is
equally true in music, where artists like McCormack or Rachmaninoff
popularize their programs. It is true in the drama, where managers,
producers and authors combine to adjust plots, situations and endings
to what the public will be willing to pay to see. It is true in art, in
architecture, in motion pictures. It is true of the lecture platform
and of the pulpit.
So-called radical preachers, for example, usually succeed in
broadcasting their radical ideas only when their following is prepared
to accept their views. The Rev. Percy Stickney Grant was a great
problem to the upholders of the accepted order, only because there was
so large a body of parishioners eager to hear and accept his _dicta_.
The Rev. Billy Sunday, evangelist, derived his following from among
people who were awaiting a faith-stirring appeal.
Another evidence of the fact that a powerful outside influence helps
make the forces that mould public opinion is shown by the newspapers in
the actual selection of news. The public actually demands that certain
types of facts be omitted. The standing problem of every newspaper
office--the winnowing of the day’s news from the mass of material that
reaches the editorial desks--illustrates pointedly the need there is to
examine the reasons which prompt the editors in selection.
In an exceedingly interesting advertisement published by the _New York
Tribune_, on April 19, 1922, the _Tribune’s_ editors state the problem
most graphically. The advertisement is headed, “What Else Happened That
Day?” and it reads as follows:
“Madame Caillaux was on trial in Paris for killing Gaston
Calmette.
“In Long Island a woman was mysteriously shot in a doctor’s
office while on a night visit.
“Forty-five stage coaches were held up in Yellowstone Park by
two masked bandits who took all the cash of 165 tourists.
“Romantic crime, mystery crime, adventurous crime, a public
eagerly interested--and they suddenly dropped from the
newspapers. The public forgot them. As news, these events
became as if they had never happened. Something else had
happened.
“The day of Madame Caillaux’s acquittal Austria declared war
on Serbia. Russia mobilized fourteen army corps on the German
border and the price of wheat in this country soared.
“All the news that a newspaper prints is affected by what else
happened that day. If an earthquake occurs the day you announce
your daughter’s engagement her picture may be left out of the
newspaper.
“The man who made a golf hole in one the day of the
Dempsey-Carpentiér fight was out of luck so far as an item on
the sporting page was concerned.
“When real news breaks, semi-news must go. When real news is
scarce, semi-news returns to the front page. A very great man
picked out Sunday night to dine at a Bowery mission. Monday is
usually a dull day for news, although some big events, notably
the sinking of the _Titanic_, came over the wires Sunday night.
“All papers feature big news. When there is no big news, real
editing is needed to select the real news from the semi-news.
“What you read on dull news days is what fixes your opinions
of your country and of your compatriots. It is from the
non-sensational news that you see the world and assess, rightly
or wrongly, the true value of persons and events.
“The relative importance your newspaper gives to an occurrence
affects your thought, your character, and your children’s
thought and character. For few daily habits are as firmly
established as the habit of reading the newspaper.”
Now each of the items mentioned in the _Tribune’s_ advertisement was
news. Comparison of the newspapers of that day will undoubtedly show a
wide divergence in the manner in which these items were treated and in
the relative importance assigned to each. The basis of the selection
was clearly the general standard of the clientele of each individual
paper.
And this selection of ideas for presentation goes on in every medium of
thought communication.
This basis of selection has long been recognized. Thus in an article in
the _Atlantic Monthly_ for February, 1911, Professor Hargar, formerly
head of the Department of Journalism at the University of Kansas,
draws attention to it in regard to newspapers, and points out that
“the province of the city paper is one of news selection.[22] Out of
the vast skein of the day’s happenings what shall it select? More
‘copy’ is thrown away than is used. The _New York Sun_ is written as
definitely for a given constituency as is a technical journal. Out of
the day’s news it gives prominence to that which fits into its scheme
of treatment, and there is so much news that it can fill its columns
with interesting materials, yet leave untouched a myriad of events. The
_New York Evening Post_ appeals to another constituency, and is made
accordingly. The _World_ and the _Journal_ have a far different plan,
and ‘play up’ stories that are mentioned briefly, or ignored, by some
of their contemporaries. So the writer on the metropolitan paper is
trained to sift news, to choose from his wealth of material that which
the paper’s traditions demand shall receive attention; and so abundant
is the supply that he can easily set a feast without exhausting the
market’s offering. Unconsciously he becomes an epicure, and knows no
day will dawn without bringing him his opportunity.”
Mr. Lippmann makes the same observation. He says:[23] “Every newspaper
when it reaches the reader is the result of a whole series of
selections as to what items shall be printed, in what position they
shall be printed, how much space each shall occupy, what emphasis
each shall have. There are no objective standards here. There are
conventions. Take two newspapers published in the same city on the same
morning. The headline of one reads: ‘Britain pledges aid to Berlin
against French Aggression. France Openly Backs Poles.’ The headline
of the second is: ‘Mrs. Stillman’s Other Love.’ Which you prefer is a
matter of taste, but _not entirely a matter of the editor’s taste_. It
is a matter of his _judgment as to what will absorb the half hour’s
attention a certain set of readers will give to his newspaper_.”
The American stage continually bows to public demand and consciously
ascribes to the public the changes it undergoes. The character
of advertising has definitely yielded to public demand and fake
advertising has been to a great extent eliminated. Motion pictures have
responded, too, to public taste and public pressure, both as to the
kind of picture presented and, in isolated instances, to the type of
action permitted to appear.
It is therefore apparent that these and the other institutions which
modify public opinion carry on against a background which is also
in itself a controlling factor. What the real character of this
controlling background is we shall now consider.