Conversation

For work reasons I’ve just been reading a gorgeous bit of US political science from 1909, on publics, crowds and the manipulation of public sentiment.

With a couple of tweaks in language, we’d all recognise our lives, our talk, our social platforms, in his lens.

The key point he makes is familiar: we are in many publics, each trying to get our opinions to the top of the pile. Public opinion is not one simple thing; what matters is who makes the loudest claim to own it.