Page 24 - Historical Dictionary of Political Communication in the United States

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BRANDEIS, LOUIS
setting, and journalism's role in the political communication process. At the
crux of the work is an attempt to discover who really influences political com-
munication—spin doctors (working on behalf of their clients, politicians), the
media, or the public. He also compares British and U.S. political coverage.
SOURCES: Directory of European Political Scientists, 1985; Political Communication:
Issues and Strategies for Research, 1975.
Jacqueline Nash Gifford

BOORSTIN, DANIEL (1914- ) is an author who comments on American
history. Boorstin studied at Harvard, Oxford, and Yale. He taught history at the
University of Chicago for 25 years. He has written many books on American
politics, including The Genius of American Politics (1959), The Americans:
The National Experience (1965), The Americans: The Democratic Experience
(1975), and The Image (1962).
The Image was a departure, in a sense, from his other works, as he examined
the failing qualities of the American Dream over the country's lifetime. Specif-
ically, he pointed to the superficiality of the modern world and how it fuels the
inability of modern Americans to understand their political system.
He was openly critical of the process of political communications, where, in
his view, phony events (he coined the term "pseudo events") are created by
public relations people to attract journalists who, without analysis of the events,
act as a sleeping funnel for the information to an even more apathetic American
audience. The implication, wrote Boorstin, is that these events perpetuate re-
sponses that create more pseudo events or information, and thus a cycle is
created.
In addition to his writing, Boorstin served as the 12th librarian of Congress.
Since his retirement in 1987, he has continued to write insightful essays and
books on American history and politics.
SOURCES: Current Biography, 1988; Who's Who in America, 1997-1998.
Jacqueline Nash Gifford

BRANDEIS, LOUIS (1865-1941). U.S. Supreme Court justice appointed by
President Woodrow Wilson to replace Joseph R. Lamar in January 1916. Bran-
deis, born in Kentucky to Jewish parents, attended Harvard Law School and had
his own practice in Boston before joining the Court. During his private practice
days, he built a reputation for being a "people's attorney" who was out to
protect the rights of the common man. With such a background, it is no wonder
that, as a Supreme Court justice, Brandeis often favored individual rights in
cases regarding the First Amendment and privacy.
In Schenck v. U.S., for example, he initially agreed with the majority opinion
that speech against the government should be restricted during times of war or
in light of "clear and present danger," a litmus test proposed by Justice Oliver
Wendell Holmes. However, Brandeis later changed his mind and did not agree