Page 92 - Historical Dictionary of Political Communication in the United States

LOBBYING
in
Lippmann graduated from Harvard and started his graduate work there 81
philosophy. He left Harvard to work for Lincoln Steffans, a muckracker, at a
Boston newspaper. In 1914, he became the editor of New Republic magazine,
known for its liberal political idealism. He enlisted as the assistant to the sec-
retary of war during World War I. In that position, he wrote propaganda for the
government.
He left the government in 1921 to edit New York World and later the New
York Herald Tribune. There he wrote the political column ' Today and Tomor-
row," which eventually became syndicated.
Lippmann wrote many books on political philosophy. The most prominent
besides Public Opinion was The Phantom Public (1925). In these books he
explored a democratic system's successes and failures, using the United States
as an example. The press, in his view, could bring the facts to the American
public to make decisions about politics (the informed electorate) and other
events. However, he cautioned journalists from relying totally on objectivity and
suggested that more effort should be made to put news events into perspective.

SOURCES: Erik Bamouw, ed., International Encyclopedia of Communications, 1989;
William Howard Taft, ed., Encyclopedia of 20th Century Journalists, 1986.
Jacqueline Nash Gifford

LITERARY DIGEST POLL predicted wrongly that Alfred Landon would de-
feat Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1936 presidential election. It was a mail poll
sent to people who had telephones or owned automobiles. That obviously was
not a representative group, but the larger problem was that the poll had a 23
percent response rate. Roosevelt won in a landslide, and the Literary Digest
poll, which had correctly predicted the outcome of five previous presidential
elections and other elections besides, was dead.
SOURCE: Michael Nelson, ed., Congressional Quarterly's Guide to the Presidency,
1989.
Jacqueline Nash Gifford

LOBBYING involves the use of people, representing businesses or minority or
other special interest groups, to influence the political process. Lobbying is con-
sidered a form of communication because it relies on formal and informal meth-
ods of speech or written communication as the expressions of ideas or thoughts.
On the most formal level, lobbying is done by representatives sent to a loca-
tion, such as Washington, D.C., to affect politicians' decision making and na-
tional policy. To do their jobs effectively, lobbyists bring the legislature facts
to support their representative group's philosophy or position. Lobbyists use
various types of communication to influence their groups, such as direct-mail
campaigns, media advertising, face-to-face communication, and testimony be-
fore special-issue congressional committees. Sometimes lobbyists use money as
a way of showing their support for or against a particular issue or person.