Publisher's Synopsis
Often accused of being uninformed on important political issues, the general public is an easy target for cartoonists and commentators who like to depict it as an undefinable mass of people without a sense of direction. In Manipulation and Consent, David Elkins challenges this impression. While individual citizens may be ignorant on many matters, he contends they are well informed on a few specialized issues they deem important, comprising a multitude of informal 'issue publics' -- sets of people sharing a salient interest. In fact, the general public as a whole is much better informed and more politically sophisticated than it is normally given credit for.
