ABSTRACT
To learn about the world beyond our reach, we rely on the mass media. Newspapers, television networks, radio stations, and news websites employ hundreds of people to observe and report events that most of us cannot personally attend. What we know about wars, scientifi c discoveries, and political campaigns is largely based on what these news professionals decide to tell us. As Walter Lippmann long ago noted in his seminal book Public Opinion (1922, p. 29), “The world that we have to deal with politically is out of reach, out of sight, out of mind.” When connecting to the world outside our family, neighborhood, and workplace, we deal with a second-hand reality created by journalists and media organizations.
