Walter Lippmann: A Content Analysis.

There are several possible approaches to the study of these opinion-makers. One is the conventional historian's technique of gathering myriad facts about the subject, organizing this material into an acceptable pattern-topical, chronological, or both-and writing the most readable account the author's talents permit. Many great and important studies have employed just this procedure. But in recent decades this so-called anecdotal approach has been brought into question by a group of social scientists who deplore what they regard as a lack of objectivity inherent in the method. The conventional historian's area of discretion, they contend, is so vast that his selection of facts must be largely a subjective one. He is constantly harassed by questions of what to include and what to leave out; and how much one fact is worth as against another. All relevant data must then be tested against these points of reference.