Almost one hundred years have passed since Walter Lippmann and John Dewey published their famous reflections on the problems of the public but their thoughts remain surprisingly relevant as resources for thinking through our current crisisplagued predicament. This book takes stock of the reception history of Lippmanns and Deweys ideas about publics communication and political decisionmaking and shows how their ideas can inspire a way forward.Lippmann and Dewey were only two of many twentiethcentury thinkers trying to imagine how a modern industrial democracy might or might not come to pass but despite that the LippmannDewey debate became a symbol of the two alleged options an epistocracy on the one hand and grassroots participation on the other. In this book distinguished scholars from rhetoric communication sociology and media and journalism studies reconsider this debate in order to assess its contemporary relevance for our time which in some respects bears a striking resemblance to the 1920s. In this way the book explains how and why Lippmann and Dewey are indispensable resources for anyone concerned with the future of democratic deliberation and decisionmaking.In addition to the editor the contributors to this volume include Nathan Crick Robert Danisch Steve Fuller William Keith Bruno Latour John Durham Peters Patricia RobertsMiller Michael Schudson Anna Shechtman Slavko Splichal Lisa S. Villadsen and Scott Welsh.