Artikel

Het onderzoek in de massa-communicatie in 1961

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Abstract

Mass communication research 1961 - Two years ago, a specialist of the problem, Dr. Berelson, Director of the Bureau of Applied Social Research, explained in an important article that mass communication research did not progress any longer. To the author’s mind, things are not so distressing: 1) A new kind of pure and simple mass communication specialists have now gone to work. 2) Content analysis has been making important steps forward. It is now dealing with subtle problems, with such methods as nonsequential analysis, evaluative assertion analysis, contingency analysis, close procedure, etc... 3) Audience sociology has moved too. At the start the audience was considered as a homogeneous mass of disconnected individuals. This was the consequence of the methods used: random sampling and the panel technique. Following Robert K. Merton, numerous sociologists have devoted much of their time to the notion of opinion leader. Some communication networks have been studied in various communities (rural community, medical profession, plants like some of the General Electric, etc.). This implies new sampling techniques: snowball interviews and heavy sampling. 4) Attitudes can now be studied in a more structured way with the semantic differential. This tool that tens to measure the connotative aspects of a concept, enables us to follow dynamically attitude change about one concept or relative evolutions of different attitude. To this idea are linked new theories of attitude change taking their roots in the homeostatic laws. 5) One can distinguish a revival of functionalism but after an interesting perspective change. What now matters is not any more to study what the mass media are doing to the audience, but what the audience is doing with the mass media. Now mass media functions are going to be studied at different levels (the global level, each media level, each message or messages series level). 6) Till now, most of the research was only dealing with one or two phases of the communication process. More and more, American sociologists think that there is no serious empirical research outside of a strong sociological model covering the whole process and connecting it significantly with the social reality. A white spot on the map: the control analysis or study of the messages production.

How to Cite:

Stéphane-Clausse, R., (1962) “Het onderzoek in de massa-communicatie in 1961”, Tijdschrift voor Sociale Wetenschappen 7(1), 3–16. doi: https://doi.org/10.21825/tvsw.95641