Die Stand Van Navorsing Op Die Gebied Van Massakommunikasie

Abstract

Abstract It must be emphasized that the study of mass-communication is one of those areas of study where scientists from the different social sciences meet. It has not yet developed into a separate discipline. We would like to place Sociology as one of the basic disciplines bemuse of the concepts, theoretical principles and research methods which are applied in this field. A survey of empirical research which has been undertaken in the past three decades, especially in the U.S.A., will support these statements. This area of study has so far enjoyed the interest of sociologists, anthropologists, psychologists, economists, mathematicians and Linguists. In the synoptic consideration of research on this very broad sphere we will attempt to join in with the sociological-theoretical approach. We will inevitably have to do this by means of a number of abstractions. The following will thus de discussed consecutively: the communicator, the content, and the extent and effect of mass-communication. Research and study in the field of mass-communication can be seen as pre-eminently an area where various disciplines meet. Only then can the relevant scientific knowledge and empirical findings be usefully applied.