Media and politics in the information age

Abstract

The field of communications research in the United States took form in the early 1900's, growing out of the work of authors critical of govern ment propaganda in World War I. Walter Lippmann, John Dewey, Harold Lasswell and others devised analyses of propaganda with an eye toward assessing its potential dangers and creating theoretical frameworks upon which to build future inquiry. From this effort emerged The Institute for Propaganda Analysis, an organization designed to "help the intelligent citi zen to detect and analyze propaganda by revealing the agencies, techniques, and devices used by propagandists."1 Theorists of this perspective sought to maintain a critical view of government presentations in order to insure an element of informed participation among voters and to work against attempts to use mass opinion toward authoritarian ends. In the late 1930's, the prospect of World War II and the rise of fascism in Europe facilitated a paradigm shift from research critical of mass per suasion to an emphasis on studies seeking to examine its effectiveness, with the goal of managing public opinion and challenging enemy propaganda. Media theorists with the Institute such as Hadley Cantril, Leonard Doob and Peter Odegard accepted government positions as advisors and survey researchers, using their expertise in the field to improve the effectiveness of U.S. war propaganda. This transition to what came to be called "effects research" accelerated during the war as media critics shifted their attention from domestic concerns to the growing international conflict. The new set of issues in the field led many to characterize the shift in terms of a struggle between primitive and modern approaches. In an article written in 1943, for example, Robert Merton and Paul Lazarsfeld argued that propaganda research was outmoded and should be replaced by more "scientific com munications research," with the goal of developing models which accurately * Review essay of David Altheide's An Ecology of Communication: Cultural Formats of Control.