The Bureau of Applied Social Research and Comics Studies in the 1940s

Abstract

The Bureau of Applied Social Research (BASR) was an agency specialised in mass communication research established in 1944 and initially directed by Paul F. Lazarsfeld. From 1945 to 1946 it ran four research projects on the reception of a series of cartoons and comics aimed at spreading an antiracist, antisemitic and pro-union message in the USA. To do so, they deployed different techniques to test audience reception, including a survey and focused interviews. Most of BASR’s reports remain unpublished in Columbia University Archival Collections. This article focuses on Mr. Biggott, a character full of prejudice created by Carl Rose to test the effects of an intentionally racist and antisemitic comic strip. We analysed the content of the three reports developed by BASR on the reception of three comic strips: the first one examined 160 focused interviews; the second one focused on a survey with 692 respondents; and the last sought to combine the results obtained through these two techniques together. We argue that they represent a pioneering approach in Social Sciences, both methodologically (random samples, focused interviews, triangulation) and theoretically (limited effects, boomerang interpretation).