The Two-Step Flow of Communication: An Up-To-Date Report on an Hypothesis

The hypothesis that ideas often flow from radio and print to opinion leaders and from these to the less active sections of the population has been tested in several successive studies. Each study has attempted a different solution to the problem of how to take account of interpersonal relations in the traditional design of survey research. As a result, the original hypothesis is largely corroborated and considerably refined. A former staff member of the Bureau of Applied Social Research at Columbia University, the author is now on leave from his post as assistant professor of sociology at the University of Chicago and is currently guest lecturer in sociology at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem

Louis Guttman, 1916-1987

The development of scaling theory by Louis Guttman at Cornell and by Clyde Coombs at Michigan is one of 62 major advances in social science identified and analyzed in Science by Deutsch, Platt, and Senghaas (1971) for the period 1900-1965. Observing that these achievements were increasingly likely to be the products of teamwork (teams account for more than half of the advances since the 1930s, and less than one quarter in the earlier period), Deutsch et al. emphasize that these team workers were not colorless cogs in an anonymous machine. Rather, say the authors

Notes on the Unit of Adoption in Diffusion Research

In thinking about the diffusion of innovation, one tends to overlook the obvious fact that not all innovations are adopted by, or are intended to be adopted by, individuals. In the first place, different sorts of innovations may require different units of adoption- for example, it takes two to tango. In the second place, different cultural or situational norms may prescribe different units of adoption for an innovation. Most empirical research on diffusion has focused exclusively on the individual as the unit of adoption. This is because the innovations that have attracted modern sociologists have tended to be appropriate for individual adopters. Still, it is altogether obvious that certain recommended contraceptive practices, for example, require joint adoption by husband and wife or that middle-class culture prescribes a family decision concerning the purchase of a new car. Focusing only on the individual in such cases is misleading if one is to understand the diffusion process completely. Here there is something to be learned from anthropological students of diffusion who often treat the tribe or the group as the unit of adoption even for such ostensibly (to us) individualistic innovations as Christianity in cases where the decision of the chief or the elders is binding upon all. Moreover, many of the innovations in our society are adopted not by individuals or even by families but by organizations. The city-manager idea and the kindergarten were adopted by cities and by school boards respectively; automation is adopted by factories.2 This paper proceeds on the assumption that it is worth exploring the process of innovation front the point of view of the social units which adopt them. As a beginning, let us assume that there are three distinguishable units: individuals, informal groups or collectivities, and formal organizations of all kinds. Innovations can then be classified in terms of the extent to which they require one or another type of unit. Culture and subcultures can be classified in terms of their preference among the types of unit for given kinds of innovation

Broadcasting Holidays

For reasons unclear, sociology abandoned its proprietary rights in the study of mass communications and relegated it to the fringes of collective behavior on the one hand and critical studies on the other. Relatively recently, however, as interest in hegemonic processes becomes more popular and critical theory gains new prominence, there is a corresponding rise in attention to the integrative, if hegemonic, role the media of mass communication. This paper explores that role, reflecting on television and its influence in the construction of holidays

Two Virtual Debates Between Lazarsfeld and McLuhan on Radio

The honor of this invitation to write an editorial foreword to this issue of the Journal of Radio Studies led me to invent two debates between Paul Lazarsfeld, the empiricist and functionalist, and Marshall McLuhan, the technological theorist. The first debate has to do with the beginnings of radio; the second with radio in an age dominated by television. Lazarsfeld and his troops at Columbia\u27s Bureau of Applied Social Research did their work in the 1940s and 1950s. McLuhan erupted in the 1960s

Mass Communications Research and the Study of Popular Culture: An Editorial Note on a Possible Future for This Journal

In the Spring 1959 issue of the Public Opinion Quarterly, Bernard Berelson explains why he thinks that communication research may be dead. The pioneers in this field, he says, have abandoned their original interests and those who have followed neither measure up to the pioneers nor have they anything very new to contribute. In passing, he cites the demise of the Committee on Communication at the University of Chicago as symbolic of this state of affairs. In their replies, Berelson\u27s critics say, in effect, that it is uncomfortable but challenging to have to protest their own obituary. They cite numerous areas of inquiry and a variety of studies which, for them, are indicative of a continued vitality in the field of communication research. In the proliferation of examples, however, I think that the critics missed a chance to point out to Mr. Berelson exactly what is and what is not dead. By granting that something has happened to the pioneering type of communication research, it becomes possible to point out more clearly what is alive

Review of \u3cem\u3eInside Prime Time\u3c/em\u3e, by Todd Gitlin

Book Review: Inside Prime Time. By Todd Gitlin. New York: Pantheon Books, 1983. Pp. viii +372. $16. 95