1st Edition

American Communication Research The Remembered History

Edited By Everette E. Dennis, Ellen Ann Wartella Copyright 1996
    226 Pages
    by Routledge

    226 Pages
    by Routledge

    This book captures the essence of a never-to-be-repeated glimpse at the history of media research. It offers a unique examination of the origins, meaning, and impact of media and communication research in America, with links to European antecedents. Based on a high-level seminar series at Columbia University's Freedom Forum Media Studies Center, the book features work by leading scholars, researchers, and media executives. Participants in the series have called the program "heroic and unprecedented." The book encompasses essays, commentaries, and reports by such leading figures as William McGuire, Elihu Katz, and Leo Bogart, plus posthumous reports by Wilbur Schramm, Malcolm Beville, and Hilde Himmelweit. It also contains original insights on the collaboration of Frank Stanton, Paul Lazarfeld, and Robert K. Merton.

    Contents: E.E. Dennis, Preface. Part I: The Schools of Thought. K. Lang, The European Roots. J.W. Carey, The Chicago School and Mass Communication Research. W.J. McGuire, The Yale Communication and Attitude-Change Program in the 1950s. E. Katz, Diffusion Research at Columbia. H. Himmelweit, Children and Television. T. Peterson, The Press as a Social Institution. Part II: Eyewitness Accounts. H.M. Beville, Fashioning Audience Ratings -- From Radio to Cable. D.L. Sills, Stanton, Lazarsfeld, and Merton -- Pioneers in Communication Research. R. Bartos, A Conversation With Frank Stanton. W. Schramm, The Master Teachers. L. Bogart, Research as an Instrument of Power. D. Cater, Addressing Public Policy. Part III: Reassessment. G.J. Robinson, Constructing a Historiography for North American Communication Studies. E. Wartella, The History Reconsidered. Appendix: Biographic Sketches of 65 Contributors to the Field of Communication Research.

    Biography

    Dennis, Everette E.; Wartella, Ellen Ann

    "Here is an interesting, readable, and personalized history of communication study, written by 14 chapter authors who had direct contact with the founders and forerunners of the field."
    Journal of Communication

    "...(this book) is a more ambitious book, one that collects lectures made over the past decade at the Freedom Forum (formerly Gannett Center) in New York, concerning the development of the field. As a reference book it deserves a place on a scholar's bookshelf."
    Journal of Braodcasting & Electronic Media