mass-communication-theory

Chapter 6 The Rise of Limited-Effects Theory 141
Researchers promoted surveys and experiments as a means of probing media
audiences and interpreting consumer attitudes and behaviors. Most of
Hovland’s persuasion studies had more or less direct application to advertising
and marketing. As we saw in Chapter 2, Lazarsfeld coined the term
administrative research to refer to these applications. He persuasively argued
for the use of empirical research to guide administrative decision making.
4. The development of empirical social research was strongly backed by various
private and government foundations, most notably the Rockefeller Foundation
and the National Science Foundation. This support was crucial, particularly
in the early stages, because large-scale empirical research required much more
funding than previous forms of social research had required. Without support
from the Rockefeller Foundation, Lazarsfeld might never have come to the
United States or have been able to develop and demonstrate the validity of his
approach. Without the government funding provided during the Cold War,
large mass communication research centers might never have been established
at major universities. The generation of empirical researchers trained in these
centers might never have come to dominate the field during the 1970s and 1980s.
5. As empirical research demonstrated its usefulness, media companies began to
sponsor and eventually conduct their own empirical research on media. In
time, both CBS and NBC formed their own social research departments and
employed many outside researchers as consultants. Two of the most influential
early media researchers were Frank Stanton and Joseph Klapper—the former
collaborated with Lazarsfeld on numerous research projects in the 1940s, and
the latter was Lazarsfeld’s student. Both Stanton and Klapper rose to become
executives at CBS. As media corporations grew larger and earned sizable
profits, they could afford to fund empirical research—especially when that
research helped to justify the status quo and block moves to regulate their
operations. Media funding and support were vital to the development of
commercial audience ratings services such as Nielsen and Arbitron. These
companies pioneered the use of survey research methods to measure the size
of audiences and guide administrative decision making in areas such as
advertising and marketing.
Media support was also crucial to the growth of various national polling
services, such as Gallup, Harris, and Roper. Media coverage of polls and
ratings data helped establish their credibility in the face of widespread
commonsense criticism. During the 1940s and 1950s, most people were
skeptical about the usefulness of data gathered from small samples. They
wondered, for example, how pollsters could survey just 300 or 1200 people
and draw conclusions about an entire city or nation. To answer these
questions, media reported that opinion polls and ratings were valid because
they were based on “scientific” samples. Often, there was little explanation
of what the term scientific meant in this context.
6. Empirical social researchers successfully established their approach within
the various social research disciplines—political science, history, social
psychology, sociology, and economics. These disciplines, in turn, shaped the
development of communication research. During the 1960s and 1970s, several
communication areas—for example, advertising and journalism—rapidly
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