mass-communication-theory

142 Section 3 From Limited-Effects to Critical Cultural Theories: Ferment in the Field
expanded to meet growing student interest in studying communication and
preparing for careers in related industries. As these areas developed, empirical
social researchers from the more established social sciences provided leadership.
Social science theories and research methods borrowed from the more established
disciplines assumed an important—often dominant—role in structuring research
conducted in university journalism, advertising, speech communication, and
broadcasting departments. Empirical research became widely accepted as the
most scientific way to study communication, even though it proved difficult to
find conclusive evidence of media influence. Communication researchers working
in hundreds of small academic departments spread across the United States relied
on better-funded colleagues at major universities to lead the field.
THE TWO-STEP FLOW OF INFORMATION AND INFLUENCE
inductive
An approach to
theory construction
that sees
research beginning
with empirical
observation rather
than speculation
middle-range
theory
Atheorycomposed
of empirical
generalizations
based on empirical
fact
Lazarsfeld was not a theorist, yet by promoting empirical research, he did more
than any of his peers to transform social theory generally and media theory specifically.
Lazarsfeld believed theory must be strongly grounded in empirical facts. He
was concerned that macroscopic social theories, including the various mass society
and propaganda theories, were too speculative. He preferred a highly inductive
approach to theory construction—that is, research should begin with empirical
observation of important phenomena, not with armchair speculation. After the
facts are gathered, they are sifted, and the most important pieces of information are
selected. This information is used to construct empirical generalizations—assertions
about the relationships between variables. Then researchers can gather more data to
see whether these generalizations are valid.
This research approach is cautious and inherently conservative. It avoids
sweeping generalizations that go beyond empirical observations and demands that
theory construction be “disciplined” by data collection and analysis (observation
leads to research … and more research … and more research leads to theory development).
Theory, therefore, is never too far removed from the data on which
it is based. The research process proceeds slowly—building step-by-step on one
data-collection effort after another. You’ll recognize this from Chapter 1 as the epistemology
of postpositivism. Eventually, researchers will find and test a large number
of empirical generalizations.
Theory is gradually created by combining generalizations to build what
Robert Merton (1967) referred to as middle-range theory (see Chapter 7 for a
fuller discussion). Unlike earlier forms of grand social theory—mass society theory
or the propaganda theories, for example—middle-range theory comprises empirical
generalizations that are solidly based on empirical facts. At the time, most social
researchers thought that this was how theories were developed in the physical
sciences. By emulating physical scientists, social scientists hoped they would be just as
successful in controlling the phenomena that interested them. If so, the scientific methods
that produced nuclear bombs might also eliminate poverty, war, and racism.
During the presidential election campaign of 1940, pitting incumbent Franklin
Delano Roosevelt against Republican Wendell Willkie, Lazarsfeld had his first
major opportunity to test the validity of his approach. He designed and carried
out what was, at the time, the most elaborate mass communication field
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