Syllabus
1. Introduction - Foundation of Communication Research
2. Austrian Radio Audience Research - Paul Lazarsfeld's RAVAG Report
3. Princeton Radio Project - The Leading Project in the Beginnings of Mass Communications Research
4. Attitude Formation Research, Panel Study Method and Opinion Leaders Discovery
5. Mass Communication and Interpersonal Communication - Two Main Topics
6. Two-step Flow of Communications Hypothesis and its Counterparts. His Master’s Voice by Elihu Katz
7. Mass Media Influence: Invasion from Mars - A Study of Panic Created by a Radio Broadcast and Study of Mass Persuasion - War Bond Drive
8. Influentials and Types of Influentials (Local and Cosmopolitan Influentials)
9. Interpersonal Communication and Interpersonal Influence
10. Methods of Studying Opinion Leadership
11. Personality Strength Scale - A Method for Opinion Leaders Identification
12. International Communication On-line Research
Annotation
The course explores the research activities of Paul Lazarsfeld, Robert K. Merton and their colleagues on radio audiences, newspaper, book and magazine readers, film- doers, and participants in interpersonal communication.
It focuses on the period between 1931 and 1949. It documents in detail research studies by Lazarsfeld and his immediate colleagues on these subjects published during this period.
However, primary attention is devoted to the research workshop, to research methods, examples of their imaginative use, methods of data presentation, interesting interpretations, and innovative findings made by Lazarsfeld and his colleagues. The next part of the course analyses the work of Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann from the Institute for Demoskopie in Allensbach, Gabriel Weimann from Haifa and many other followers of the communications research.
The last - newest literature - is the paper published in January 2022 with the authorship by Elihu Katz: His Master's Voice. Course finished with the online communications research of 11th September issue as an example of just-in-time research.