Abstrakt
This Forum marks Paul F. Lazarsfeld's (1901-1976) enduring significance with eight articles that, taken together, illustrate his polymathic breadth.
It is telling that none of the articles is centered on Lazarsfeld's contributions to communication research. The partial exception is Elihu Katz's tribute ("His Master's Voice") to his former teacher, delivered to a crowded Prague hall at the 2018 International Communication Association and reprinted here.
In the Forum's other contributions, we encounter a handful of alternative Lazarsfelds: the innovative methodologist, research-bureau impresario, sociologist of academic life, political analyst, and lifelong socialist. Even this catalog fails to capture Lazarsfeld's full intellectual spread.
Yet the Forum articles make the attempt and continue what is now a decades-long recovery project-an effort, by Katz and others, to challenge still-resonant caricatures of the Austrian émigré.