Establishing Communication Studies: Constructing its History

In 1958, at the Conference of the American Association for Public Opinion Research, Bernard Berelson (1912-79), the then Director-Designate of the Bureau of Applied Social Research at Columbia University, argued that the state of communication research was “withering away” (Berelson, 1959). The borders which communications studies forged in establishing its autonomy were continually consumed by well-established disciples. The “great ideas” from the early years of communication research had largely worn out. If the limited effects paradigm was indeed true and the media had little effect on media consumers, what did a media researcher have left to study?

Much of Elihu Katz’s (1926-) work could be seen as a response to Berelson’s 1958 challenge, with the culmination of his counter-argument appearing in the paper Communications Research Since Lazarsfeld (Katz, 1987). In it, he argues that the history of communications research can be separated into three consecutive conflicting chapters, and tries to usher in a fourth more unified chapter, all four of which are differentiated by differing conceptions of the magnitude of media effects.

Katz attempts to present a “definitive” history of the Bureau’s work on mass communication with Lazarsfeld as the lead actor, the Bureau as the center stage, and the battle between the limited and powerful effects paradigms as the plot (Katz, 1987). Communications research focuses on the persuasive effects of the media, originally asserting, in the 1920s and 30s, that these effects are direct and powerful. In the 1940s Lazarsfeld and his colleagues pioneered many empirical methods of research which, when applied to the short-run effects of campaigns, challenged the original assumptions that media could directly affect consumers (Merton, 1987). What they found instead were only limited effects; people were not mere mindless receptacles for information or easy converts for any persuasive actor (Katz, 1987). The following 2 decades, Katz argues, were dominated by this limited effects paradigm.

By the 1980s, however, general consensus shifted yet again - as a direct contestation to and even outright dismissal of Lazarsfeld, the Bureau, and the limited effects paradigm - back towards powerful effects. This new chapter, which Katz was living in while writing his paper, can be grouped into 3 main camps: Institutional, Critical, and Technological (Katz, 1987). While the limited effects paradigm argues that the media attempts to tell us what to think, the Institutional paradigm argues that the media tells us what to think about. It criticizes the limited effects paradigm for creating a kind of strawman image of the mass society model. Of course, the media do not directly download opinions into the brains of consumers. It instead creates the illusion of consumer choice, doing so not by presenting a buffet of infinite information, but a single page menu and is sure to mention that the evening’s chef special comes highly recommended. The Critical paradigm shares many of these sentiments, however, it instead argues that the media tell us what not to think. The mass society model holds true, yet, instead of exerting its power to generate change, the media does so to repress change and maintain the hegemonic order. Finally, the Technological paradigm argues that communication technologies determine social order with the media telling us where to belong. Katz (1987) acknowledges that all 3 of these alternative paradigms provide compelling critiques of the dominant paradigm and valuable alternative tools, but proposes a future communications research environment which does not pit them against each other or the limited effects paradigm. Instead, they should work and compliment one another.

Katz’s bridge-building is on full display here. Possibly his greatest contribution is in framing communications research as a large and ambitiously growing network. He goes to great lengths to find convergences between paradigms, which at the time of his 1987 paper, were largely at odds; mutually exclusive even (Livingstone, 1997). In this way, he defines the history of communications research in 4 discrete and successive chapters: the first chapter consumed with direct and powerful effects, the second with Lazarsfeld and limited effects, the third as a direct rebellion to this and a returning back to powerful effects, and the fourth, which he hopes to usher in as an interdisciplinary complimentary convergence of all these paradigms. While his vision of communications research adds clarity to its confusing history, helps to center all around the central problem of effect, and lays out a new direction, it’s not apparent that his vision is of much real assistance.

By framing the history of research around the question of effects, it seems to easily lend itself to a story of a dichotomous struggle; either the effects are always massive or essentially inconsequential. He realizes this and tries to solve it by setting a course for the future which leverages the strengths and weaknesses of each paradigm towards mutual support. However, this sounds more like a well-meaning call to all sit together and sing Kumbaya. As long as the history of communications research is framed around successive discrete chapters defined by conceptions of the size of media effects, animosity and exclusion may continue. Possibly of greater aid to communications research is the narrative proposed by Neuman and Guggenhiem (2011) which suggests that its history can be divided into six successive yet overlapping stages which have all been concerned with “the conditions under which effects are evident”. Instead, unity may result from general agreement that media effects exist. The key question which defines communication research is “under what conditions do effects occur and with what results?”

References

Berelson, B. (1959). The State of Communication Research. Public Opinion Quarterly, 23(1), 1–6. https://academic.oup.com/poq/article/23/1/1/1836550

Katz, E. (1987). Communications Research Since Lazarsfeld. The Public Opinion Quarterly, 51(2), S25–S45.

Livingstone, S. (1997). The work of Elihu Katz. The International Handbook of Media Research, 18–47.

Neuman, W. R., & Guggenheim, L. (2011). The Evolution of Media Effects Theory: A Six-Stage Model of Cumulative Research. Communication Theory, 21, 169–196. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2885.2011.01381.x