First published in 1955, "Personal Influence" reports the
results of a pioneering study conducted in Decatur, Illinois,
validating Paul Lazarsfeld's serendipitous discovery that messages
from the media may be further mediated by informal "opinion
leaders" who intercept, interpret, and diffuse what they see and
hear to the personal networks in which they are embedded. This
classic volume set the stage for all subsequent studies of the
interaction of mass media and interpersonal influence in the making
of everyday decisions in public affairs, fashion, movie-going, and
consumer behavior. The contextualizing essay in Part One dwells on
the surprising relevance of primary groups to the flow of mass
communication. Peter Simonson of the University of Pittsburgh has
written that ""Personal Influence" was perhaps the most influential
book in mass communication research of the postwar era, and it
remains a signal text with historic significance and ongoing
reverberationsamore than any other single work, it solidified what
came to be known as the dominant paradigm in the field, which later
researchers were compelled either to cast off or build upon." In
his introduction to this fiftieth-anniversary edition, Elihu Katz
discusses the theory and methodology that underlie the Decatur
study and evaluates the legacy of his coauthor and mentor, Paul F.
Lazarsfeld. "Elihu Katz" teaches at the Annenberg School for
Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, and is Emeritus
Professor of Sociology and Communication at the Hebrew University
of Jerusalem. He is the coauthor or coeditor of more than 20 books
including "Medical Innovation: A Diffusion Study. Paul F.
Lazarsfeld" (1901-1976), one of the major figures in
twentieth-century sociology, was the founder of Columbia
University's Bureau for Applied Social Research. He is the coauthor
of "Marienthal," available from Transaction. "Elmo Roper" (died
1971) founded the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, located
at the University of Connecticut, just after World War II.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!