The Process And The Effects Of Mass Communication

Media as communication institutions;Mass media as social systems; The structure and function of communication in society; The medium is the message; From news-gathering to news-making; A flood of pseudo-events; The negro and the news: A case study.

This book is "primarily a collation of the findings of published research. Part I deals with mass communication as an agent of persuasion. Part II deals with the effects of specific kinds of media content." A new orientation is suggested: the "Phenomenistic" approach which "is in essence a shift away from the tendency to regard mass communication as a necessary and sufficient cause of audience effects, toward a view of the media as influences, working amid other influences, in a total situation."

The work is based on a two-year analytic review of the literature followed by a one-year synthesis of the findings. The one-year synthesis of the findings. The result, in the words of a pre-publication reviewer, "is an attempt to redirect research in this whole area by examining the demonstrated utility of various approaches, urging that we discard some and adopt others as promising." The Effects of Mass Communication on Political Behavior will be indispensable for all students of communication, political behavior, speech, journalism, political sociology, and social psychology.