Page 83 - Historical Dictionary of Political Communication in the United States

K

KATZ, ELIHU (1926- ) was a professor of communication and director of the
Annenberg Scholars Program at the University of Pennsylvania. He also was
the founder of the communication program at Hebrew University in Jerusalem
and was instrumental in bringing Israel into the television age in 1968. His
research has dealt with the effects of mass media in different social systems, as
well as the dynamics of public opinion. Two areas of his research are especially
noteworthy.
First, Katz and Paul Lazarsfeld, in Personal Influence: The Part Played by
People in the Flow of Communication (1955) developed the notion of the two-
step flow of communication. They noted that more people engaged in informal
interpersonal discussions with other people than were exposed to campaign in-
formation directly from the news media. Thus, media influence seemed to pass
to the masses through opinion leaders.
Katz was also a pioneer in research dealing with uses and gratifications. Ac-
cording to Katz, Blumler, and Gurevitch in their book The Uses of Mass Com-
munication: Current Perspectives on Gratifications Research (1974), uses and
gratifications research focuses on the social and psychological origins of need
that generate expectations of media that lead to differential patterns of media
exposure that result in need gratifications.
Uses and gratifications research thus highlighted the likelihood of audience
initiative and activity. Individuals actively select and consume messages from
the media in response to their expectations. Individuals thus are viewed as mak-
ing subjective choices about media and initiating behavior based on their needs
and expectations of fulfilling those needs.

SOURCES: Elihu Katz, Jay G. Blumler, and Michael Gurevitch, "Utilization of Mass
Communication by the Individual," in Jay G. Blumler and Elihu Katz, eds., The Uses