Page 213 - Media Effects Advances in Theory and Research

202 ROGERS

research,” in which the data were gathered immediately after the media
event of study. 3
Both the Cantril et al. (1940) and the Merton et al. (1946) investiga-
tions were closely associated with Paul F. Lazarsfeld, a main founder of
mass communication research (Rogers, 1994). Hadley Cantril, a Prince-
ton University psychologist, was an Associate Director of the Rocke-
feller Foundation-supported Radio Research Project, which Lazarsfeld
directed. Lazarsfeld played an influential role in designing the 1938
War of the Worlds study and in raising funds for its conduct. Robert
K. Merton was Lazarsfeld’s faculty colleague in the Columbia Uni-
versity Department of Sociology and also served as the Associate
Director of Lazarsfeld’s Office of Radio Research, the research insti-
tute through which the 1943 War Bond study was conducted. So
the scholars who conducted the two early communication researches on
strong media effects constituted a small network of like-minded
individuals.
Shortly thereafter, Lazarsfeld designed the well-known Erie County
voting study (Lazarsfeld, Berelson, & Gaudet, 1944) in order to test the
strong media effects model. However, the research findings did not sup-
port this model and led instead to the limited effects paradigm that has
dominated mass communication thinking to this day. Later scholars dis-
carded, along with the powerful media effects model, the special methodology uti-
lized by Cantril, Merton, and their colleagues for investigating media effects.
Current scholars of media effects seldom concentrate on tracing the
impacts on a specialized audience of a particular and spectacular media
event or message. For instance, the body of communication research on
the effects of exposure to violent television programs focuses on violent
television shows in general, rather than on a particular television program
or a specific television episode.
The present chapter suggests a return to a contemporary version of the
earlier Lazarsfeld/Cantril/Merton approach to investigating media
effects. Here we look at the effects on specialized audiences of specific
media messages through a combination of quantitative and qualitative

3 Paul F. Lazarsfeld, then Director of the Radio Research Project, telephoned Frank Stanton,
Director of Research at the CBS radio network, on the morning after the “War of the Worlds”
broadcast on CBS to request funding for a “firehouse research project” (Hyman, 1991,
p. 193). Stanton also provided immediate funding for the Merton et al. (1946) study of the
effects of the Kate Smith radio fund-raiser. Firehouse research is today referred to as “quick-
response” research. The advantage of such immediate investigation of media effects is (1)
that possible cause-effect relationships are less likely to be clouded by intervening factors,
and (2) that respondents are able to report on their media effects more accurately.