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Constructive labor relations, which characterize the bulk of collective bargaining, usually lack the dramatic interests required for reporting by the mass media of communication. Publishers and reporters, no less than students and practitioners, are aware of the unbalanced image that results when such relations are neglected while, for example, strikes are featured. This account of a conference of working reporters of labor news highlights the major problems involved in obtaining more balanced coverage of labor-management relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies utilizing content analysis have appeared with increasing frequency in literature of the social sciences over the past thirty years. During this period this technique has been employed in a wide variety of sociological researches in such areas of interest as culture and cultural change, race and ethnic relations, the sociology of war and social psychology. It is the purpose of this paper, however, to suggest that a major limitation is frequently encountered when sampling content in this manner, and must be taken into consideration both in deciding whether to use this design in a particular research situation and in the formulation of probability statements about the results. It can be shown from the theory of cluster sampling that where the elements within a duster are positively correlated, the variance of this design will be greater than would be obtained if the elements were selected according to the simple random design. In fact, relatively small positive intraclass correlations will have an appreciable effect on the variance, particularly where the size of the cluster is large.

This section highlights the seventh Congress of the German Sociologists held in September 27, 1930. The event was opened in the presence of two Ministers who addressed the assembly officially. Two professional sociologists are members of the Prussian Government: Doctor Grimme, Minister of Fine Arts and Science, a disciple of the late Max Scheler and a religious socialist, and Professor Waentig, the Home Secretary of Prussia, who is the editor of a German translation and glossary of Ricardo's Principles. Having honored the deceased members of the previous year in a short memorial speech, the Doyen of German Sociology, Ferdinand Tönnies, introduced the first speaker, Professor Brinkmann of the University of Heidelberg. The topic of the day was: Press and Public Opinion. In a sociological critique of the great power 'The Press,' Brinkmann examined the way in which big capital and the highly developed technique are influencing the particular purpose of the Press: the News Service. The importance of certain methods and techniques is obvious in the workings of the managing apparatus with its specific laws; they have a certain neutrality, which is dictated by the actual ruler of the Press: its reader. For the big papers find it necessary to obtain a big market among the masses, and in order to reach more and more classes of readers, who are not at all politically interested,all debatable subjects are gradually excluded from publication.

The article presents the news and announcements of American association Society. Michigan Sociological Society: The following Papers were read before the spring meeting of the Michigan Sociological Society March 17, at Ann Arbor: Roy H. Holmes, University of Michigan, Inquiry Into the American Way of Life"; Amos Hawiey, University of Michigan, "Redistribution Versus Segregation: A Suggested Solution of Minority Group Status"; Frank E. Hartung, Wayne University, "An Appraisal of Positivism in Sociology"; Elizabeth Briant Lee, Detroit. The American Council on Education has announced the appointment of a Commission on Motion Pictures in Education. The present members are: Mark A. May, chairman; George S. Counts; Edmund E. Day; Willard E. Givens; George Johnson; George F. Zook, ex officio. The work of the Commission is supported by a grant from eight motion picture production companies made through the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, incorporated. Temple University:Negley K. Teeters, assistant professor of sociology at Temple University, believes that Camden's (N.J.) Director of Public Safety, David S. Rhone, invoked an old law prohibiting children under 14 years of age.

The article examines certain of the broad principles which are likely to be involved in any study, however empirical, of the relations of public opinion and the press at the present time. The persuasive power of newspapers is a matter of controversy, and the old view that the press could absolutely dictate opinion is countered by an equally extremist tendency to deny the press any power at all. As far as public opinion is concerned it is necessary to recognize permissible opinion, ruling opinion, and collective judgment. It is nonetheless necessary because all three are closely related. A permissible opinion may have all degrees of support, proceeding by imperceptible stages to the status of a ruling opinion and some approach to collective judgment is a characteristic of all opinion formed in a social setting. One of the means of maintaining consistently high circulations has nothing to do with opinion, except negatively. It consists in making the newspaper more a source of entertainment than an organ of opinion. From these considerations it seems evident that the assessment of public opinion from newspaper material must involve much more than measurement, counting, and classification.

Recent research has suggested that although blacks often participate less actively than whites in voluntary associations and voting, when socioeconomic status is controlled this relationship is reversed, with blacks becoming more active than whites. The present study expands this line of research into a wide variety of social and political activities, and also adds age as a second control variable. The general tendency for blacks to be more active than whites under these controlled conditions is found to occur in every type of activity investigated. Comparison of data collected in .1957 and 1968 indicates that the tendency has become more pronounced in recent years. Myrdal's "compensation" interpretation of this trend, which has been accepted by all previous writers on this topic, is challenged as inadequate, since it does not explain black participation in such realms as mass media exposure, community activities, partisan political activities, and contacts with the government. An alternative "ethnic community" thesis is proposed, and is partially substantiated by the finding that blacks who identify as members of an ethnic minority tend to be more active than nonidentifiers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of mass communications has not interested many sociologists until quite recently. Each of the workers has been interested in a special problem, and on the whole those problems have been practical, requiring what is immediately useful for action rather than what is or will be useful for basic knowledge. That practical orientation has not only been responsible for the diversity of research but also for a notable lack of the systematic point of view that a theory of mass communication would give. Such a theory could illuminate the area of research better than mere common sense, and by doing so make the application of specific research techniques more appropriate and more accurate. In this article the sociological concept of the mass will be examined to see if it may be used to define the character of the audience of mass communications. The mass has no social organization, no body of custom and tradition, no established set of rules or rituals, no organized group of sentiments, no structure of status roles, and no established leadership. It merely consists of an aggregation of individuals who are separate, detached, anonymous.

The growth of mass communication as a central feature of industrial societies makes its exploration of increasing importance in comparative studies of contemporary large scale social systems. It is widely recognized that the patterns of mass communication not only reflect the distinguishing features of any society, but also that these patterns have a significant role to play as both syntonic and dystonic elements in the functioning of the total system. This article is devoted to a content analysis of one segment of the mass communications materials in a contemporary large scale industrial social system, namely, the so-called self-criticism letters addressed to the editors of the domestic Soviet press. Space limitations permit here only a few general comments on the meaning and ramifications of the institution of "self criticism" in Soviet society. A sample of 270 "critical" letters to the editors of the Soviet press were subjected to intensive content analysis. The letters which constitute authors's sample were drawn from eight different Soviet newspapers.

The article offers information on the communication system in the sovietized state in Korea. Monopoly of communications exist in Korea. Under the Communist government, every school, every organization and every medium of mass communication became a mouthpiece for the leaders. Everything the government did was associated with their ideological propaganda. The three principles, namely monopoly, concentration and reinforcement governed the ideological program of the government. Control of communications in the state was done by means of ownership, supervision and surveillance. Newspapers, broadcasting stations and theaters were owned by the state. In order to control communications, Communists were placed in positions of chief control in all the media.

This article focuses on the propaganda of media. It is a far cry from the little newsletter published in Boston in 1704 to the modern daily of thirty to sixty pages printed, collated, folded, and laid down in endless procession ready to be sped by truck, train, and airplane to the corner newsstands and distant hamlets. The daily circulation in the United States is estimated at approximately thirty-six million. Here is a tremendous medium for the development of attitudes and the molding of public opinion. Its influence is measured not by the avowedly propagandist section of the paper or those published primarily to present a single point of view, but rather by the indirect effects through the relative importance given to the various news items, the size and wording of headlines, and the choice of pictures. An even cursory analysis of the daily press is abundant testimony of its influence in developing attitudes of nationalism-even a war mania. Of course it may be stated that the present emphasis is but the accurate recording of events, but with equal pertinence the question may well be asked if it is ever possible to record events impartially.

The article discusses the institutional pressures and constraints faced by mass communication. Mass media communicators live in a climate of intense competitive pressures. These are personal, situational, social, institutional. The purpose of this paper is to look at some of these systems of pressures and inhibitions from the communicators' point of view. The basic data are interviews conducted with mass communicators involved in the reporting of schools and education in the United States, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union. Beyond citing representative or authoritative views of these specialized communicators, the article has attempted to illuminate the nature of institutional relationships in mass communication about another social institution and something of the flavor and climate of mass communicator decision-making in different social systems. The more distant goal of these studies is the development of a scheme and terminology for the more systematic analysis of communicator decisions within the framework of a theory of mass communication.

The article focuses on an article "Social Images in East and West Germany: A Comparative Study of Matched Newspapers in Two Social Systems," by Richard Conrad that was published in the journal "Social Forces." The data of this study come from a content analysis of daily and weekly newspapers in East Berlin, West Berlin, and Switzerland. The papers are matched in pairs in terms of party affiliation, labor orientation, religious orientation, and occupation power. The Swiss sample consists of two non-communists and one Communist newspaper from German-speaking Switzerland. There are few differences in the emphasis on topics of news dispatches, except that military topics get more attention in the West and topics concerning labor rank higher in the East. There are variations in the social image structure within both types of social systems. With respect to the time perspective of Eastern and Western papers, the East press adheres uniformly to a single view of past, present, and future. Western newspapers focus on news from the West far more than the East focuses on its own social system.

The article focuses on the first modern comic book, which appeared in 1911 and was a collection of Bud Fisher's "Mutt and Jeff" newspaper strip. It was about eighteen inches wide and five or six inches high, bound in gray boards, and printed on good paper from the original zinc plates salvaged from the scrap pile of the old Chicago newspaper "American." Calvin Harris, then promotion manager of the American, persuaded the Ball Publishing Co. of Boston to produce the book as a circulation builder for newspapers. The papers were to offer it to readers for a few cents a copy and six coupons clipped from succeeding issues of the paper. Other newspapers carrying the Fisher strip were slow to accept the idea and Harris was finally forced to place an advance order for 10,000 copies at 17 and a half cents each before the Ball Co. would publish. Harris, now a successful magazine writer, recalls that, the 10,000 copies arrived at the "American," a week before the coupons were due to appear and were stacked in the hallway outside his office.

This article discusses on what can communications media can do to help Puerto Ricans to work with others for social progress in the U.S. In lieu of the scheduled background paper sociologist Ralph Salazar presented a plan for a "centralized, objective and professionally-run press relations committee" to handle press releases from Puerto Ricans. The purpose of the committee would be to process news effectively that is now ineffectively disseminated. Members of the committee would be experienced volunteer newsmen and newswomen representing various news agencies. The committee will evaluate such communications for their news value and prepare news releases, have them, mimeographed, and mail them to all the communications media in the New York area most likely to be interested. Releases would always be mailed out well in advance of the event being publicized.

By suspending belief that an objective world exists to be reported, we develop a conception of news as a constructed reality. Public events are held to exist because of the practical purposes they serve, rather than because of their inherent objective importance. The news content of mass media is seen as the result of practical, purposive, and creative activities on the part of news promoters, news assemblers and news consumers At each stage in the process of generating an event, a given happening is attended to and its features assembled in the context of what has gone before and anticipated in the future. The result is a process of news creation, a kind of accounting procedure, accomplished according to the occasioned event needs of those with access to media. The manner in which access is accomplished can vary and these variations lead to a typology of event types: routines, accidents, scandals and serendipitous events. Each type of event tends to reveal different kinds of information about the ways society is organized, and each type holds different challenges to those who have or lack power. The general implications of this schema for the study of media and power are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses an experimental investigation of national stereotypes. This investigation was started in collaboration with the Council on Intercultural Relations. The object of the Council was an exploratory research into the constitution of national stereotypes. The research was to be directed towards the following problems. Firstly, whether there was any degree of relation between the stereos type and the people about which it is held. Secondly, whether the pattern of the stereotype is related to the family pattern of the community from which the research is directed and thirdly, the stability and variability of the stereotypes. There are two aims to this work. Firstly, there is the purely practical one, that if it is possible to find out about the structure and dynamics of the stereotyped concepts that one national group has about others, it may be possible to utilize this knowledge for better international understanding. Secondly, there is the scientific aspect. The stereotypes are chiefly formed from books, newspapers, and films, and in the special case of the Americans from soldiers in the U.S. It is of course possible, if not probable, that the formation of some of the stereotypes is due to unconscious factors.

The article focuses on listener research in broadcasting in Great Britain. A gap exists in this country between the transmitting and the listening ends of the broadcasting process. Contact with listeners are more developed in Britain than in France, and as developed as in Sweden and Norway. But in comparison with the U.S. the amount of enquiry and research is small. The reason for this disparity is the incentives supplied by the American Broadcasting Corp. to broadcasting companies which supply programmes, to discover the tastes potential and habits of their clients. For regular contact with listeners, and with public opinion the British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) relies upon four things. These are advisory councils and their officers, Press relations, publications and programme correspondence. Advisory councils in relation to religion and music exist to provide contact not with listeners, but with religious and musical authorities. Press relations have been ably handled at BBC. But contacts with the press have concentrated mainly on the building up of goodwill and have been concerned relatively little with providing grist for programme-makers' mills. Three BBC journals provide a certain outlet for public opinion through their correspondence columns. The remaining source of information is correspondence through letters.

The mass media are ranked with respect to their perceived helpfulness in satisfying clusters of needs arising from social roles and individual dispositions. For example, integration into the sociopolitical order is best served by newspapers; while "knowing oneself" is best served by books. Cinema and books are more helpful as means of "escape" than is television. Primary relations, holidays and other cultural activities are often more import ant than the mass media in satisfying needs. Television is the least specialized medium, serving many different personal and political needs. The "interchangeability" of the media over a variety of functions orders televisions, radio, newspapers, books, and cinema in a circumflex. We speculate about which attributes of the media explain the social and psychological needs they serve best, The data, drawn from an Israeli survey, are presented as a basis for cross-cultural comparison. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This examination of public affairs opinion leadership among members of a unique sample provides new data on the social characteristics of persons who ascribe such positions of social influence to themselves. In addition, a feature of the two-step flow hypothesis-that opinion leaders are exposed more than non-leaders to the mass media and that they interact more with their peers-is tested. For this sample it was found that opinion leaders attend more to the mass media, but that they do not report more voluntary association membership or greater interaction with relatives, friends, neighbors, or people at work. Self-designated opinion leaders in the public affairs area were found to be less "conservative" or resistant-to-change than non-leaders. However, the two groups did not differ in anomia. Age, sex, education, and social class correlates of public affairs opinion leadership are presented, as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theories of mass politics attempt to explain the sources of political extremism by characteristics of mass societies. Such theories are criticized on the grounds that they assume adherence to democratic norms under pluralist conditions even when such norms frustrate intensely held values. Mass politics theories ignore the cultural cohesion necessary to sustain democratic politics. Conditions of mass societies also provide support to democratic political norms through the consequences of mass communications, equalitarianism, and bureaucratization for national societies. Isolation from mass culture accentuates local sources of extremist response. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Card playing is one of the most pervasive and persistent games played in the United States. A majority of Americans play cards, 56 per cent of a national sample reporting that they play cards either regularly or occasionally. Another national survey revealed that cards are played in 87 per cent of American homes and that 83 per cent of American families play cards. Over fifty million decks of playing cards can be expected to be sold annually, with a fad such as the canasta fad in 1950-raising the total to over eighty million decks. Twenty per cent of the men and 18 per cent of the women of a national sample named card playing as one of their two or three favorite activities. Most significantly, the number of card decks sold per hundred population has increased from twenty-two to over thirty during the past fifty years that is, precisely during the period in which mass media and commercial activities underwent their greatest expansion. The confirmation of the popular image identifying card playing with gambling would be presumptive proof of a moral debilitation of the structure of American society.

A necessary component in the systematic development of knowledge dealing with communication is a body of descriptive information concerning various aspects of this dynamic behavior. The literature devoted to such description is both rich and varied, but few students of communications problems would claim that it is complete. This article attempts to add to this body of descriptive material centering on the question, "How does the news get around?," the present observations deal with the diffusion of the news of a national political figure's death. On Friday, July 31, 1953, at 7:30 am., U.S. Senator Robert A. Taft died in a New York City hospital. Taft had a long and distinguished career in American politics. When Taft died, news of this event was flashed to all parts of the country by the media of mass communication. A manner of estimating media effectiveness would be to discover through what channels people first learned such a news event, how long it took for the news to get around, what sources were consulted for additional information, and how much interpersonal communication was prompted. Such a study of the process by which local communities become informed of news having national significance could define more clearly the role of the media of communication in modern society.

The article discusses the social class system in the U.S. Research has revealed that the social classes in the U.S. have become relatively static and well-defined. The closing of the frontier, the decreased flow of immigration, the slow-down of industrial expansion and the decreasing fertility differentials among the various social classes have contributed to the solidification of social classes in the nation. The expansion of urbanization, industrialization, political consciousness, unionism, welfare government, mass communication and economic inflation has re-molded the American society and has resulted in a class system which is more indeterminate as compared to fifty years ago. The splintering of the elite class in the U.S. has facilitated social mobility.

Cultural relations in the sense of contacts between peoples and nations go back thousands of years, but are now taking on added importance because of revolutionary changes in mans social life. Unprecedented developments in relations among nations are due to such factors as the growing economic interdependence of nations and the transformation of communications, especially the mass media. The accepted fields of international relations international law, international organization, and international politics may well be supplemented by the study of international cultural relations. The term international culture relations has been selected for use even though any meaning assigned to it is bound to involve confusion and inconsistency. Thus, the international cultural relations include social contacts of any conceivable kind. Thus, the purpose is not to establish the correctness of either set of conclusions, but to raise the question as to the role of American social scientists in the field of international cultural relations.

This article focuses on consensus and mass communication. Before exploring the nature and conditions of consensus, it seems appropriate to indicate the salient characteristics of mass societies. As one looks back upon previous social aggregations, such as those of the ancient kingdoms, or at their greatest extent the Roman Empire, one wonders how, given the primitive communications that obtained, such impressive numbers and territories could be held together under a common regime over any considerable span of time. Since one shall speak of the society as mass society and of the communication that it involves as mass communication, it be hooves to depict the characteristics of the mass. Its most obvious trait is that it involves great numbers, in contradistinction to the smaller aggregates with which people have become familiar through the study of primitive life and earlier historical forms of human association. Second, and again, almost by definition, it consists of aggregates of men widely dispersed over the lace of the earth, as distinguished from the compact local groups of former periods.

This article provides a theoretical basis for a case study of the production of a particular television series. Social scientists working in the field of mass communication have been almost exclusively preoccupied with questions about the audience of the media. This article is based on the premise that this type of investigation should be complemented with an analysis of the structure and process of media production itself, so as to establish how it is that the audience is provided with one type of media output rather than another. Much work in the field of the sociology of art has analyzed the artistic and cultural production of an age to demonstrate a relationship between artistic expression and the structure and dynamics of the contemporary society. Television production is distinguishable from other forms of production, artistic and technological, not only in terms of the systems of organization and types of technology but also in the way in which individuals are involved in the production process and its technical requirements. In the course of the production of a single programme or a programme series a variety of individuals will become involved. Some will be involved quite briefly and peripherally while others will be working on the programme throughout the process.

The authors look at the problem of response error in research. Some of the work that has been done on response error are reviewed, and areas which have not received the proper attention are pointed out. For a number of years research people have been interested in the problem of estimating sampling errors. For a time, the attainment of reasonable accuracy in this area seemed to be sufficient, but gradually it was realized that errors arising in the non sampling area were equally important. One of the pioneering studies on memory error was that done in the early 1930's by Read Bain at Miami University. He was interested in getting data from his students which might be of value in the discussion of vocational problems. This stability of response is not a problem limited solely to formalized types of questionnaires, but also occurs in the area of observation. The Institute of Human Relations at Yale University has used motion pictures to study technical problems which cannot be solved adequately by data from life situations.

The article presents a bibliography of September 01, 1970. Some of the articles are: "Studies in mass communication 1950-1951"; "The making of public opinion"; "The science of human communication"; "The mass media and modern society"; "The mass communication" etc.

This article presents a research in mass communication. As in other new and interdisciplinary fields, communication research has been and still remains poorly coordinated. Research is reported in perhaps a score of traditional fields, such as psychology, education, speech, sociology, English, journalism and international relations. These researches on the great debates highlighted one problem inherent in mass communication research: significant communication events often occur with little or no advance notice. Sometimes studies can be planned months ahead, as in the case of nominating conventions. Sometimes they must be planned within a few days or weeks, as in the case of presidential debates

This article discusses the major studies in mass communication selection in the U.S. Identifies the political-historical approach concerned with the identification of symbols of political power. Concerned with the effect of mass media on an audience. The economic analysis of certain communication problems, increased sociohistorical analysis of certain communication problems, increased sociohistorical analysis of larger issues such as popular culture, and the general study of mass phenomena, including communication.

The article provides information on the first publication of the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) in the U.S. The first (CEC) publication was the proceeding of the first annual meeting in 1928. CEC issued its first official publication, the "Council Newsletter," that reports news items on activities of the chapters and highlights of the annual meetings. The publication contained no articles of professional interest. It appeared irregularly as news and finances permitted until the bank of crash of 1933 wiped out CEC funds.