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The Influence of Personal Influence on the Study of Audiences

Author

Listed:
  • Sonia Livingstone

    (Department of Media and Communications, London School of Economics and Political Science)

Abstract

This article looks back at the publication of Personal Influence (Katz and Lazarsfeld 1955) to bring into focus the multistranded history of discussion and debate over the mass media audience during the twentieth century. In contrast with the heroic narrative, constructed retrospectively, that prioritizes cultural studies' approaches to audiences, the author suggests that this rich and interdisciplinary history offers many fruitful ways forward as the agenda shifts from mass media to new media audiences. Although audience research has long been characterized by struggles between critical and administrative schools of communication, and between opposed perspectives on the relation of the individual to society, Katz and Lazarsfeld's work, and subsequent work by Katz and his collaborators, suggests possibilities for convergence, or at least productive dialogue, across hitherto polarized perspectives as researchers collectively seek to understand how, in their everyday lives, people can, and could, engage with media to further democratic participation in the public sphere.

Suggested Citation

  • Sonia Livingstone, 2006. "The Influence of Personal Influence on the Study of Audiences," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 608(1), pages 233-250, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:anname:v:608:y:2006:i:1:p:233-250
    DOI: 10.1177/0002716206292325
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nick Couldry & Tim Markham, 2006. "Public Connection through Media Consumption: Between Oversocialization and De-Socialization?," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 608(1), pages 251-269, November.
    2. Jefferson Pooley, 2006. "Fifteen Pages that Shook the Field: Personal Influence, Edward Shils, and the Remembered History of Mass Communication Research," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 608(1), pages 130-156, November.
    3. John Durham Peters, 2006. "The Part Played by Gentiles in the Flow of Mass Communications: On the Ethnic Utopia of Personal Influence," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 608(1), pages 97-114, November.
    4. Kurt Lang & Gladys Engel Lang, 2006. "Personal Influence and the New Paradigm: Some Inadvertent Consequences," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 608(1), pages 157-178, November.
    5. Charles Kadushin, 2006. "Personal Influence: A Radical Theory of Action," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 608(1), pages 270-281, November.
    6. Nick Couldry & Tim Markham, 2006. "Public connection through media consumption: between oversocialization and de-socialization?," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 52417, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

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