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The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
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Fifteen Pages that Shook the Field: Personal Influence, Edward Shils, and the Remembered History of Mass Communication Research

Jefferson Pooley

Muhlenberg College

Personal Influence's fifteen-page account of the development of mass communication research has had more influence on the field's historical self-understanding than anything published before or since. According to Elihu Katz and Paul Lazarsfeld's well-written, two-stage narrative, a loose and undisciplined body of prewar thought had concluded naively that media are powerful—a myth punctured by the rigorous studies of Lazarsfeld and others, which showed time and again that media impact is in fact limited. This "powerful-tolimited-effects" story line remains textbook boilerplate and literature review dogma fifty years later. This article traces the emergence of the Personal Influence synopsis, with special attention to (1) Lazarsfeld's audience-dependent framing of key media research findings and (2) the surprisingly prominent role of Edward Shils in supplying key elements of the narrative.

Key Words: Paul Lazarsfeld • Edward Shils • Elihu Katz • media research • history of social science • disciplinary memory

The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 608, No. 1, 130-156 (2006)
DOI: 10.1177/0002716206292460
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This article has been cited by other articles:


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 The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social ScienceHome page
K. Lang and G. E. Lang
Personal Influence and the New Paradigm: Some Inadvertent Consequences
The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, November 1, 2006; 608(1): 157 - 178.
[Abstract] [PDF]

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 The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social ScienceHome page
S. Livingstone
The Influence of Personal Influence on the Study of Audiences
The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, November 1, 2006; 608(1): 233 - 250.
[Abstract] [PDF]