ABSTRACT
In 1940s, Paul Felix Lazarsfeld, Bernard Berelson and Hazel Gaudet studied the influence of the Presidential pre-election campaign on the decisions of voters in Erie County, the theoretical conclusions from which tend to be ranked among the outcome of Lazarsfeld's communication studies. Lazarsfeld grew up in a Jewish family in Vienna during the first quarter of the twentieth century. Throughout his life, Lazarsfeld's goal was to establish an institution and system for educating sociologists and professional researchers at the doctoral level, but he never managed to bring this idea to complete fruition. From Lazarsfeld's biography it is apparent that communication research was just one of a number of his research interests, but it was one that was crucial to his own creative development. In textbooks and readers on the principles and theory of mass communication, Lazarsfeld's name is mentioned mainly in connection with the development of theory.
