ABSTRACT
In 1951, two young scholars set out to compare what people thought about a parade. It was an important parade, celebrating the return to the USA of World War II hero General Douglas MacArthur, whom President Harry Truman had just dismissed as head of the United Nations Command in the Korean War. The dismissal was unpopular with many Americans, and he was honored across the country, resulting in MacArthur Day being declared that spring in Chicago. 1 Kurt and Gladys Lang were interested in the latest communication technology-television-and they asked a question: Would people who saw the MacArthur parade in person, standing there on the curb, take away the same impressions of it as those who watched the parade on television?
