ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the media of opinion formation, which are important elements in our culture and its changes. With the invention of printing, and later of the telegraph, telephone, and radio, opinion formation became distinctly indirect and subject to a greater variety of influences. In our modern mass society, with its high division of labor, its machine production and distribution, its special-interest groups, and its atomistic relations, opinion formation is largely dependent on the press, the radio, and the motion picture. The radio has become one of the most important media of mass communication in our day, yet the full details of its influence have not yet been determined. The integration of this new invention into the existing culture has followed the course of prior American experience. The accusation that these new media of mass communication have harmful effects upon young people is but a modern version of a belief which, was once held regarding the dime novel.
