ABSTRACT
The sociology of communications offers opportunities for the study of a wide spectrum of problems. Consideration of communications phenomena at the individual or personal level and at the level of socially organized mass communications introduces additional research opportunities and further complexity. A typical finding in commercial audience research relates communications behavior to a single social characteristic of the audience. In Social Theory and Social Structure, Merton presented an important insight into why the sociologist interested in social structure should be attentive to findings from research on mass media audiences and suggests one way in which such research could be designed for even greater sociological relevance. The chapter examines the impact on communications behavior of two patterns of continuity and discontinuity in lifestyles and opportunities: intergenerational occupational continuity or mobility and intergenerational educational continuity or mobility. The data report on the communications behavior of individual respondents: newspaper reading, magazine reading, television viewing, conversations about public affairs, and others.
