ABSTRACT
With Americans allocating an increasing share of their leisure time to the mass media of communication it is not surprising that their choice of public heroes and heroines is, to a large degree, determined by perpetual exposure to the media. The shift of interest from heroes of production—the captains of industry, for example—to heroes of consumption has been pointed out by Leo Lowenthal in his study of magazine biographies. Today’s heroes and heroines, reaching the attention of the public through motion pictures, radio or television, become more clearly drawn in the mass mind through the reinforcement of other media.
