ABSTRACT
THROUGHOUT the years, communication inquiry in the United States has been punctuated by complaints about the state and course of research. As early as 1941, Paul Lazarsfeld, a self-designated “administrative researcher,” called on his colleagues to reflect critically on the implications of communication research conducted for specific purposes in the interests of governmental or commercial agencies. Administrative research, Lazarsfeld charged, is basically ahistorical and lacks concern for the larger role of the mass media in society. Such research, he asserted, should be balanced with “critical research” that would develop a theory of general social trends and consider human values in the appraisal of communication effects (Lazarsfeld, 1941, p. 9).
