ABSTRACT
The main purpose of the present study is to assess the impact of personal influence in the performance of a number of personal acts. This chapter tries to assess the relative impact of personal contact and the mass media like newspapers, radio, etc.; in other words, we shall be making comparisons. It illustrates the complexity of the problem by visualizing a number of cases in which a person decides to go to see a certain picture. The newspaper merely informed her that the picture was available nearby. So there will probably be agreement between Mrs. C and the interviewer that the newspaper had no impact—especially if upon further questioning it turns out that there were several other means at hand for Mrs. C to find out what was playing in the shopping district. The newspaper, that is, served only an informational role, not an influential one, and it served in a context where other sources of information were equally accessible.
