"New Communication or Old Propaganda" -- Michael Sproule

Chapter 7 of Sproule's work continues exploring the leftist critique on mass media. Between the 1930s and the 1950s, researchers began studying "communication," rather than "propaganda" (p. 224). Propaganda criticisms seen in the IPA were largely case study, qualitative research. In the 1950s, communication researchers favored quantitative methods. Researchers saw these quantitative studies as more reliable and less likely to contain biases from the researcher. Stouffer spoke of the "white light of a statistical appraisal" (p. 225). Communication researchers went out their way to keep ideology out of the picture, probably in part to the heavily ideological bias of the IPA (p. 227). They noted that propaganda analysis assumed the hyperdermic needle -- "somehow and somewhere, society got moved when the media sopke" (p. 227, 234). Propaganda criticis tended to look at the public as a "mass." By keeping away from the extremes, the new wave of communication researchers didn't run foul with grantors and agencies (p. 230). Despite this less-fervant political agenda, McCarthyism led to great scrutiny of media researchers, large foundations (p. 246). Some groups did combat what was perceived as a McCarthyism-media cabal (p. 252). Media critic Lee ("How to Understand Proganda") emerged but was ignored. He brought back the idea of the public as a "public." Lee said that a "consumer does not need to be highly skilled" to break free of propaganda's hold. With proper analysis people could get back their "town hall spirit" (p. 249). In the 70s, Adorno and the Frankfurt school were introduced widely into U.S. media criticism. Many dismissed Frankfurt ideas for a number of reasons, but the most obvious isn't mentioned: the predicted collapse of capitalism that never materialized. Media criticism evolved into the "social responsibility" model -- where media manufacturers display restraint, and the government doesn't get too involved (p. 255).