Audience Research in the Movie Field

Abstract

DURING the last two decades communications research has become a rather distinct field within the social sciences. The war, especially, has contributed to its progress because so many government agencies made use of these new techniques. It has become habitual, in teaching communications research, to divide the material into four sections. One deals with the problems of social control. How are the communications industries organized economically? What kind of people make the decisions? What role do the unions play? Then there is the entire area of content analysis. How can one properly describe and interpret the content of movies or newspapers or radio programs? What changes have been made in them in the course of time? What types of problems and what kinds of characters are prominent? The third main area is the analysis of the composition of the audience. And the fourth deals with the shortand long-range effects which the mass media have upon people and upon the community as a whole.