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The article presents discussions by economists on some papers that are published in the May 1, 1970 issue of the journal "American Economic Review." The author states that one of the greatest obstacles to the efficient pricing of communication services seems to be a wide gap between costs of service of established common carriers and costs of facilities embodying the most modern technologies, which are microwave radio, satellite and the newest coaxial cable. Economist Harvey J. Levin's paper, published in the present issue of the journal, reminds its readers that this generalization applies clearly only to the comparison of private costs, until opportunity cost of the spectrum, that the first two of these new media use, is taken into account. Without them one cannot be sure how great is their margin of superiority in terms of social costs. But even with this correction, the rate of technological progress in long-distance communication has been so rapid that it has apparently outrun the rate of depreciation permitted by regulatory commissions on existing facilities.

The article presents the author's comparison of the patterns of publicity, privacy, and secrecy between the U.S. and Great Britain. In Great Britain, the equilibrium of publicity, privacy, and secrecy is more stable, and its deviations from the normal state are smaller than they are in the U.S. The British governmental papers which are not published at the time as part of government policy, are opened to scholarly inspection only after a very long lapse of time and even then with restrictions. On the other hand, in the U.S., government documents are made available to historians without long delay.

Stratification in science has received extensive attention from researchers in the sociology of science. The general research strategy involves identifying certain socio-personal characteristics of scientists such as professional age, highest degree, prestige of training and affiliated institutions, and relating these characteristics to the reward systems in science. Two identifiable reward systems in science involve (1) the bestowal of honorary awards, and (2) the access to, and recognition in, the formal communication system in science. These two systems both contribute to the overall stratification of the reward system but differ on at least two counts. This paper attempts to examine the stratification of the formal communication system in American sociology as it is related to the stratification of scientists. It is found that the visible journals in sociology are consistently stratified according to criteria such as rejection rates, articles rejected but eventually published in other sociological journals, order of submission preferences of ASA meeting authors, and cross-citation patterns in articles of the journals.

The article focuses on some problems in the development of the rapid communication industry. The present paper describes changes that have taken place in the U.S. in the past 18 years in communications and discusses some of the economic problems that these changes have brought in their wake. For the economist, these problems are challenging, for they span the areas of private enterprise, government regulation and government subsidy. The framework also encompasses problems of a declining industry, landline telegraph, whose past has been marked by inflexible price policies and poorer service standards than competitive conditions required. The future of this branch of communications will depend not only on the initiative exercised by management in correcting these deficiencies but also on the judgment of the regulatory agency, the Federal Communications Commission, in formulating measures appropriate to the present and future condition of landline telegraph. The term rapid communications is taken here to mean those services, other than the ordinary mail service and local telephone service, which provide for the transmission of written or voice communications on a common carrier basis within the U. S.

This paper reports an investigation of communication behavior in a "natural" social system the white adult community in a Mississippi town of 5,000 population, called Bakerville in this report. The study was directed at the general question of who talks to whom about specific community problems and projects. The present paper, however, deals with only one aspect of this problem: how persons who report a variety of communication contacts differ from those who report few or no contacts. To examine the relationship between extensiveness of communication contacts and other variables the sample has been dichotomized into high communicators and low communicators. Operationally defined, high communicators are those who report talking to three or more different persons about community problems; low communicators, those who report talking to fewer than three persons. "Positional" Factors. The relationship between extensiveness of communication contacts and position in the social structure was in part investigated in the present study by comparing the social status of high and low communicators. Index of Status Characteristics (ISC) was used as a convenient method for estimating the social position of members of the sample.

This paper presents a sketch of concepts regarding freedom of speech in the United States, as an example of civil rights. In particular, to show how free speech is abridged in war time. Such treatment may lead to consideration of how social scientists can maintain freedom of communication about their special studies today. To make discussion profitable, we must agree to use common terms with more precise meaning than men in the street usually give them. For that purpose, the author ventures to submit a diagram showing the relation of ideas employed in this paper. Although such definition may not prove acceptable, its clarity enables critics to determine just how the logical framework should be amended. In 1914, the society of American Sociological Review devoted its meeting to considering the topic freedom of communication. Since that time the United States engaged in a world war and now has entered a second phase. New instruments of communication have been developed new rules controlling their use have been established.

This article focuses on the world attention survey. By means of a World Attention Survey it is possible to correct any tendency of over-estimating the amount of attention given to the United States. The survey of world attention is able to supply data about many of the missing links in the process of political and social development but it is not feasible to rely upon any single channel of communication if one is concerned with the total focus of attention. The general purpose of the technique of the attention survey is to describe the field of attention, to show the relative prominence of selected symbols, like the names of leaders, nations, policies and institutions. In the interest of objectivity, papers are described according to a code that is applied by workers who have learned how to use it. Coders are given regular tests to verify the comparability of their results, when the problem is to count the frequency of occurrence of explicit unit symbols.

Diffusion studies of the "adoption of innovation" can potentially provide a basis for a quantitative, empirically-based theory of social change. However, before significant advances can be made in this direction, rigorous attention must be directed toward clarifying the meaning of the principal concepts of diffusion studies and toward increasing consistency in the use of standardized terms from one writer to another. Also, theoretical concepts from diffusion research need to be linked to more general sociological theory, insofar as this is available. The present paper suggests possible ways in which these tasks can be undertaken. It makes use of mass communication data on the diffusion of the major media through the American society to illustrate the advantages of the conceptual framework which it proposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The size of administrative apparatus in local union organizations with headquarters in Cook County, Illinois, varies directly with the number of members performing identical tasks at the same place, but indirectly with the number of spatially separated places at which members work. Local unions with occupationally diverse memberships have a larger administrative apparatus than those with occupationally uniform memberships. The dependent variable is a measure of the active administrative component, rather than of the formally designated one. It is suggested that differences between the Anderson and Warkov predictions and those reported here may be reconciled if two further variables, the structure of organizational control and systems of communication, are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a response to an academic paper by Raymond Bauer and Alice Bauer in which they attempt to assess the relationship of the mass media of communication to American society, published in the September 1960 issue of the scholarly "Journal of Social Issues". The Bauers have made a careful and informative review of empirical research studies on the determinants and effects of the mass media. Beyond this, the evidence they have adduced has led them into a critique of the so-called theory of mass society, which they speak of as the only available attempt at a generalized interpretation of the phenomena involved. They note that in general, the proponents of the theory of mass society operate both as commentators on the empirical state of the society and as evaluative critics of it.

This article presents a response to an academic paper by Raymond Bauer and Alice Bauer in which they attempt to assess the relationship of the mass media of communication to American society, published in the September 1960 issue of the scholarly "Journal of Social Issues". The Bauers failed in the task they set themselves, the critique of the critics of mass society and mass culture. This is due to two reasons: their lack of conceptual clarity and their failure to define the specific targets they attack. The terms "mass culture" and "mass society" are used interchangeably. Sociologists agreed that the term "society" refers to a relational system of interaction between individuals or groups, while "culture" refers to the pattern of values, norms, ideas, and other symbols which shape human behavior.

Reports on developments concerning speech communication in the United States. Western Speech Communication Association's 43rd Annual Convention on November 18 to 21, 1972 in Hawaii; Back issues of the periodical "Western Speech".

This paper reports the findings of a carefully prepared field experiment conducted in the Boston area to test the "two step flow of communication" hypothesis. The results of the experiment, although far from definitive, seem to call for a reappraisal of the hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The scientific study of communication and opinion grew up in close alliance with election polling and market research. As such it focused on the man on the street and assigned equal weight to each voice. The reintroduction of considerations of social structure into the study of communication and public opinion has given that field new vitality and new relevance for the study of public policy. The four papers in this section present interview data from elite samples. Most of those articles relate communication to the social structure. In this section David Riesman brings to bear on Stouffer's "Communism, Conformity and Civil Libertie," a series of perspectives on communication of interviewers with elite members (as against ordinary cross-section respondents), and on the interviewing process as a form of social rhetoric. The other three articles in this section are studies of community leadership in the United States on matters of public policy. They are all concerned with identifying the influentials, tracing their patterns of communication, and plotting their community centered versus cosmopolitan identifications and contacts.

The article provides information on the impact of automation on the society particularly in the U.S. It is stated that automation is part of the larger process of social change which has been going on in human society since its inception and it has had an enormous impact on the production, communication and scientific investigation. The paper emphasizes that since automation represents the highest development to technology, it is inevitable that industries will move in its direction. It discusses the relation of automation to other technologies and how technology is related to the organization of society.

Focuses on the importance of the annual convention to the American College of Gastroenterology in the U.S. Function of the annual convention; Ways by which communication of ideas pertinent to gastroenterology is achieved by the organization; Types of participants chosen for the panel discussions and postgraduate course of the organization.

Presents a case study on the importance of communication between biologists and statisticians in the United States. Role of statistical science in biological research; Publication of statistical papers initiated by biological problems; Preservation of original biological data.

The article focuses on the paper presented at the Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages Convention, March 1969 in the U.S. The task as the Center saw it involved not only collecting and disseminating information on as many aspects of the field as possible, and acting as liaison among institutions, individuals, and government agencies, but, going a step further, anticipating new needs and rising demands and trying to mobilize existing resources or helping to create new machinery to meet them. To do this it was sometimes necessary for the Center to take responsibility in the initial stages of a new project or program, as for instance, its role in the creation of the Test of English as a Foreign Language Program. The aims of the Conference have been to continue the exchange of information in the area of second language learning. The Center and the British Council have also built up perhaps the most comprehensive libraries in this field. The task in not complete. New developments within the U. S., chief among them the increased attention to domestic problems in this field, the expansion of American political and economic interest abroad, the rising demand for English overseas, steadily increasing local interest and activity in many parts of the world, make it extremely important not only to keep open and strengthen already existing lines of communication but to look to new ones that need to be opened.

Throughout history the city and the countryside have been interdependent, but in the present century the degree of this interdependence has greatly increased in the United States. This transformation is traced in terms of changes in the following: (1) transportation and communication; (2) trade, institutional, and social relationships; (3) occupational structure; and (4) population. Implications of this change for practical affairs in specific settings such as the rural-urban fringe, for the concepts "community" and "rural-urban," and for the future of rural and urban sociology are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A series of Presidential actions and other events connected with the recent use of U.S. troops in Cambodia suggest a preoccupation with communication (its presence or absence, its process, and its style) that deflected and obscured the basic issue of the war by defining events in terms of a quasi-theory of communication failure. The cultural and situational bases of such a theory of communication failure as a means of explaining and coping with social problems are explored in this paper; evidence for its use in the Cambodian situation is examined; and its possible consequences are suggested. The role of symbolic reassurance in coping with public uneasiness about the war and the anti-war movement is also examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An adequate perspective on our institutions tends to be possible only in retrospect. This article examines media growth trends over the past twenty years and finds the interpretation of them greatly distorted. Contrary to past expectations, mass media are shrinking in size relative to the total economy and the specialized media are becoming increasingly important. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article traces the development of communication from the White House in Washington D.C. during a critical period in the United States' history. President Woodrow Wilson established the Committee on Public Information by executive order on April 14, 1917, eight days after the U.S. had declared war. It soon came to be known as the Creel Committee because of its dynamic chairman, George Creel, former journalist and free-lance writer. The idea for the Committee, whose ostensible purpose was to deal with the problem of censorship and enlist the public's understanding of and participation in the war effort, apparently was the President's, so far as one can tell. The twentieth century has witnessed what can only be called a major shift of the center of gravity in the U.S. national governmental system away from the legislative branch and toward the White House. The result has been among other things, a virtual ballooning of the public image of the Presidency to the point that, in this century, the White House occupant has often eclipsed other branches of government in the public eye. It has worked both as a source of action and initiative and as a source of news and focus of major governmental interest.

The article discusses issues related to information science. Director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, Vannevar Bush, more than anyone else in the U.S., had been concerned with ways to facilitate the transfer of scientific information toward the very practical goal of winning the war. This done, he turned to the extension of these means to the service of research more broadly. He called for the creation of new tools, using then-existing technology, which would free the researcher from enslavement to repetitive rote operations.

Reports on developments pertaining to the Western Speech Communication Association (WSCA). Availability of back issues of the periodical "Western Speech"; Frank K. LaBan's appointment as Head of the Department at the University of Arizona; WSCA Executive Club "Debut" Award.

The continuing battle of brands in marketing is usually described by outdated and confusing terminology. Communications problems among marketers and a distortion in the measurement and assessment of trends in manufacturer-owned and distributor-owned brands are the result. This article proposes a basis for a new branding language in marketing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses on what can communications media can do to help Puerto Ricans to work with others for social progress in the U.S. In lieu of the scheduled background paper sociologist Ralph Salazar presented a plan for a "centralized, objective and professionally-run press relations committee" to handle press releases from Puerto Ricans. The purpose of the committee would be to process news effectively that is now ineffectively disseminated. Members of the committee would be experienced volunteer newsmen and newswomen representing various news agencies. The committee will evaluate such communications for their news value and prepare news releases, have them, mimeographed, and mail them to all the communications media in the New York area most likely to be interested. Releases would always be mailed out well in advance of the event being publicized.

The article focuses on a new edition of the U.S. Publications of the Department of State, July 1,1950 which has recently been issued as Department of State Publication 3881. It contains 61 pages in two parts. Part I comprises an alphabetical subject list with the primary arrangement alphabetical by subject and country. This important new feature will facilitate the use of the list by the general reader and the specialist as well as the librarian. Within this series, listings are also arranged alphabetically by subject broken down by countries.

Discusses conflicting values of American Plains Indian orators and U.S. commissioners of Indian Affairs. Conflict revealed by the peace treaty speeches; Influence of cultural values in communication.

New age has appeared in the procurement of mass entertainment, as exemplified by radio, the movies, and television. Nor is it farfetched to say that political power as well is inherent or potentially inherent in these novel media. Sociologist Louis R. Reid holds that "America has achieved a position as startling and as significant as the rise of the industrial era following the Civil War. Upon these inexpensive easily-accessible and closely related amusements and opportunities for social sanction, the public is so dependent that vast commercial, sociologic, technological, and not the least artistic forces have been given new and powerful play in the nation." This is a power, Reid says, that is surpassed only by may, by 1963, be applied to much if not most of the civilized world. In the United States, of count, broadcasting is supported either by advertising or by subsidies from the radio-television industry. Even Telstar, the American communications satellite is the property of and under the custodianship of the company Bell Telephone System. While certainly this is a direct evidence of "free-economy" and clear-cut "rugged individualism", the practice is in complete opposition to that of Great Britain and most of the world. People have attempted to demonstrate that electronic communications, both from the national and international standpoint, are too potent a power to be placed in the hands of anything but a nation's most reliable authority.

This article presents information about the U.S. building industry, a case-problem in Communications. In October, 1950, with the blessings of the United Nations Economic and Social Council, some 125 persons representing 23 countries and 11 international organizations met in Paris and unanimously voted into existence an International Council for Building Documentation. Five working parties developed outlines for the exchange of information and the standardization of building terminology, including a polylingual dictionary.

A necessary component in the systematic development of knowledge dealing with communication is a body of descriptive information concerning various aspects of this dynamic behavior. The literature devoted to such description is both rich and varied, but few students of communications problems would claim that it is complete. This article attempts to add to this body of descriptive material centering on the question, "How does the news get around?," the present observations deal with the diffusion of the news of a national political figure's death. On Friday, July 31, 1953, at 7:30 am., U.S. Senator Robert A. Taft died in a New York City hospital. Taft had a long and distinguished career in American politics. When Taft died, news of this event was flashed to all parts of the country by the media of mass communication. A manner of estimating media effectiveness would be to discover through what channels people first learned such a news event, how long it took for the news to get around, what sources were consulted for additional information, and how much interpersonal communication was prompted. Such a study of the process by which local communities become informed of news having national significance could define more clearly the role of the media of communication in modern society.

The development of American cities has been accompanied by a corresponding growth in their importance in the national economy. Cities are not only the major locations of industry and the seats of governments. In cities are located the institutions that organize and direct the commerce, transportation, communication, and financial work of the nation. In this article the author discusses the economic problems of the American cities. The dominant place of city economy in the economy of the nation is illustrated by comments of the National Resources Committee to the effect that the 155 counties of the country which contained the larger industrial cities paid out 79 per cent of all the wages of the nation and 83 per cent of all the salaries. The growth of urbanism has long presented problems, but so rapid has been city development that to a considerable extent defects were obliterated by expansion. Whatever the curative effects of rapid growth or the merits of the view that it was curative, there is no longer reliance on this simple remedy.

This article discusses the relationship of the mass media of communication to American society. A key event in the evolution of mass society was the development of printing. Once it was possible to disseminate printed material to large numbers of persons at low cost, the intellectual and artistic level of printed material was watered down to suit the popular culture. With successive technological advances, such as motion pictures, radio, and television, the economics of mass communications demanded that a broader audience be reached. On the one hand, the public became the patron of the arts. On the other hand, the broad mass of people also became victims of mass communications.

The article focuses on how science have been interpreted through press, schools and radio in the U.S. Implicit in the dissemination of science and its method to all the people is the belief that if the people know the truth it will not only keep them free but allow them to act intelligently in the conduct of their social and personal lives. Science and technology constitute a field of news and feature more important basically than crime, politics and war. Reading about science in newspapers, magazines and books or hearing and seeing it on radio and television is spectator science. It is important that science is experienced in order to understand and appreciate it.

This article discusses the major studies in mass communication selection in the U.S. Identifies the political-historical approach concerned with the identification of symbols of political power. Concerned with the effect of mass media on an audience. The economic analysis of certain communication problems, increased sociohistorical analysis of certain communication problems, increased sociohistorical analysis of larger issues such as popular culture, and the general study of mass phenomena, including communication.

This article examines foreign language instruction in the U.S. Several manuals of teaching methods with foreign language curriculum emphases had appeared. A volume on methods had been written in 1923 by a pioneer in foreign language methodology in America. Furthermore, on the assumption that no system of education can be better than its teachers, eight essentials for the good teacher were listed such as correct pronunciation, knowledge of the foreign civilization and its literature, and a vital teaching personality. In addition, it is difficult to keep adequately informed on the status of enrolments and language offerings.

This article examines how children developed language and arrived at meaning during reading instructions in the U.S. in the 1940's. Several studies indicated in general that: 1) meaning is not inevitably arrived at; 2) misunderstandings are likely unless great care is exercised; 3) precise teaching of meaning is desirable; 4) meaning is more difficult in proportion to the abstractness of the topic; and, 5) at least part of the difficulty may be the result of obscurity in the language of instruction. In addition, certain studies dealt with the relationship between language and mental development or maturity.

This article reports and analyzes some data relevant to the use of self-designated measures of opinion leadership, that is, their unidimensionality. First, the reliability of the findings on the multidimensionality of the two indicators of marketing opinion leadership will be considered, using the questions from the Decatur study. Second, if the original finding is replicated, then it becomes relevant to ask whether these two variables differ in terms of their relationships with various correlates of interest. Third, the traditional measure of self-designated opinion leadership will be viewed as an index of congruity of self-reported opinion leadership functional role and opinion leadership self-concept in order to examine the difference between the correlates of this variable and those for the two opinion leadership dimensions considered separately. Finally, some suggestions will be offered relevant to reliability and validity problems in the area of opinion leadership. The findings reported are derived from a small cross-sectional survey of homemakers in Chicago, Illinois designed to investigate flow in influence in a large urban community and to allow for comparisons with appropriate portions of the Decatur study relating to communications behavior and marketing decisions.

This article reports on a pilot study in a new use of television. From the point of view of the broadcasting industry, the technique represents an approach to the related problems of determining community needs and developing more interesting treatment of public affairs. From the point of view of social research, it suggests an economical and fast way to administer and collect large numbers of interviews, with some obvious limitations and some not so obvious methodological advantages. On February 7 and March 15, 1963, a two-program series, "The Strangling City," was aired in Chicago, Illinois, dealing with the transportation problem in the Chicago metropolitan area. The series treated the issue from the point of view of the commuter himself rather than the transportation authority, and was promoted as an experimental attempt to establish large-scale, two-way communication between the station and its viewers on an issue of immediate concern. The general design was that the first program asked questions of commuters viewing at home. Answers were recorded on a pre-coded ballot and returned by mail. The second, follow-up program presented an overview of results and their implications.