Desmond Mark (Ed.):

Paul Lazarsfelds Wiener RAVAG-Studie 1932

Der Beginn der modernen Rundfunkforschung.

Publication Series "Musik und Gesellschaft", Volume 24
Published by Guthmann & Peterson, Vienna 1996.
 

This is the first publication of the study on the preferences of Radio Wien listeners, originally written in 1932 by Paul F. Lazarsfeld (1901–76), one of the founders of mass communication research. It has been repeatedly cited in the literature, was temporarily considered lost, and is now presented in its original wording for the first time. This study is regarded as the birth of research into radio usage and radio impact, a field that is experiencing an unprecedented boom in our era of competition for ratings (Media and Time).

An article by Paul Neurath, Lazarsfeld’s student and close collaborator, who also heads the Lazarsfeld Archive, examines the circumstances surrounding the study’s creation and its groundbreaking significance for mass communication research in the United States, particularly for the Princeton Radio Research Project.

The introductory research report by Desmond Mark emphasizes above all the study’s educational policy approach, which is reflected, for example, in the design of the extensive questionnaire and, through the questions themselves, still reveals something of the educational utopian ideals that characterized the early days of radio.Even in these earliest days of empirical broadcasting research, the dialectical tension between the utopian ideal of public education and the reality of listeners’ preferences became apparent—a tension that has now escalated into a competitive struggle between the “cultural principle” of public broadcasters and the “market principle” of commercial media organizations.

The report also addresses the academic and cultural context (the Vienna Circle, public education, the Workers’ Radio Association, etc.) and the significance of Ernst Krenek, Max Ast, and others in this context.