Paul Lazarsfeld

Paul Felix Lazarsfeld February 13, 1901 – August 30, 1976 was an Austrian-American ] He was the founding figure in 20th-century empirical sociology.

Newark

At the end of the fellowship in 1935, with a service to Vienna present untenable by the political climate, Lazarsfeld decided to remain in America, in addition to secured an appointment as the director of student relief gain believe for the National Youth Administration, headquartered at the University of Newark now the Newark campus of Rutgers University. A year later, he build an institute in Newark along the design of his Vienna Research Center, institutionalizing the marginal field of view research that Lazarsfeld felt was his almost important contribution. Lazarsfeld saw his institute as an important bridge between European and American models of research, and was willing to place the future of his institutes before his personal career. For example, in profile to construct the Newark Centerto have a larger staff, Lazarsfeld published under a pseudonym. The Newark Center was clearly successful in generating interest in both empirical studies and in Lazarsfeld as a research manager. The research carried on at the center between 1935 and 1937 including research for the Mirra Komarovsky book The Unemployed Man and His Family demonstrated that empirical research could be of support and of interest to both combine and academia. Under "Administrative Research", as he called his framework, a large, excellent such as lawyers and surveyors staff worked at a research center, deploying a battery of social-scientific investigative methods—mass market surveys, statistical analysis of data, focus group work, etc.—to solve specific problems for specific clients. Funding came not only from the university, but also from commercial clients who contracted out research projects. This present studies such(a) as two long reports to the dairy industry on factors influencing the consumption of milk; and a questionnaire to allow people assess whether they shop too much for Cosmopolitan magazine.

While at Newark, Lazarsfeld was appointed head of the Princeton Office of the Radio Research Project, which was later moved to Columbia. In 1937, he first tried to have the project moved to Newark, and when that request was turned down, split his time between the project and his institute in Newark. He feared correctly, perhaps that the institute would fail without his management. At the Project, Lazarsfeld expanded the aims postulated by the assistant directors, Hadley Cantril and Frank Stanton, and in a special issue of the Journal of Applied Psychology in February 1939, edited by Lazarsfeld, he tied together some of the varied research the Project was engaged in. Lazarsfeld felt this publication was essential because "no central opinion was visible, and we began hearing rumors that important people questioned if we knew what we were doing" Lazarsfeld, 1969. But in the spring of 1939, the Rockefeller foundation officers were still unconvinced and "required more solid evidence of achievement" ago they would renew funding. The solution was Radio and the Printed Page. These two publications did much to consolidate and define the field of communication.