Mass Persuasion Chapter 6: The Social and Cultural Context (in Catalan)

Robert K. Merton’s Mass Persuasion Chapter 6 «The Social and Cultural Context» translated into Catalan and introduced by Xavier Gimeno Torrent. Published in Papers: Revista de Sociologia, 2013, volume 98, issue 1: 177-207.

Mass Persuasion is the first large-scale study using the focused interview method. The book is, in this sense, a good example of the use of the method, as well as an extreme case in point of triangulation of quantitative and qualitative techniques, at a time when the concept of triangulation had not been explicitly raised. Moreover, it is one of the first results of co-operation established between Paul Felix Lazarsfeld and Robert K. Merton when he began to work at the Bureau of Applied Social Research (BASR) at Columbia University, where he developed the most of his scientific career. One of the most important works of Robert Merton on the media, and a prime example of one of his more memorable works in the field of mass communication, a topic which he scarcely dealt with, but with brilliant results.