Departmental Papers (ASC)
Document Type
Book Chapter
Date of this Version
January 1988
Publication Source
Surveying Social Life: Papers in Honor of Herbert H. Hyman
Start Page
467
Last Page
486
Abstract
On the occasion of the twentieth-anniversary issue of the Public Opinion Quarterly in 1957, an issue devoted to twenty years of public opinion research, Herbert Hyman reflected on the existing state of theory about public opinion (Hyman, 1957; pp. 54-60). The state of theory was bleak, he commented, if one looked for a grand theory that integrated the vast empirical findings of past and contemporary studies of public opinion. Things looked brighter, however, if one looked for theoretical orientations of more modest scope, for example, theories of the middle range, a phrase suggested by Robert K. Merton (Merton 1949; pp. 4-5).
Recommended Citation
Wright, C. R. (1988). Social surveys and the use of the mass media: The case of the aged. In H. J. O'Gorman (Ed.), Surveying social life: Papers in honor of Herbert H. Hyman (pp. 467-486). Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press. Retrieved from http://repository.upenn.edu/asc_papers/90
Date Posted: 11 March 2008