European Journal of Communication

A widespread agreement seems to be emerging within media research that the time has come for media sociology and cultural studies, the two major, traditionally hostile paradigms, to embark on a process of cross-fertilization. This article considers in an historical perspective a number of recent studies of the television audience carried out in this spirit of innovation, and critically evaluates the aims, theories and methods underlying the specific hybrid projects of Katz/Liebes, Radway, and Ang.

The article describes a study of systems of values contained in radio shows concerning historical subjects intended for school pupils in Poland. Radio programmes from four time periods at intervals from the early 1950s until the early 1980s were examined. The results show, firstly, that such programmes do exhibit patterns of support for certain values of relevance to the contemporary society and that each period is distinctive in the particular combination of values emphasized. There is change and development in the general direction of more ambiguity and less clear structure, compared to the explicitness of values during the first period studied.

Contemporaries and historians have often argued that the Allies did not do more to save Jews from extermination during the Second World War either because little was known about what was happening to them, or because the evidence was not believed. This article demonstrates that at least within the BBC detailed information about the Holocaust was received, believed and broadcast. It argues that despite problems of style and discrimination, the most important reason for the lack of emphasis given to this news was that, in a period when defeat seemed probable, there was no political will to do more about what appeared to be remote events. The key to political action was will, not information.

This article gives an account of the first attempt in Italy to investigate the behaviour of the mass media in an election campaign, from the perspectives of both information and propaganda. Starting from the observation of major changes in the Italian political scene, such as the secularization of politics, the crisis of the mass party and the increased commercialization of broadcasting, it was hypothesized that the media, traditionally subordinate to the party influence, would experience some emancipation. This was expected to appear in the following forms: a preponderance of `media logic' over `party logic'; a greater independence of journalists; a tendency for media to set the agenda of the election debate. Despite some contradictory evidence, the findings confirm some tendencies in the predicted direction.

This article deals with the question of whether the so-called `information society' really will be an informed society. It is argued that there is empirical evidence to show that information supply in modern societies rises exponentially, whereas consumption and pragmatics of information lag far behind supply. Thus, the gulf between supply of information, on the one hand, and demand for and use of information on the other, is getting broader and broader. This phenomenon may be explained partly by an autonomous tendency in information services to fill-up available production capacity. In other words, the information society is subject to the law of diminishing returns from information. The article concludes with a sketch of some implications for education, public libraries and public administration, drawing on the experience of the Netherlands.