Schäffle and Cooley on Public Opinion

Abstract

Sixty years ago, Harwood and Cartier (1953a) suggested that the progress in certain areas of knowledge tended “to underscore the need for a general theory of communication”. In view of the vast range of different proposals from different disciplines, they concluded that whatever else, they had to avoid emulating the character invented by Stephen Leacock, who “mounted his horse and rode off furiously in all directions.” Communications theorists have charged around enthusiastically ever since then, leading us to the situation described by Donsbach (2006), who emphasizes that, despite the extraordinary way in which communication has flourished in academia, it still lacks an identity of its own as a field of research, or perhaps has even actually lost the one it originally had. Although a considerable volume of empirical evidence exists concerning the communication process, this area of research can increasingly be seen to be suffering from a kind of erosion on the one hand, and a flawed epistemology on the other.