%0 Journal Article %1 simonson_celebrity_2006 %A Simonson, Peter %D 2006 %J Political Communication %K celebrity classic-work-treatment intellectual internalist merton political-communication sociology united-states %N 3 %P 271--284 %R 10.1080/10584600600808794 %T Celebrity, Public Image, and American Political Life: Rereading Robert K. Merton's Mass Persuasion %V 23 %X Robert K. Merton's Mass Persuasion (1946) and related 1940s communications research represent a body of work that repays those who read it carefully today. Merton charted a world that became our own, one marked by the interplay of mass media, celebrity, and '' public images'' that traversed cultures of entertainment, moral life, and politics. In this essay, I read Mass Persuasion through a later Merton article discussing the role of reading and rereading classic texts in the human sciences. After extending Merton's arguments about the functions of predecessor texts, I amplify aspects of Mass Persuasion that remain instructive within political communication and related fields today.

@article{simonson_celebrity_2006, abstract = {Robert K. Merton's Mass Persuasion (1946) and related 1940s communications research represent a body of work that repays those who read it carefully today. Merton charted a world that became our own, one marked by the interplay of mass media, celebrity, and '' public images'' that traversed cultures of entertainment, moral life, and politics. In this essay, I read Mass Persuasion through a later Merton article discussing the role of reading and rereading classic texts in the human sciences. After extending Merton's arguments about the functions of predecessor texts, I amplify aspects of Mass Persuasion that remain instructive within political communication and related fields today.}, added-at = {2019-08-29T01:56:31.000+0200}, author = {Simonson, Peter}, biburl = {https://www.bibsonomy.org/bibtex/2dbaade273139c1bdd41bcfd63b8958ad/jpooley}, doi = {10.1080/10584600600808794}, interhash = {1aeb22108e50822c5248fb01e317f151}, intrahash = {dbaade273139c1bdd41bcfd63b8958ad}, journal = {Political Communication}, keywords = {celebrity classic-work-treatment intellectual internalist merton political-communication sociology united-states}, number = 3, pages = {271--284}, timestamp = {2019-08-29T01:56:31.000+0200}, title = {Celebrity, {{Public Image}}, and {{American Political Life}}: {{Rereading Robert K}}. {{Merton}}'s {{Mass Persuasion}}}, volume = 23, year = 2006 }