Media Studies, Le Bon’s Psychology of Crowds, and Qualitative-Normative Research on Propaganda, 1880–2020
Nordic Journal of Media Studies, 5 (1):
17--31 (2023)Abstract
The unexpected change in the way media researchers frame the Internet – from a utopiaof free speech in the 1990s to a nightmare of spreading propaganda and disinformationin the 2010s – is reminiscent of the founding period of the field in 1880–1920. It was then that, because of the birth of the modern cultural-industrial media system thatwas put into large-scale propaganda use by governments and other social actors, thefoundations of propaganda studies were laid. This is why the work of Gustave Le Bon(1841–1931) acquired new actuality. In Psychology of Crowds, first published in 1895,Le Bon suggested an explanation for why some people resort to propaganda and whyothers believe in it. This paper tracks the development of this research tradition fromLe Bon to Walter Lippmann, Theodor W. Adorno, and – following the interlude ofcultural studies in the 1980s and 1990s – the present day. In conclusion, a methodologyfor explaining the evolution of media studies is advanced, using qualitative-normativepropaganda analysis as an illustration