Radio Project

The Radio Project was a research project funded by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Institute for Social Research[?] to look into the effects of mass media on society.

In 1937, the Rockefeller Foundation started funding research to find the effects of new forms of mass media on society, especially radio. Several universties joined up and a headquarters was formed at the School of Public and International Affairs[?] at Prinston University. The following people were involved:

• Paul Lazersfeld[?] - Director of the Radio Project
• Theodor Adorno - Chief of the Music Division
• Hadley Cantril[?] - one of Lazersfeld's assistants
• Gordon Allport[?] - another of Lazerfeld's assistants, went on to be the Tavistock Institute[?]'s leading representative in the United States.
• Frank Stanton[?] - another of Lazerfeld's assistants, went on to be president of CBS's news division.

Among the Project's first studies were soap operas, known as radio dramas at the time. It was found the women especially were addicted to these. The reason for this is not because of entertainment value, but because they wanted to find out what happened next. Today, it is estimated that 70% of American women watch soap operas.

The Radio Project also researched the 1938 Halloween brodcast of The War of the Worlds. They found that of the estimated 6 million people who heard this broadcast, 25% thought it was real. Most of the people who panicked did not think that it was an invasion from Mars that was occurring, but rather one by the Germans. It was later determined that because of the radio broadcasts from the Munich crisis earlier in the year, the masses were prone to this.

The third research project was that of listening habits. Theodor Adorno found that because listeners had been numbed from years of listening, the popularity of a song could be determined by how often it played. Because of this, a new method was developed used to survey an audience. This was dubbed the Little Annie Project[?]. The official name was the Stanton-Lazersfeld Program Analyzer[?]. This allowed one not only to find out if a viewer like the performance, but if they felt any emotional reaction because of a character or scene. This information allowed a screenwriter to create a formula that could be put into any show and despite the plot, would guarantee that people would like the performance.