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Public Opinion Quarterly 21:14-22 (1957)
© 1957 American Association for Public Opinion Research

Two Decades of Opinion Study: 1936–1956

WILLIAM ALBIG

Many students of public opinion who have grown up professionally during the past twenty years will recognize the writer of this article as the author of the text they used in college or graduate school. In addition, he is Professor of Sociology at the University of Illinois

Here, he looks at the principal trends in public opinion research during the past two decades, as reflected by the content of the Public Opinion Quarterly, and doesn't altogether approve of what he sees. While methodologies have been refined, the capacity for insightful generalization has atrophied. Attitude study and polling have made available enormous amounts of information about public opinion, but theory has been outstripped by description. Worst of all, interest in manipulation seems to have crowded out attention to the values fundamental to our democracy


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