International Encyclopedia of Communication Online

Extract

Herta Herzog is a pioneer of communication research. Her career has spanned the entire history of modern mass communication research. Her work on listeners to → radio serials was an important influence in the development of → uses and gratifications research. Herzog was born in Vienna, Austria, in August 1910, four years before World War I began. Despite the hardships of the war, she did well in an all-female school that prepared her for entry to the University of Vienna in 1928. Herzog worked with Karl Bühler, an experimental psychologist, and joined his Institute of Psychology. The Institute was the intellectual home to several notable scholars, including → Paul F. Lazarsfeld , whom Schramm called “one of the ‘forefathers’ of modern communication scholarship” ( Schramm 1997 , 4). Herzog's dissertation study, under Lazarsfeld's direction, was the first large field experiment in Austria and was designed to explore the different social and personality characteristics that the audience would derive from voice and diction. Six different speakers, who differed in sex, age, physical type, and occupation, read the same text over the radio. Listeners completed questionnaires and added personal observations on the speakers (→ Experiment, Laboratory ; Experiment, Field ). Herzog credits Paul Lazarsfeld as the first and one of her main intellectual influences. While Herzog was at the ... log in or subscribe to read full text