Film and Radio Guide (Oct 1945-Jun 1946)

March, 1946 FILM AND RADIO GUIDE 37 WHO'S WHO IN RADIO EDUCATION No. 12: Paul F. Lazorsfeid Paul F. Lazarsfeld, Director of the Bureau of Applied Social Research, Columbia University, and Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at Coumbia, was born in Vienna, Austria, February 13, 1901. He received his doctorate at the University of Vienna in 1925 and subsequently directed the Division of Applied Psychology there, doing consumer research for a number of business concerns in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. In 1933 he was awarded a Rockefeller fellowship for two years of travel and study of research methods in the United States. At the end of this time, he decided to stay in this country, In 1937 he was appointed Director of the Office of Radio Research. This office, which was financed by a grant of the Rockefeller Foundation, was at that time conducted under the auspices of Princeton University. It grew out of one of the projects sponsored by the Federal Radio Education Committee. Its purpose was to investigate the role of radio in the lives of various groups of people. In 1940 the grant and the office were transferred to Columbia University, where Dr. Lazarsfeld holds the position of Associate Professor of Sociology. Since that time, the scope of his work has been enlarged to cover all media of communication. Dr. Paul F. Lazarsfeld Lazarsfeld is a member of the Magazine Audience Research Group, through whom a considerable number of current readership studies are handled. The Office of Radio Research is now a division of the Bureau of Applied Social Research, which is devoted not only to investigations in the field of communications, but also to the development of new research techniques and the training of qualified graduate students in the field of social research. Dr. Lazarsfeld is now the director of this Bureau, which also does work in market research and housing. CBS, NBC, Life Magazine, MacFadden Publications, and many advertising agencies and industrial concerns are among the sponsors of studies done by the Bureau. For the duration of the war. Dr. Lazarsfeld was a consultant to the Office of War Information, the War Production Board, and the War Department. In addition to numerous pamphlets, monographs, and contributions to academic journals. Dr. Lazarsfeld is the author of four books : Radio and the Printed Page, Duell, Sloan and Pearce, New' York, 1940. Radio Research, 194-1, Duell, Sloan and Pearce, New York, 1941. Radio Research, 1942-43, Duell, Sloan and Pearce, New York, 1944. The People’s Choice, Duell, Sloan and Pearce, New York, 1945. Among his professional affiliations are the American Psychological Association, the American Sociological Association, the American Statistical Association, and the American Marketing Association. ★ ★ ★ Newsreel Comedians Movietone News recently nominated Mrs. Harry S. Truman, wife of the President, and New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia as the best newsreel comedians of 1945. In its review of the “greatest news year in history,” Movietone listed, as the best laughs of 1945, Mrs. Truman at the christening of a bomber plane, wielding a bottle that would not break, and Mayor LaGuardia at the microphone during the New York newspaper strike, reading Dick Tracy to the kiddies over the radio.