INFLUENCE OF THE PRESS

Southland Times, Issue 23795, 18 April 1939, Page 5

INFLUENCE OF THE PRESS

Mass Observation And

Culture FORMING OF PUBLIC OPINION At the weekly meeting of the Workers’ Educational Association literature class Mr S. G. August said he was pleased to see the class taking up mass observation so enthusiastically./ When the results were classified they would represent the first effort of the kind in the Dominion. ... Mr August sail, mass observation did not claim finality or perfection; it set up merely as a method of obtaining reliable personal opinion, which could be handed on to the scientist, politician or journalist to use in any way suitable to his work. It could be called a form of applied literature, or the raw material of letters, but both definitions were tentative and clumsy. “But an elaborate definition is not necessary for a simple method of obtaining opinions which, apparently trivial, are actually of the first importance,” Mr August said. “There should be nothing controversial about mass observation and its findings, but I should imagine that there will be no end of controversy over the varied conclusions drawn from the results. Mass-observers themselves do not attempt other than to discover the character of a particular group, small or large. Mr Tom Harrisson cofounder, in a letter to The Times Literary Supplement, writing of the English public for purposes of mass observation notes that it is an unavoidable fact that children who leave school at 14 to go into industry have not been provided with all the intellectual requirements of 1939 life; suggesting that progress m every department of human activity makes life more difficult and complicated from year to year. Also it is true that the influence of the church has declined since the industrial revolution, while influences, almost wholly concerned with profit-making, and without any social obligations whatever, have come to dominate a great territory of English life. It must be recognized that under these conditions mere goodwill, idealism and democratic faith are not enough. ■ “It seems necessary also to find out at every stage the facts of modern life and how our institutions are working or not working, how the'individuals are getting satisfaction and failing to get satisfaction from these institutions, ana from the total culture of our democracy. This bears directly on our position and proves how very wide the field is. , “A discovery of mass observation is that the mass of the population does not think as a mass, though outwardly it appears to, but that its component individuals are often totally at variance, and opposed. It has been pointed out that its revelation of unmasslike behaviour at a moment of great national and international crisis of a big number of individuals is surprising. Possibly had the crisis developed further, these individuals would have coalesced for a common purpose. But that is strictly suppositional. . “Leaving out the indifferent minority it would be valuable to know how people arrive at an opinion, and propaganda as it is used today would have a good deal of responsibility. This brings up to the newspapers, and it seems to be their function, to help to form opinion, guide it, give it articulate expression, and endeavour to make it prevail. ~ „ “The newspapers today, said Mr August, “are the most powerful of all cultural influences and again propaganda is exercised through the newspapers by outside bodies and concerns, often in opposition to editorial policy. It seems probable that the newspapers are the greatest source of opinion, and an important function of mass observation would be to find out exactly how they stand in relation to the public.