Acceso usuarios
Cristiana Senigaglia
In his ‘Preliminary report' on the press and in the speech he made in 1910 at the German Sociologists’ Congress, Max Weber proposed a wide range of questions about the role of the press in modern society and suggested some new methodological approaches concerning this phenomenon. His project was not executed because of some difficulties occurring during the organization of the research, but his ideas are epoch-making. After some partial attempts made by young scholars, Otto Groth undertook detailed research on the press, following Weber's suggestions. Basing his work on statistical data processing and on comparative analysis, Groth described the fundamental aspects characterizing a newspaper as well as its economic and social background; connecting the press with other institutions, he explained its political meaning with respect to parliamentary democracy. In 1930 the relationship between press and public opinion stressed by Weber also became the main topic at the annual German Sociologists' Congress, but the perspective had changed: references to parliamentary institutions were weaker, and the press was presented as an instrument rather of persuasion than of public debate.
