Elihu Katz

Distinguished Trustee Professor of Communication and Sociology
Annenberg School of Communication
University of Pennsylvania
Professor Emeritus
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Monday, April 19, 2021 • 09:00-10:00am PT
“How Did Mass Become Network?”

Elihu Katz is a sociologist and media scientist who is known for his lifetime of contributions to the field of mass communication research, especially media effects. His first book, co-authored with his mentor Paul F. Lazarsfeld, was Personal Influence: The Part Played by People in the Flow of Mass Communication (Routledge, 1955), an attempt to observe the flow of influence at the intersections of mass and interpersonal communication. It is cited extensively as an influential work in the development of the two-step flow model of communication. Beginning in the late 1950s, his work includes studies on the diffusion of medical innovation (with James Coleman and Herbert Menzel), and in the 1960s on the diffusion of fluoridation among American cities (with Robert L. Crain and Donald Rosenthal).

Katz and Jay G. Blumler co-edited, The Uses of Mass Communication: Current Perspectives on Gratifications Research (Sage, 1974), which played a major role in uses and gratifications research. He is also co-editor of Canonic Texts in Media Research: Are There Any? Should There Be? How About These? (with John Durham Peters, Tamar Liebes, and Avril Orloff, Polity, 2002). Since the 1990s Katz has written about French social psychologist, Gabriel Tarde, regarding the conceptualization of the public sphere as an arena of interaction among media, conversation, opinion, and action. Subsequently, he co-authored the book, Echoes of Gabriel Tarde: What We Know Better or Different 100 Years Later with Christopher Ali and Joohan Kim (USC Annenberg Press, 2014).

He recently co-authored “Six Concepts in Search of Retirement” (with Yonatan Fialkoff, Annals of the ICA, 2017), “L’esprit de l’escalier: 25 Years of Hindsight” (with Daniel Dayan, Media, Culture & Society, 2018), and “It’s the Text, Stupid! Mobile Phones, Religious Communities, and the Silent Threat of Text Messages” (with Hananel Rosenberg and Menahem Blondheim, New Media & Society, 2019). Katz was the recipient of the McLuhan Teleglobe Canada Award (UNESCO), the Burda Prize (in media res), and the Israel Prize for social sciences. He is also an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

In Memorium: Elihu Katz: Remembering a Pioneer in Communication, Annenberg School for Communication (June 28, 2022).

Co-Presenter:

Yonatan Fialkoff, Doctoral Candidate
The Smart Family Institute of Communications
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Director of Strategy, ZzappMalaria

Introduction by Juan-Carlos Molleda, Edwin L. Artzt Dean and Professor, School of Journalism and Communication, University of Oregon

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