Science of Coercion provides the first thorough examination of the role of the CIA; the Pentagon; and other U.S. security agencies in the evolution of modern communication research; a field in the social sciences which crystallized into a distinct discipline in the early 1950s. Government-funded psychological warfare programs underwrote the academic triumph of preconceptions about communication that persist today in communication studies; advertising research; and in counterinsurgency operations. Christopher Simpson contends that it is unlikely that communication research could have emerged into its present form without regular transfusions of money from U.S military; intelligence; and propaganda agencies during the Cold War. These agencies saw mass communication as an instrument for persuading or dominating targeted groups in the United States and abroad; as a tool for improving military operations; and perhaps most fundamentally; as a means to extend the U.S. influence more widely than ever before at a relatively modest cost. Communication research; in turn; became for a time the preferred method for testing and developing such techniques. Science of Coercion uses long-classified documents to probe the contributions made by prominent mass communication researchers such as Wilbur Schramm; Ithiel de Sola Pool; and others; then details the impact of psychological warfare projects on widely held preconceptions about social science and the nature of communication itself. A fascinating case study in the history of science and the sociology of knowledge; Science of Coercion offers valuable insights into the dynamics of ideology and the social psychology of communication.
#2429596 in Books 1994-03-10Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 8.56 x .80 x 5.75l; #File Name: 019507193X224 pages
Review
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful. Five StarsBy Willy BachGood; thanks15 of 16 people found the following review helpful. A Great and Necessary BookBy Boyce HartThis book is something no longer permitted: a historical approach to the development of Communications Research. In our day; this topic is off limits. You can tell because there are no longer ANY middle brow books being published on communications research these days.There used to be some.Reading this book will immediately tell you why that curiosity has been smothered. It is a crucial book for all students of Cold War history and anyone curious about how power works in the 21st century.18 of 18 people found the following review helpful. The Coercion of CommunicationsBy doomsdayer520This book will be of great interest to communications majors and social historians with muckraking tendencies. In an intriguing display of investigative research; Christopher Simpson uncovers the darker side of early communications studies. The field was defined as an academic discipline during and after World War II; and much of the early research that built the foundation of modern communications studies was actually a part of American (and occasionally German) war efforts. Government-funded social scientists built the communications knowledge base while researching and developing the tools of propaganda and psychological warfare; and occasionally disinformation techniques that were used on the American people by their own government. Even some of the highly respected founders of communications were involved; including Harold Lasswell and Wilbur Schramm; and many of their influential studies did not have purely academic motives. Simpson compiles valuable insights into how communications and other social sciences have been co-opted by government for nefarious ends; and some fields may have never gotten off the ground were it not for wartime funding. The only problem with this book is that Simpson occasionally ruminates on the darker philosophical ramifications of these trends; but only rarely; so the deeper insights that can be gained by the reader are often held back by research minutiae and occasionally tiresome historical coverage. [~doomsdayer520~]
