Reception: methodological divergences between Adorno and Lazarsfeld

Abstract

Th is paper discusses the meeting that took place between Paul F. Lazarsfeld and Th eodor W. Adorno, who were working together to come up with a research about music listening through the radio. Th e attempt to reconcile “American empiricism with European theory”, proved to be, however, impossible. During the research, the diff erences between Lazarsfeld’s positivistic procedures and Adorno’s dialectics became an obstacle to the project’s completion. Th is episode came to be one of the twentieth century most fascinating chapters on the debates about methods in communication studies.