Kurt Lang and Gladys Engel Lang

Biography

Kurt Lang, the son of German immigrants, was born in 1924. He served with the US Army in Europe before working as a research assistant in the US Military’s Information Control Division. He received his doctorate in 1953 for his research on MacArthur Day and later worked for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

Gladys Engel Lang was born in Atlantic City in 1919. She later worked at the Office of War Information during WWII where she primarily produced research on the medium of radio, before moving on to the Office of Strategic Services. She then turned her attention to academia and received her doctorate from the University of Chicago for her research on the 1952 political party conventions. During her time at Chicago, she worked with the Committee on Communication.

The Langs’ met and married as graduate students at the University of Chicago in 1950. Gladys died on March 23, 2016 at the age of 96.

MacArthur Day in Chicago

Originally published as “The Unique Perspective of Television and its Effects: A Pilot Study” in the American Sociological Review, this essay helped launch the Langs’ academic careers and signalled the beginning of a long-standing interest in the role played by the news media in shaping political outcomes and public opinion.

Billed as a pilot study, the Langs’ observations culminated the pivotal realization that MacArthur Day as it unfolded on the streets and on television screens were markedly different. Using evidence collected from 31 stationed observers and two perspectives on the televised broadcast of the event, five key ideas are explored in this essay:

1. The Nature of Television: noting a disconnect between the casual crowds and the spectacular drama presented on television, the Langs’ proposed that the technological apparatuses of television and narrative devices such as commentary and different shot sequences made it possible to construct MacArthur Day in a way that is different from reality. The crowds expected a “wild spectacle” but found the event was a “great let-down”. On the other hand, television viewers “saw and heard exactly what they expected to see”. Television made it possible to rearrange the event to meet those audience expectations”. 2. Television had a “personalizing” effect: observing how the coverage focused on MacArthur’s personal affectations, they argued that this selectivity made it “possible for each viewer to see himself in a personal relationship to the general” in a way that was absent for the crowds. 3. Crowds versus the Audience: the Langs’ argued that there was a difference between being a spectator and viewing the event on television. Where people in the crowds were able to converse and deliberate ideas about the spectacle at hand, viewers at home were left atomized and vulnerable to the momentary messages about politics and public opinion conveyed on television. 4. Reciprocal Effects: far from acting as a simple transmitter of information, television helped co-create the event. The crowd was conscious of, and performed for, the cameras. 5. The Landslide Effect: marking “news and special events” as distinguished genres, the Langs’ worried that the patriotic unanimity conveyed through the televised event had presented a “false impression” of public opinion about General MacArthur and the President. These images of public sentiment are inserted into the political process, other media and public discourse in a way that can quell dissent. They termed this cumulative process, which reproduces certain assumptions made about reality, the “landslide effect”.

This essay and their later works are credited by some scholars for laying crucial observations leading to the theorization of a new genre of “media events”.