Editing Two-step flow of communication (section)

=== ''Personal Influence'' ===
In 1944, Paul Lazarsfeld contacted McFadden Publications in regards to his first book, ''The People's Choice''. The two collaborated forming a mutually beneficial partnership in which Macfadden saw a way to financially profit from advertising to the female population and Lazarsfeld saw a way to gain more information on social influence. Out of this came the study conducted by the Bureau of Applied Social Research in which 800 female residents of Decatur, Illinois, where interviewed through panel interviews to discover what and who primarily influenced their decision making. Lazarsfeld worked with Robert Merton and thus hired C. Wright Mills to head the study. Another part of the research team, [[Thelma Ehrlich]] Anderson, trained local Decatur women to administer surveys to targeted women in town. By 1955. the Decatur study was published as part of Elihu Katz and Lazarsfeld's book ''Personal Influence''. The book concluded that ultimately, face to face interaction is more influential than traditional media influence and thus confirmed the two-step flow model of communication.<ref>{{cite web|title=THE DECATUR COUNTY STUDY (Personal Influence)|url=http://www.outofthequestion.org/Media-Research-of-the-1940s/Trends.aspx|work=Media Research of the 1940s}}</ref>