Talcott Parsons is regarded, by admirers and critics alike, as a major creator of the sociological thought of our time. Despite the universal recognition of his influence, however, Parsons's thought is not well understood, in part because his work presents the reader with almost legendary difficulties. Most of his important essays and books presume that the reader is familiar with his rather specialized vocabulary, and even when Parsons begins by defining basic terms, his special uses for words and his style of exposition strike many readers as forbidding.
In his extensive introduction...

Professional specialists have come to dominate public communication, and the modern public of the Enlightenment has been replaced by a "New Public," subject to mass persuasion through systematic advertising, lobbying, and other forms of media manipulation. Leon Mayhew examines this sociological development in terms of discourse and social influence, offering an original theory that bridges Talcott Parsons and JUrgen Habermas. He concludes that the present social order is unstable because good-faith, two-way discourse has been undermined.