Lazarsfeld, Paul (Felix) (1901–1976)

Austrian-born US sociologist. A quantitative methodologist, he was an early researcher of the listening habits of radio audiences and of US popular culture. He became a leading authority on the mass media and voting patterns; the latter work formed the basis of modern voting projection techniques. He devised Latent Structure Analysis, a mathematical technique used in sociological analysis. His books include The Unemployed of Marienthal (1933), The People's Choice (1944), and Voting (1954).

Lazarsfeld was born in Vienna, Austria. He studied mathematics, law, and social psychology at the University of Vienna, where he established a social psychology research centre before emigrating to the USA in 1933. At Columbia University (1940–69) he founded the Bureau of Applied Social Research in 1945. He later taught at the University of Pittsburgh (1970–76).