Lazarsfeld hired Adorno to supply a European critical stance

Evidence

During these last few days I have discussed with my associates what we are expecting from your future work with us. Let me give you a brief idea so that we might start some correspondence about it even before you come to this country … I intend to make the musical section, so to speak, the hunting ground for the `European approach’. By that I mean two things: a more theoretical attitude toward the research problem, and a more pessimistic attitude toward an instrument of technical progress. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 985

Categorization

• DEFINE: Lazarsfeld’s definition in his own words of what the ‘European approach’ meant to the Princeton radio project — theory-laden and pessimistic about technical progress.
• XREF: Frames the later famous Adorno-Lazarsfeld collaboration on the Princeton Radio Research Project and its tensions, anticipating Adorno’s critique of empirical mass-communication research. — connects to: Lazarsfeld deliberately carved out theory-friendly space for European critical music research. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 985

Broader Connections

• Lazarsfeld deliberately carved out theory-friendly space for European critical music research. #expands (0.82) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 985