Kurt Lang and Gladys Engel Lang

[4] Their research engaged many contemporary problems in communications including the effect of televised politics on the formation of public opinion.

They developed a particular interest in American, British, French, and German prints, and gradually amassed a collection of more than 1,400 prints, drawings, and watercolors – including many by women artists – primarily focused on the painter-etcher movement between the 1860s and World War II as well as the ravages of the Great War and more recent East German artists.

After World War II, he returned to Berlin and worked as a research associate on denazification in the Intelligence Branch of the US Military Government’s Information Control Division.

[7] 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[8] and signaled the beginning of a longstanding 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 in the pivotal realization that MacArthur Day as it unfolded on the streets and on television screens was markedly different.