Ithiel De Sola Pool Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Ithiel de Sola Pool (1917–1984) was an American political scientist. He earned his doctorate in political science in 1952 from the University of Chicago, where mentors such as Harold Lasswell helped influence a fertile intellectual environment. His initial collaborations with Lasswell on propaganda, the role of the press, and the influence of communications led to a distinguished and path breaking career in research methods, the interaction of technology and politics, and social change.

As a founder and chair of the political science department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Pool’s leadership and talent made the program one of the best in the United States and in the world. He had a formidable research output of twenty-four books and several hundred articles, and maintained a rich consulting advisory role for governments around the world. In terms of general contributions to the study of politics and social processes, Pool pioneered the use of content analysis to study written communications and symbolic messages, the role of elites in social communication and influence, and the use of modern information technologies to enhance social science research. In this latter area, Pool developed simulation models of complex social processes, such as effects of issues and candidate strategies in electoral outcomes.

Through these studies, Pool was able to discern how symbols are used in totalitarian and open systems of government as tools of coercion and persuasion; understand the recruitment and selection of elites to better understand who attempts to gain power, who attains it, and what attributes such persons have; and observe how people and information circulate and interact in a social networking context. There is evidence that Pool was one of the first social researchers to understand the dynamics of social networks, even estimating the smallest number of linkages to connect two random persons in what has become known as the small world or six degrees of separation phenomenon.

Pool’s research into the interaction of human communication and technology is another major contribution he made to political science. Pool was highly sensitive to the political implications of fast-developing digital information and communications technologies, and their implications for democratic governance and the survival of freedom. His last work, Technologies of Freedom, published in 1983, advanced the argument that freedom of speech as traditionally understood could only be guaranteed in modern society if the underlying information and communication technologies were also themselves free. In this sense, Pool saw connections between political power and technological controls that had not previously been articulated so vividly. This book remains relevant and thought provoking in the early twenty-first century, touted by advocates of Internet freedom and opponents of censorship.

Pool’s insights into human communication have also had important implications for political theory in the areas of the nature of political participation, the role of trends affecting the degree of human liberty, the intersection of civic and scientific questions, and political reform and revolutionary movements. Pool’s papers and other research data he collected over his career are available primarily through the MIT archives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Bibliography:

Etheridge, Lloyd S., ed. Politics in Wired Nations: Selected Writings of Ithiel de Sola Pool. Edison, N.J.:Transaction, 2002.
Pool, Ithiel de Sola. Candidates, Issues, and Strategies. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1964.
The Prestige Press: A Comparative Study of Political Symbols. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1971.
The Social Impact of the Telephone. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1977.
Technologies of Freedom. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1984.
Trends in Content Analysis. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1959.
Pool, Ithiel de Sola, Lewis Anthony Dexter, and Raymond A. Bauer. American Business and Public Policy. New York: Atherton Press, 1963.

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