Daniel Lerner's involvement in the Bureau of Applied Social Research was the subject of criticism regarding his work in
The Passing of Traditional Society was alleged to have violated certain ethical considerations while conducting research for the book. The research was conducted as a field survey in
Turkey,
Greece,
Germany,
Lebanon,
Israel,
Syria,
Egypt,
Iraq,
Iran &
Jordan, with special focus on Turkey. In all, 1600 interviews were used for the book.
Samarajiva writes that even though the original purpose of research had been said to be about empathy and media participation, many of the questions in the survey had to do with foreign radio broadcast and sentiments regarding US, UK and
USSR. The questionnaire consisted of 9 questions about movies, 17 about newspapers and 49 about radio. Of the 49 questions about radio, 23 were about foreign broadcasting. In fact, Samarajiva writes that,"A restricted document from the Program Evaluation Branch, International Broadcasting Division, Department of State, titled 'Projected Research Plans' and issued prior to the actual research, lists the questions Voice , of America was interested in having asked. These questions had corresponding questions in the BASR project as well." ==References==