This monograph reconstructs a theory of news, public opinion, and social control originally presented between 1904 and 1941 by Robert Ezra Park, a founder of the sociological study of mass communication and public opinion, and suggests that the theory is pertinent to contemporary journalists and scholars. Park's work is described as the basis of many ideas now popular in mass communication theory, including the news functions of surveillance, correlation, transmission, and entertainment; the conceptual scheme of agenda setting; the coorientational model that links the individual to a social system; and the techniques of precision and advocacy journalism. The sections of the monograph describe the relationship of Park's life to his theory, his theoretical framework and empirical methods, and the central elements in his theory. (AEA)