Behavioural/operant conditioning – B.F. Skinner (pigeon experiment)

Propaganda is the expression of opinions or actions carried out by a group or individual to manipulate and influence the actions and beliefs of other individuals and groups.

Audience Theories

1920-30: Lasswell – Hypodermic model (passive consumption):

• Wrote about propaganda for mass groups
•  Lasswell, as a behavioural scientist researching areas connected with political communication and propaganda, believed each government had ‘manipulated the mass media in order to justify its actions’ in World War 1.
• For example spoon feeding people and they will believe you
• Linear model of communication:

• Eg: WHO: Caroline Jones, SAYS WHAT (message): ‘Boris Johnson has dandruff’, CHANNEL: Daily Mail, TO WHOM: Middle aged women, WITH WHAT AFFECT: Embarrassing and suggesting Boris Johnson has dandruff caused by the stress of covid.

1940’s: Shannon and weaver:

• Shannon and weaver developed this as they suggest that the linear model of communications is not complex enough as people may read things in a different way or not understanding or decoding the message that is being sended out.

1950’s: Laserfeld 2 step flow:

• Two step flow of communication:

• What is significant here is that this theory suggests that the audience are ACTIVE NOT PASSIVE, in that audience consumption is based on consideration of what others think not a PASSIVE process of unthinking consumption.
• Depending on where you get your information from can influence your opinions, and they can differentiate from others opinions.

1960’s: Uses and gratifications:

• Idea that audiences actively choose the media they consume ie newspapers and media they watch and read.

• In essence, they put forward research to show that individual audience members are more active than had previously been thought and were actually key to the processes of selection, interpretation and feedback. In essence, individuals sought particular pleasures, uses and gratifications from individual media texts, which can be categorised as:

• information / education
• empathy and identity
• social interaction
• entertainment
• escapism
• For example, a cartoon in a newspaper could be enjoyment and escapism but if it is about world hunger it is also knowledge about the world.

1970’s: Gerbner – Cultivation Theory:

• Looking primarily at the relationship between violence on television and violence in society. They developed what is known as cultivation theory, noting the distinct characteristics of television in relation to other media forms, they suggest that ‘television cultivates from infancy the very predispositions and preferences that used to be acquired from other primary sources‘ (Gerbner et al 1986).
• In other words, television shapes the way individuals within society think and relate to each other
• Althuserr and Chomsky were also in the 1970’s

1980’s: Stuart Hall – The theory of preferred reading:

• Stuart hall is a black academic that said ‘The world is looking very white’
• For example you can present something that people will receive in a different way
• For example tv used to be mostly white which black people would reject because they’re not represented.
• He says there are 3 ways of receiving a message:

• A dominant position accepts the dominant message
• A negotiated position both accepts and rejects the dominant reading
• An oppositional position rejects the dominant reading

2000’s: Clay Shirky – End of audience:

• There isn’t a collective mass audience but a mass audience of individuals.

2019: Zuboff – surveillance capitalism:

• Theory that we are all complete individuals but we are individually profiled and targeted. ie, manipulated.