1. Hypodermic model (passive consumption)
There was a man called Harold Lasswell, who, in 1927 wrote a book called: Propaganda Technique in the World War which highlighted the brew of ‘subtle poison, which industrious men injected into the veins of a staggering people until the smashing powers . . . knocked them into submission’ (link).
Lasswell believed each government had ‘manipulated the mass media in order to justify its actions’ in World War 1 (2019:122).
To illustrate his hypothesis, in 1948 he developed a linear model of communication, one that breaks down the line of communication from point A to point B, in which the SENDER is transferring a MESSAGE, through a MEDIUM (eg Print, radio, TV, etc) that has a direct effect on the RECEIVER.
After the end of WWII, social science researchers began to investigate the way in which communication – and particularly, political communication – was used to disseminate propaganda. As such, from the end of the 1940’s and into the 1950’s, there was not only an expansion of new media forms, for example, the number of TV licences shot up from 763,000 in 1951 to 3.2 million in 1954 (How the Coronation kick-started the love of television), but, there was also an expansion of research into the effects of television. Many of which are now found on the specifications of media studies courses.
Or to be correct: WHO, SAYS WHAT, THROUGH WHAT CHANNEL, TO WHOM, TO WHAT EFFECT.
TASK 1:
Create a new page called AUDIENCE THEORY (in your book) and:
- Make some notes about hypodermic model, passive audience, Lasswell etc.
- Draw out Lasswell’s model in relation to Newsbeat (and War of the Worlds)