FOUR MAJOR CATEGORIES OF COMMUNICATION THEORY

Theory: Any organized set of concepts, explanations, and principles of some aspect of human
experience.

Scholars have identified four major categories of communication theory

(1) Post positivism
(2) Cultural theory,
(3) Critical theory, and
(4) Normative theory
and although they “share a commitment to an increased understanding of social and communicative
life and a value for high quality they differ in: -
• Their goals
• Their view of the nature of reality, what is knowable and worth knowing - their ontology
• Their view of the methods used to create and expand knowledge – their epistemology
• Their view of the proper role of human values in research and theory building - their axiology
These differences not only define the different types of theory, but they also help make it obvious
why a broader and more flexible definition of social science in mass communication theory is useful.
POSTPOSITIVIST THEORY

Background
 When researchers first wanted to systematically study the role of mass media in social world,
they turned to the physical sciences for their model. Those in the physical sciences (physics,
chemistry, astronomy, and so on) believed in positivism, the idea that knowledge could be
gained only through empirical, observable, measurable phenomena examined through the
scientific method.
 But, the social world is very different from the physical world. Causality needs to be
understood and applied differently.
 After a century of trial and error, social scientists committed to the scientific method
developed postpositivist theory.
Definition

This type of theory is based on empirical observation guided by the scientific method, but it
recognizes that humans and human behavior are not as constant as elements of the physical world.
Goals: The goals of postpositivist theory are the same as those set by physical scientists for their
theories:

Explanation. Prediction. Control.

For example, researchers who want to explain the operation of political advertising, predict which
commercials will be most effective, and control the voting behavior of targeted citizens would, of
necessity, rely on postpositivist theory.
Ontology: Its ontology accepts that the world, even the social world, exists apart from our
perceptions of it; human behavior is sufficiently predictable to be studied systematically.
(Post positivists do, however, recognize that the social world does have more variation than the
physical world; for example, the names we give to things define them and our reaction to them—
hence the post of post positivism.)
Epistemology: Its epistemology argues that knowledge is advanced through the systematic, logical
search for regularities and causal relationships employing the scientific method. Advances come
when there is intersubjective agreement among scientists studying a given phenomenon. That is,
post positivists find confidence “in the community of social researchers,” not “in any individual social
scientist”
(Intersubjective agreement When members of a research community independently arrive at
similar conclusions about a given social phenomenon.)
Axiology: It is this cautious reliance on the scientific method that defines post positivism’s axiology
- the objectivity inherent in the application of the scientific method keeps researchers’ and theorists’
values out of the search for knowledge (as much as is possible). They fear that values could bias
the choice and application of methods so that researchers would be more likely to get the results
that they want (results that are consistent with their values).
Conclusion: Postpositivist communication theory, then, is theory developed through a system of
inquiry that resembles as much as possible the rules and practices of what we traditionally
understand as science.

CULTURAL THEORY
Background:
 But many communication theorists do not want to explain, predict, and control social
behavior.
 Their goal is to understand how and why that behavior occurs in the social world.
Definition: This cultural theory seeks to understand contemporary cultures by analyzing the
structure and content of their communication.
Explanation: Cultural theory finds its origin in hermeneutic theory - the study of understanding,
especially through the systematic interpretation of actions or texts. Hermeneutics originally
began as the study or interpretation of the Bible and other sacred works. Just as the Bible was the
“objectification” of early Christian culture, and those who wanted to understand that culture would
study that text, most modern applications of hermeneutics are likewise focused on understanding
the culture of the users of a specific text.
(Hermeneutic theory: The study of understanding, especially by interpreting action and text.)

Forms of Cultural Theory: There are different forms of cultural theory: -

 Social hermeneutics: has as its goal the understanding of how those in an observed social
situation interpret their own place in that situation. Ethnographer Michael Moerman explained
how social hermeneutic theory makes sense of alien or unknown cultures. Social
hermeneutic theory tries to understand how events “in the alien world make sense to the
aliens, how their way of life coheres and has meaning and value for the people who live it”

 Interpretive theory: Another branch of cultural theory looks for hidden or deep meaning in
people’s interpretation of different symbol systems—for example, in media texts. As you
might have guessed from these descriptions, cultural theory is sometimes referred to as
interpretive theory. It seeks to interpret the meaning of texts for the agents that produce
them and the audiences that consume them. Another important idea embedded in these
descriptions is that any text, any product of social interaction - a movie, the president’s State
of the Union Address, a series of Twitter tweets, a conversation between a soap opera hero
and heroine - can be a source of understanding. Understanding can in turn guide actions.
Ontology: The ontology of cultural theory says that there is no truly “real,” measurable social reality.
Instead, “people construct an image of reality based on their own preferences and prejudices and
their interactions with others, and this is as true of scientists as it is of everyone else in the social
world”
Epistemology: As such, cultural theory’s epistemology, how knowledge is advanced, relies on the
subjective interaction between the observer (the researcher or theorist) and his or her community.
Put another way, knowledge is local; that is, it is specific to the interaction of the knower and the
known.
Axiology: Naturally, then, the axiology of cultural theory embraces, rather than limits, the influence
of researcher and theorist values. Personal and professional values, according to Katherine Miller,
are a “lens through which social phenomena are observed”.
Conclusion: A researcher interested in understanding teens’ interpretations of social networking
websites like Facebook, or one who is curious about meaning-making that occurs in the exchange
of information among teen fans of an online simulation game, would rely on cultural theory.
CRITICAL THEORY
Background: There are still other scholars who do not want explanation, prediction, and control of
the social world. Nor do they seek understanding of the social world as the ultimate goal for their
work. They start from the assumption that some aspects of the social world are deeply flawed and
in need of transformation. Their aim is to gain knowledge of that social world, so they can change it.
This goal is inherently—and intentionally—political because it challenges existing ways of organizing
the social world and the people and institutions that exercise power in it.
Definition: Theory seeking transformation of a dominant social order in order to achieve desired
values.
Explanation:
Axiology: Critical theory is openly political (therefore its axiology is aggressively value-laden). It
assumes that by reorganizing society, we can give priority to the most important human values.
Critical theorists study inequality and oppression. Their theories do more than observe, describe, or
interpret; they criticize. Critical theories view “media as sites of (and weapons in) struggles over
social, economic, symbolic, and political power (as well as struggles over control of, and access to,
the media themselves)”
Epistemology: Critical theory’s epistemology argues that knowledge is advanced only when it
serves to free people and communities from the influence of those more powerful than themselves.
Critical theorists call this emancipatory knowledge.
Ontology: Its ontology, however, is a bit more complex. According to critical theory, what is real,
what is knowable, in the social world is the product of the interaction between structure (the social
world’s rules, norms, and beliefs) and agency (how humans behave and interact in that world).
Reality, then, to critical theorists, is constantly being shaped and reshaped by the dialectic (the
ongoing struggle or debate) between the two. When elites control the struggle, they define reality
(in other words, their control of the structure defines people’s realities). When people are
emancipated, they define reality through their behaviors and interactions (agency).
Conclusion: Researchers and theorists interested in the decline (and restoration) of the power of
the labor movement in industrialized nations or those interested in limiting the contribution of
children’s advertising to the nation’s growing consumerism would rely on critical theory. Some critical
theorists are quite troubled by what they view as the uncontrolled exercise of capitalist corporate
power around the world. They see media as an essential tool employed by corporate elites to
constrain how people view their social world and to limit their agency in it. They worry about the
spread of what they see as a global culture of celebrity and consumerism that is fostered by capitalist
dominated media.

NORMATIVE THEORY
Background:
 Social theorists see post positivist and cultural theory as representational. That is, they are
articulations—word pictures—of some other realities (for post positivists, those
representations are generalizable across similar realities, and for interpretive theorists, these
representations are local and specific). Critical theory is nonrepresentational. Its goal is to
change existing realities.
 There is another type of theory, however. Its aim is neither the representation nor the
reformation of reality. Instead, its goal is to set an ideal standard against which the operation
of a given media system can be judged.
Definition: A normative media theory explains how a media system should operate in order to
conform to or realize a set of ideal social values.
Ontology: As such, its ontology argues that what is known is situational (or, like interpretive theory,
local). In other words, what is real or knowable about a media system is real or knowable only for
the specific social system in which that media system exists.
Epistemology: Its epistemology, how knowledge is developed and advanced, is based in
comparative analysis—we can only judge (and therefore understand) the worth of a given media
system in comparison to the ideal espoused by the particular social system in which it operates.
Axiology: Finally, normative theory’s axiology is, by definition, value-laden. Study of a media
system or parts of a media system is undertaken in the explicit belief that there is an ideal mode of
operation based in the values of the larger social system.
Conclusion: Theorists interested in the press’s role in a democracy would most likely employ
normative theory, as would those be examining the operation of the media in an Islamic republic or
an authoritarian state. Problems arise if media systems based on one normative theory are
evaluated according to the norms or ideals of another normative theory.
________________________________________________________________________
FOUR TRENDS IN MEDIA THEORY
Here, instead of distinct eras of mass communication theory, we identify trends in theory
development. To some extent these trends are similar to eras in that they trace the development of
relatively stable perspectives on mass communication, and over time there has been a shift from
one trend to another. At given points in time, however, trends overlap and to some extent influence
each other.

Eras (Trends) in mass communication theories:

• Era of mass society theory (1850-1940)
• Era of scientific perspective on mass media (1940-1950) (THE LIMITED EFFECTS TREND)
• Era of limited effects (1950-60s)
• Era of cultural criticism (1960s-1980s)

A. Mass society theory 1850-1940

Background:
 Mass Communication theories begins with a review of some of the earliest notions about
media.
 These ideas were initially developed in the later half of the 19th century as new media
technologies were invented and popularized. Although some theorists were optimistic about
new technology, most were extremely pessimistic (Brantlinger, 1983).
 They blamed new industrial technology for disrupting peaceful, rural communities and forcing
people to live in urban areas merely to serve as a convenient workforce in large factories,
mines or bureaucracies.
 Theorists were fearful of cities because of their crime, cultural diversity, and unstable political
systems.
 For many social thinkers, mass media symbolized everything that was wrong with the 19th
century urban life.
 The dominant perspective that emerged during this period is referred to as mass society
theory.
Definition: Perspective on Western, industrial society that attributes an influential but often negative
role to media
Explanation:
 It began as a collection of contradictory notions – some quite radical, others quite
reactionary.
 It is an inherently contradictory theory that is often rooted in nostalgia for a “golden age” that
never existed, and it anticipates a nightmare future in which social order is broken down,
ruthless elites seize power, and individual freedom is lost.
 Mass society notions can come from both ends of the political spectrum. Some are developed
by people who want to maintain the existing political order, and others are created by
revolutionaries who wanted to impose radical changes. But these ideological foes often
share at least one assumption - mass media are troublesome if not downright dangerous.
 Media industries, such as the penny press in the 1830s, yellow journalism in the 1890s,
movies in the 1920s, radio in the 1930s, and TV in the 1950s were easy targets for elites’
criticisms.
 They catered to readers in middle and lower social classes using simple, often sensational
content. Content mostly entertained rather than informed or educated people.
  These industries were easily attacked as symptomatic of a sick society—a society needing
to either return to traditional, fundamental values or be forced to adopt a set of totally new
values fostered by media.
 Many intense political conflicts strongly affected thinking about the mass media, and these
conflicts shaped the development of various forms of mass society theory.

 In time, the leaders of the Industrial Revolution gained enormous influence over social
change. They strongly favored all forms of Technological Development, including mass
media.
 In their view technology was inherently good as it facilitated control over the physical
environment, expanded human productivity and generated new forms of material wealth.
 New technology would bring an end to social problems and lead to the development of an
Ideal social world.
 But in the short term, industrialization brought with it enormous problems – exploitation of
workers, pollution and social unrest.
 Today, the fallacies of both the critics of technology and its advocates are readily apparent.
 Mass society notions greatly exaggerated the ability of media to quickly undermine social
order.
 These ideas failed to consider that media’s power ultimately resides in the freely chosen uses
that audiences make of it.
 Technology advocates were also misguided and failed to acknowledge the many
unnecessary, damaging consequences that resulted from applying technology without
adequately considering the impact.

Important Theories
• Bullet Theory
• Propaganda Theory
Bullet Theory:
 Also called as hypodermic needle theory
 This theory is centered around the idea that the media exercises control
 It holds that an intend message is directly received and completely accepted by listener.
 It assumes that the media’s message is a bullet fired from the “media gun” into viewer’s head.
 Receivers are passive and defenseless
 Media have direct, immediate and powerful effect to those who pay attention.
 Media can undermine the social order and corrupt society to believe what they want you to
believe.
 The theory resonated with fears of fascist and communist movement in the 1930s and 1940s
and reached its apogee in the late 1950s.
 This theory is widely rejected today because it is dependent on both the media being able to
send a message to audience who will unquestioningly accept their message.

Propaganda Theory:
 Media propagates any idea with direct impact on the mass society.
 Audience here was also passive and defenseless
 The ideas used to propagate at that time were highly influenced by the politics.
  Propaganda theories that were developed after World War I and share many of mass society
theory’s concerns and assumptions.
 Propaganda: No-holds-barred use of communication to propagate specific beliefs and
expectations
 Propaganda commanded the attention of early media theorists because it threatened to
undermine the very foundation of the U.S. political system and of democratic governments
everywhere.
 By the late 1930s, many, if not most, American leaders were convinced that democracy
wouldn’t survive if extremist political propaganda was allowed to be freely distributed.
 But censorship of propaganda meant imposing significant limitations on that essential
principle of Western democracy, communication freedom.
 This posed a terrible dilemma.
 Strict censorship might undermine democracy just as corrosively as propaganda.
White propaganda: Intentional suppression of potentially harmful information and ideas, combined
with deliberate promotion of positive information or ideas to distract attention from problematic
events

ASSUMPTION OF MASS SOCIETY THEORY

1. The media are a powerful force within society that can subvert essential norms and values and
thus undermine the social order. To deal with this threat media must be brought under elite control.
2. Media are able to directly influence the minds of average people, transforming their views of the
social world.
3. Once people’s thinking is transformed by media, all sorts of bad long-term consequences are
likely to result—not only bringing ruin to individual lives but also creating social problems on a vast
scale.
4. Average people are vulnerable to media because in mass society they are cut off and isolated
from traditional social institutions that previously protected them from manipulation.
5. The social chaos initiated by media will likely be resolved by establishment of a totalitarian social
order.
6. Mass media inevitably debase higher forms of culture, bringing about a general decline in
civilization.

B. Era of scientific perspective on mass media (1940-1950)

Background
 During the 1930’s, world events seemed to continually confirm the truth of mass society ideas.
 In Europe, reactionary and revolutionary political movements used media in their struggles
for political power.
 German Nazis introduced propaganda techniques that ruthlessly exploited the power of new
media technology like motion pictures and radio.
 All across Europe, totalitarian leaders like Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini rose to political power
and were able to exercise seemingly total control over vast populations.
 Private ownership of media, especially broadcast media, was replaced by direct government
control in most European nations.
 The purpose was to use media for the service of the society.
 But the unintended outcome in most cases was to place enormous power in the hands of
ruthless leaders who were convinced that they personally embodied what was best for all
their citizens.
  Exception was BBC, an independent public corporation.

 At the very peak of their popularity, mass society notions came under attack from Lazarsfeld,
(1941), an Austrian researcher and scientist. He argued that it wasn’t enough to merely
speculate about the influence of media on society. Instead he proposed conducting carefully
designed, elaborate field experiments in which he would be able to observe media influence
and measure its magnitude.
 It was not enough to assume that political propaganda is powerful – hard evidence was
needed to prove the existence of such effects.
 Lazersfeld’s most famous efforts, the “Voter Studies”, actually began as an attempt to
demonstrate the media’s power, yet they proved, at least to him and his colleagues, just the
opposite.
 By the early 1950s, Lazerfeld’s work had generated an enormous amount of data based on
which he concluded that media were not nearly as powerful as had been previously imagined.
Instead, he found that people had numerous ways of resisting media influence and were
influenced by many competing factors.
 Rather than serving as a disruptive social force, media seemed to reinforce existing social
trends and strengthen the status quo.
 He found little evidence to support the worst fears of mass society theorists.
 Though Lazarsfeld never labeled his theory, it is now referred to as the Limited-effects
perspective.
Definition
 Limited-effects theory: View of media as having little ability to directly influence people. The
dominant effect of media is to reinforce existing social trends and strengthen the status quo
 These views media as playing a very limited role in the lives of individuals and larger society.
 In 1960, several classic studies of media effects provided apparently definitive support for the
limited-effects view. Limited-effects notions about mass communication theory had been
supported by a decade of postpositivist research.
 By contrast, advocates of mass society notions came under increasing attack as “unscientific”
or “irrational” because they questioned “hard scientific findings.”
 Limited-effects theorists produced research showing that average people were well protected
from media influence by opinion leaders who filtered propaganda before it reached their
followers.
Important Theories
• Two Step flow theory
• Lasswell’s Model
• Persuasion Theory
• Limited Effect Theory

Two-Step Flow Theory:

 Flow of information takes place in two steps.
 First from Mass Media to opinion leaders and then from opinion leaders to the mass society.
 Media are not so powerful because there is resistance to their messages.
 Resistance is based on psychological individual traits & crucial role is played by
o Opinion Leaders
o Social Context
Persuasion Theory:
• Subtle change in the attitude of the receiver.
• Any form of persuasive communication changes the attitude of the receiver. Attitude on the other
hand changes the behavior.

Lasswell’s Model:
• It is a five step process.
• Who says (Source)
• What (Message)
• In which channel (Media)
• To Whom (Receiver)
• With What effect (Feedback)

Limited Effects Theory:

• Basically, Paul Lazersfeld experiment on Voting Behaviour. He explained that the role of media in
deciding the voting behavior is limited.
• 3 Steps by Lazersfeld
• 1. Activate floating voters to take a decision
• 2. Reinforce the preference in convinced voters.
• 3. Convert convinced voters to switch their preference.
• Conclusion- He concluded that media had some kind of influence only at step 2.

C. Era of limited effects (1950-60s)

 During the 1950s, limited-effects notions about media continued to gain acceptance within
academia.
 Several important clashes occurred between their adherents and those who supported mass
society ideas.
 In 1960, several classic studies of media effects provided apparently definitive support for the
limited-effects notions.
 By 1961, V.O. Key had published Public Opinion and American Democracy, a theoretical and
methodological tour de force that integrated limited-effects notions with social and political
theory to create a perspective that is now known as elite pluralism.
 This theory views society as a number of interlocking pluralistic groups led by opinion leaders
who rely on media for information about politics and social world.
 Advocates of mass society notions came under increasing attack as “unscientific” or
“irrational” because they questioned “hard scientific findings”.
 By the mid-1960s, the debate between mass society and limited-effects notions appeared to
be over – at least within the mass communication research community.
 The body of empirical research findings continued to grow, and almost all these findings were
consistent with the latter view.
 Little or empirical research supported mass society theory.
 This was not surprising because most empirical researchers trained at this time were warned
against its fallacies.
Important Theories
• Play Theory
• Uses & Gratification Theory
• Agenda Setting Theory
• Dependency Theory
• Dissonance Theory
Play Theory
• Given by William Stephenson
• First function of media is to provide entertainment
• He said that one should be subjective and psychological rather than being objective and
sociological
• 2 points to explain play theory..
• A) Maximize the communication pleasure in this world
• B) Show the extent of autonomy achievable from an individual respect to the social control
by his socio-cultural system.

Uses & Gratification Theory

• “What the media do to the people, to what the people do with the media”
• USES- It assumes that audiences are active and willingly expose themselves to the media
• GRATIFICATION- It refers to the rewards & satisfaction by audience after the use of media.

Agenda Setting Theory

• Given by Maxwell Mc Combs & Don Shaw
• It states that media have the ability to advise or tell audiences what issues are major & relevant,
thus setting the agenda. They can achieve this by choosing what stories to consider newsworthy
and how much prominence and space they give them.
• Key Features
• 1. The role of mass media, particularly news media is to provide filtered information in order
to create a distorted view of reality.
• 2. Media focus on certain issues depicting them as more important than others because
they want the public opinion to perceive them as more important.

Dependency Theory
• Integral relationship between audience, media & larger social system
• Learning from experiences in real life is limited
• Audience depend largely on media to gather information they need
• Prolonged use of media triggers a dependence

Dissonance Theory Name of Institution

• When confronted by new/conflicting information, people experiences a kind of mental discomfort.
• The level of dissonance is decided by 3 factors…
• A. Selective Exposure
• B. Selective Perception
• C. Selective Retention

D. Era of cultural criticism (1960s-1980s)

Background
 While postpositivist media research flourished in the 1970s and 1980s it came under
increasing criticism from European researchers.
 Mass society notions continued to flourish in Europe, where both left-wing and right-wing
concerns about the power of media were deeply rooted in World War II experiences with
propaganda.
 Europeans were also skeptical about the power of scientific, quantitative social research
methods to verify and develop social theory (they saw them as reductionist – reducing
complex communication processes and social phenomena to little more than narrow
propositions generated from small-scale investigations).
 This reductionism was widely viewed as a distinctly American fetish.
 Some European academics were resentful of the influence enjoyed by American after World
War II.
 They argued that American empiricism was both simplistic and intellectually sterile.
 Although some European academics welcomed and championed American ideas, other
strongly resisted them and argued for maintaining approaches considered less biased or
more traditionally European.
 One group of European social theorists who vehemently resisted postwar U.S. influence was
the neo-Marxists (Hall,1982).
 Definition: These left-wing social theorists believe that media enable dominant social
elites to maintain their power.
Explanation
 Neo-Marxist theory is a form of critical theory.
 Media provide the elite with a convenient, subtle, yet highly effective means of promoting
worldviews favorable to their interests.
 Mass media can be viewed, they argue as a public arena in which cultural battles are fought
and a dominant or hegemonic culture is forged.
 Elites dominate these struggles because they start with important advantages.
 Opposition is marginalized, and the status quo is presented as the only logical, rational way
of structuring society.
 Within neo-Marxist theory, efforts to examine media institutions and interpret media content
came to have high priority.
 Such theories differ from older forms of Marxism because they assume that culture can be
influenced by people who don’t hold economic power.
 During the 1960s, some neo-Marxists in Britain developed a school of social theory widely
referred to as British cultural studies. It focused heavily on mass media and their role in
promoting a hegemonic worldview and a dominant culture among various subgroups in the
society.
 British cultural studies drew on both critical theory and cultural theory to create critical cultural
theory.
 Researchers studied how members of those subgroups used media and assessed how this
use might serve group interests (cultural theory) or might lead people to develop ideas that
supported dominant elites (critical theory). This research eventually produced an important
breakthrough.
 Although British cultural studies began with deterministic assumptions about the influence
of media (i.e., the media have powerful, direct effects), their work came to focus on
audience reception studies that revived important questions about the potential power of
media in certain types of situations and the ability of active audience members to resist media
 influence—questions that 1960s postpositivist media scholars ignored because they were
skeptical about the power of media and assumed that audiences were passive.
 This cultural criticism, although initially greeted with considerable skepticism by “mainstream”
effects researchers, gradually established itself as a credible and valuable alternative to
limited-effects notions.
Cultivation Theory
 The Cultivation Theory is a mass communication theory that suggests a shaping - cultivating
- cumulative long-term effect of TV media on the social reality of viewers.
Origin of Cultivation Theory
 The Cultivation Theory has been developed by professor George Gerbner from Annenberg
School of Communications of Philadelphia, US, in 1967-1974.
 He was conducting research called “Cultural Indicators Program” about the impact of
violence broadcasted in TV programs on individuals.
 His early hypothesis aimed to demonstrate that a massive use of media leads to an increase
in acceptance of violence and in the engagement of cruel behaviors.
 Gerbner started considering TV as a new social agent competing with traditional ones such
as family, school, church and peer groups.
 Analyzing TV programs, especially fictions, he divided audiences in 3 groups:
• Low Users, those who watch TV less than 2 hours a day.
• Normal Users, those who watch TV from 2 to 6 hours a day.
• Heavy Users, those who watch TV for more than 6 hours a day.

E. THE MEANING-MAKING TREND IN MEDIA THEORY

Background
 During the 1970s and 1980s, there was increasing competition between postpositivist and
critical cultural scholars in both the United States and Europe.
 During much of this period, postpositivist researchers were at a disadvantage because limited
effects theories failed to address how media might be playing a role in the social movements
that were obviously transforming society - the civil rights, antiwar and feminist social
movements.
 Additionally, they could not address the possible consequences of the cumulative effect of
exposure to popular media content (such as televised violence) or to advertising.
 Gradually, limited-effects notions were altered, partially because of pressures from critical
cultural studies, but also because of the emergence of new communication technologies that
forced a rethinking of traditional assumptions about how people use (and are used by) media
 We are again living in an era when we are challenged by the rise of powerful new media that
clearly are altering how most of us live our lives and relate to others.

 Post positivists have developed new research strategies and methods (as explained in later
chapters) that provide them with better measures of media influence and that have already
identified a number of contexts in which media can have powerful effects.
 At the same time that post positivist researchers moved toward a focus on use of media
rather than media effects, critical cultural scholars advanced a similar but slightly different
focus.
 Their research traced the way that cultural groups rather than individuals use media to serve
group purposes.
  They studied how groups used various forms of media content from music to news.
 They found that group members often band together to criticize, and resist ideas being
promoted by media, for example in this “public sphere” union members might criticize hostile
news coverage of strikes and feminists could criticize advertising that presented women in
problematic ways.

 At the heart of the meaning-making trend in theory is a focus on a more or less active
audience that uses media content to create meaningful experiences.
 Theorists recognize that important media effects often occur over longer time periods and
these effects can be intended by users.
 People as individuals or as groups can make media serve certain purposes, such as using
media to learn information, manage moods, promote group identity, or seek excitement.
 When audiences use media in these ways, they are intentionally working to induce
meaningful experiences.
 The various meaning-making perspectives assert that when people use media to make
meaning—when they are able to intentionally induce desired experiences—there often are
significant results, some intended and others unintended. Example So. when young adults
download billions of songs from the net in order to alter or sustain a mood, there will be
consequences. Some of these consequences are intended, but sometimes the results are
unanticipated and unwanted.

Conclusion
Have you ever sought thrills from a horror movie and then been troubled afterward by disturbing
visual images? Factors that intrude into and disrupt meaning-making can have unpredictable
consequences. The trend in meaning making theory implies that future research will focus on
people’s successes or failures in their efforts to make meaning using media, and on intended and
unintended consequences. These consequences should be considered both from the point of view
of individuals and from the point of view of groups or society.

Examples of Meaning Making Theory

 Framing theory, asserting that people use expectations of the social world to make sense
of that world
 Media literacy movement, calling for improvement in people’s ability to access, analyze,
evaluate, and communicate media messages, are two examples of recent meaning-making
theory.
___________________________________________________________________

This implementation of the scientific method is difficult for those studying the social world
for four reasons:
1. Most of the significant and interesting forms of human behavior are quite difficult to measure.
2. Human behavior is exceedingly complex.
3. Humans have goals and are self-reflexive.
4. The simple notion of causality is sometimes troubling when it is applied to ourselves.
ASSUMPTION OF MASS SOCIETY THEORY
1. The media are a powerful force within society that can subvert essential norms and values and
thus undermine the social order. To deal with this threat media must be brought under elite control.
2. Media are able to directly influence the minds of average people, transforming their views of the
social world.
3. Once people’s thinking is transformed by media, all sorts of bad long-term consequences are
likely to result—not only bringing ruin to individual lives but also creating social problems on a vast
scale.
4. Average people are vulnerable to media because in mass society they are cut off and isolated
from traditional social institutions that previously protected them from manipulation.
5. The social chaos initiated by media will likely be resolved by establishment of a totalitarian social
order.
6. Mass media inevitably debase higher forms of culture, bringing about a general decline in
civilization.
_________________________________________________________________________
EARLY EXAMPLES OF MASS SOCIETY THEORY
 These are older notions about mass society and mass culture, but most scholars have
rejected the simplistic assumptions and criticisms of earlier eras.
 These newer theories no longer accept elite high culture as the standard against which all
others must be measured.
 Current criticism tends to focus on the inherent biases of media when it comes to developing
new forms of culture.
 Media are no longer seen as corrupting and degrading high culture. Rather, they are viewed
as limiting or disrupting cultural development.
 Media don’t subvert culture, but they do play a major and sometimes counterproductive role
in cultural change.
 Fear of totalitarianism has been replaced worldwide by growing disillusionment with
consumerism and its power to undermine local cultures and national identities.

GEMEINSCHAFT AND GESELLSCHAFT (German sociologist, Ferdinand Tönnies)

 Tönnies sought to explain the critical difference between earlier forms of social organization
and European society as it existed in the late nineteenth century.
 In an 1887 book, Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft
Gemeinschaft: In Tönnies’s conception, traditional folk cultures
 In folk communities, people were bound together by strong ties of family, by tradition,
and by rigid social roles— basic social institutions were very powerful.
 Gemeinschaft “consisted of a dense network of personal relationships based heavily
on kinship and the direct, face-to-face contact that occurs in a small, closed village.
 Norms were largely unwritten, and individuals were bound to one another in a web of
mutual interdependence that touched all aspects of life”.
 As far as mass society theorists were concerned, not only did the emerging mass
media disrupt kinship and direct face-to-face contact, but they certainly were not gifts
of nature.
Gesellschaft: In Tönnies’s conception, modern industrial society
 In gesellschaft, people are bound together by relatively weak social institutions based
on rational choices rather than tradition.
 
Gesellschaft represents “the framework of laws and other formal regulations that
characterized large, urban industrial societies.
 Social relationships were more formalized and impersonal; individuals did not depend
on one another for support… and were therefore much less morally obligated to one
another”.
 Naturally, it was the established elites (the traditional wielders of power and the most
vocal champions of mass society theory) who stood to lose the most influence in the
move from gemeinschaft to gesellschaft, as “average” people came to depend less on
their influence and more on formalized and more objectively applied rules and laws.
 For example: For example, when you take a job, you sign a formal contract based
on your personal decision. You don’t sign it because you are bound by family
tradition to work for a certain employer. You make a more or less rational choice.
 Over the years, media have been continually accused of breaking down folk
communities (gemeinschaft) and encouraging the development of amoral, weak social
institutions (gesellschaft).
________________________________________________________________

In his 1893 Division of Labor in Society, which was translated into English in 1933, French
sociologist Émile Durkheim offered a theory with the same dichotomy as that of Tönnies but with
a fundamentally different interpretation of modern social orders.
Mechanical solidarity:
In Durkheim’s conception, folk cultures bound by consensus and traditional social roles.
Explanation
Durkheim compared folk communities to machines in which people were little more than cogs. These
machines were very ordered and durable, but people were forced by a collective consensus to
perform traditional social roles.
Organic solidarity:
In Durkheim’s conception, modern social orders bound by culturally negotiated social ties.
 Durkheim compared modern social orders to animals rather than to machines. As they grow,
animals undergo profound changes in their physical form. They begin life as babies and
progress through several developmental stages on their way to adulthood and old age. The
bodies of animals are made up of many different kinds of cells—skin, bone, blood—and these
cells serve very different purposes.
 Unlike machines, animals are subject to diseases and physical threats. But they are capable
of using mental processes to anticipate threats and cope with them.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
MASS SOCIETY THEORY
Strengths
1. Speculates about important effects
2. Highlights important structural changes and conflicts in modern cultures
3. Draws attention to issues of media ownership and ethics

Weaknesses
1. Is unscientific
2. Is unsystematic
3. Is promulgated by elites interested in preserving power
4. Underestimates intelligence and competence of “average people”
5. Underestimates personal, societal, and cultural barriers to direct media influence
________________________________________________________________________

MASS SOCIETY THEORY IN CONTEMPORARY TIMES

 Early mass society theorists argued that media are highly problematic forces that have
the power to directly reach and transform the thinking of individuals so that the quality
of their lives is impaired and serious social problems are created.
 Through media influence, people are atomized, cut off from the civilizing influences of
other people or high culture.
 In these early theories, totalitarianism inevitably results as ruthless, power-hungry
dictators seize control of media to promote their ideology.
 Initially, mass society theory gained wide acceptance— especially among traditional
social elites threatened by the rise of media industries.
 In time, however, people questioned its unqualified assertions about the media’s
power to directly influence individuals.
 Mass society notions enjoyed longer acceptance in Europe, where commitments to
traditional ways of life and high culture have been stronger and where distrust of
average people and mass democracy runs deeper.
 The second factor in contemporary rearticulating of mass society theory involves
concentration of ownership of different media companies in fewer and fewer
hands. We’ve already seen that media industries, when facing challenges from new
technologies, undergo rapid restructuring. This is one of the reasons behind today’s
dazzling number and scope of media industry mergers.

Vestiges of mass society resonate today on three fronts:

 high culture proponents.
 opponents of media concentration, and
 in social science circle where researchers see the operation of a powerful mass media in
conjunction with an increasingly uninterested and uninvolved citizenry.

Ideas such as
agenda setting theory (media may not tell us what to think, but they do tell us what to think about)
spiral of silence (alternative points of view are spiraled into silence in the face of overwhelming
expression of a dominant view in the media)
cultivation analysis (a false “reality” is cultivated among heavy television viewers by the repetitive,
industrially created stories that dominate the medium)
framing (news conventions present a dominant interpretive background for understanding events
and policy)
argue for a powerful, public discourse - shaping media. Media concentration and effects theories
such as these have also given new life to another early conception of all-powerful media,
propaganda theory.
______________________________________________________________________
PROPAGANDA
No-holds-barred use of communication to propagate specific beliefs and expectations
THE ORIGIN OF PROPAGANDA
The ultimate goal of propagandists is to change the way people act and to leave them believing that
those actions are voluntary, that the newly adopted behaviors—and the opinions underlying them—
are their own
Fritz Hippler, head of Nazi Germany’s film propaganda division, said that the secret to effective
propaganda is to (a) simplify a complex issue and (b) repeat that simplification over and over again
Types of Propaganda
White propaganda
Intentional suppression of potentially harmful information and ideas, combined with deliberate
promotion of positive information or ideas to distract attention from problematic events
Black propaganda was usually defined as involving deliberate and strategic transmission of lies.
Gray propaganda involved transmission of information or ideas that might or might not be false.
The propagandist simply made no effort to determine their validity and actually avoided doing so—
especially if dissemination of the content would serve his or her interest.

 American propagandists in the 1930s had two clear alternatives. On one side were truth,
justice, and freedom—in short, the American way—and on the other side were falsehood,
evil, and slavery—totalitarianism. Of course, Communist and Nazi propagandists had their
own versions of truth, justice, and freedom. For them the American vision of Utopia was at
best naive and at worst likely to lead to racial pollution and cultural degradation. The Nazis
used propaganda to cultivate extreme fear and hatred of minority groups.
 Propagandists often blamed the people for the necessity of engaging in lies and manipulation.
They thought people so irrational, so illiterate, or so inattentive that it was necessary to
coerce, seduce, or trick them into learning bits of misinformation.
 In the post-World War I United States, when propaganda theory was originally developed,
the beneficial use of propaganda became known as the engineering of consent, a term
coined by “the father of modern public relations,” Edward L. Bernays.
 Most of the propaganda theories that developed during the 1930s were strongly influenced
by two theories: behaviorism and Freudianism.

BEHAVIORISM
Definition: The notion that all human action is a conditioned response to external environmental
stimuli.
 John B. Watson, an animal experimentalist who argued that all human action is merely a
conditioned response to external environmental stimuli, first popularized stimulus-response
psychology.
 Watson’s theory became known as behaviorism in recognition of its narrow focus on isolated
human behaviors.
 Behaviorists rejected psychology’s widely held assumption that higher mental processes (i.e.,
conscious thought or reflection) ordinarily control human action.
 In contrast to such “mentalist” views, behaviorists argued that the only purpose served by
consciousness was to rationalize behaviors after they are triggered by external stimuli.
 One of the central notions in behaviorism was the idea of conditioning.
  Behaviorists argued that most human behavior is the result of conditioning by the external
environment. We are conditioned to act in certain ways by positive and negative stimuli—we
act to gain rewards or avoid punishments.
 Early mass communication theorists, who saw the media as providing external stimuli that
triggered immediate responses, frequently used behaviorist notions.
For example, these ideas could be applied to the analysis of Fritz Hippler’s notorious Nazi
propaganda film, The Eternal Jew. Its powerful, grotesque presentations of Jews, equating them to
disease-bearing rats, were expected to trigger negative responses in their German audiences.
Repeated exposure to these images would condition them to have a negative response whenever
they see or think about people of the Jewish faith.

FREUDIANISM
Definition: Freud’s notion that human behavior is the product of the conflict between an
individual’s Id, Ego, and Superego
 Freudianism, on the other hand, was very different from behaviorism, though Sigmund Freud
shared Watson’s skepticism concerning people’s ability to exercise effective conscious or
rational control over their actions.

 Freud spent considerable time counseling middle-class women who suffered from hysteria.
During hysterical fits, seemingly ordinary individuals would suddenly “break down” and
display uncontrolled and highly emotional behavior. It was not uncommon for quiet and
passive women to “break down” in public places. They would scream, have fits of crying, or
become violent. Often these outbursts occurred at times when the likelihood of
embarrassment and trouble for themselves and others was at its highest.

 To explain hysteria, Freud reasoned that the self that guides action must be fragmented into
conflicting parts.

 EGO: Normally one part, the rational mind, or Ego, is in control, but sometimes other parts
become dominant.

 ID: Freud speculated that human action is often the product of another, darker side of the
self—the Id. This is the egocentric pleasure-seeking part of ourselves that the Ego must
struggle to keep under control.

 SUPEREGO: The Ego relies on an internalized set of cultural rules (the Superego) for
guidance.

 Caught between the primitive Id and the overly restrictive Superego, the Ego fights a losing
battle. When the Ego loses control to the Id, hysteria or worse results. When the Superego
becomes dominant and the Id is completely suppressed, people turn into unemotional,
depressed social automatons who simply do what others demand.

 Propaganda theorists used Freudian notions to develop very pessimistic interpretations of

media influence. For example, propaganda would be most effective if it could appeal directly
to the Id and short-circuit or bypass the Ego. Alternatively, if through effective propaganda
efforts the cultural rules (the Superego) moved the self in the direction of the Id, people’s
 darker impulses would become normal—a strategy that some propaganda theorists believed
was skillfully used by the Nazis

 Behaviorism and Freudianism were combined to create propaganda theories that viewed the
average individual as incapable of rational self-control.

 These theories saw people as highly vulnerable to media manipulation using propaganda;
media stimuli and the Id could trigger actions that the Ego and the Superego were powerless
to stop.

 According to these notions, media could have instantaneous society-wide influence on even
the most educated, thoughtful people.

HAROLD LASSWELL’S PROPAGANDA THEORY

 Lasswell’s theory of propaganda blended ideas borrowed from behaviorism and
Freudianism into a particularly pessimistic vision of media and their role in forging modern
social orders.
 Lasswell was one of the first political scientists to recognize the usefulness of various
psychological theories and to demonstrate how they could be applied to understanding and
controlling politics.
 The power of propaganda was not so much the result of the substance or appeal of specific
messages but, rather, the result of the vulnerable state of mind of average people.
 Lasswell argued that economic depression and escalating political conflict had induced
widespread psychosis, and this made most people susceptible to even crude forms of
propaganda. When average people are confronted daily by powerful threats to their personal
lives, they turn to propaganda for reassurance and a way to overcome the threat. When
people are jobless and their homes are in foreclosure, propaganda appeals find a ready
audience.
 In Lasswell’s view, democracy has a fatal flaw. It seeks to locate truth and make decisions
through openly conducted debates about issues. But if these debates escalate into verbal or
even physical conflict between advocates for different ideas, then widespread psychosis will
result.
 Germany during the Depression, an entire nation could become psychologically unbalanced
and vulnerable to manipulation.
 He argued that propaganda was more than merely using media to lie to people in order to
gain temporary control over them. People need to be slowly prepared to accept radically
different ideas and actions. Communicators need a well-developed, long-term campaign
strategy (“multiplication of those stimuli”) in which new ideas and images are carefully
introduced and then cultivated.
 Symbols must be created, and people must be gradually taught to associate specific
emotions such as love or hate with these symbols. If these cultivation strategies are
successful, they create what Lasswell referred to as master (or collective) symbols
 Master symbols are associated with strong emotions and possess the power to stimulate
beneficial large-scale mass action if they are used wisely.
 And propaganda messages can be delivered through many different media, not just radio or
newspapers. The form in which the significant symbols are embodied to reach the public may
be spoken, written, pictorial, or musical, and the number of stimulus carriers is infinite….
  Lasswell argued that successful social movements gain power by propagating master
symbols over a period of months and years using a variety of media.
 Lasswell proposed combating Hitler with a new science of propaganda. Power to control
delivery of propaganda through the mass media would be placed in the hands of a new elite,
a scientific technocracy who would pledge to use its knowledge for good rather than evil—to
save democracy rather than destroy it.
 Lasswell and his colleagues developed a term to refer to this strategy for using propaganda.
They called it the “science of democracy”
 Lasswell’s communication model was developed by communication theorist Harold D.
Lasswell (1902-1978) in 1948. Lasswell’s model of communication (also known as action
model or linear model or one way model of communication) is regarded as one the most
influential communication models.

 Lasswell’s communication model has 5 components which is used as an analysis tool for
evaluating the communication process and components. The components are the questions
to be asked to get the answers and keep communication going.

COMPONENTS MEANING ANALYSIS

 Who the communicator or sender or source of message Control Analysis

Says What the content of the message Content Analysis

In Which Channel the medium or media Media Analysis

To Whom the receiver of the message or an audience Audience Analysis

With What Effect the feedback of the receiver to the sender Effect Analysis

Explanation of different Components of Lasswell’s Model

 Control analysis helps the sender to have all the power.

 Content analysis is associated to stereotyping and representation of different groups
politically. It is also related to the purpose or the ulterior motives of the message.
 Media analysis represents which medium should be used to exercise maximum power
against the receivers.
 Audience analysis shows who are the target population to be manipulated or brain-washed.
 Effect analysis is done before the process starts. It is used to predict the effect of message
over the target population to be exploited.

Lasswell’s model was developed to study the media propaganda of countries and businesses at
that time. Only rich people used to have communication mediums such as televisions and radios
back them. It was made to show the mass media culture.

Disadvantages and Criticisms of Lasswell’s Model

 The major criticism of Lasswell’s Model is that it does not include feedback
  It ignores the possibility of noise.

 Very linear and does not consider barriers in the communication process.

 The model is also criticized for being very general and only including very traditional topics.
The model is very simplistic.

 The model is said to be propaganda based as it is more focused on the resulting outcome
and generally used for media persuasion.

Lasswell communications model Who (says) What (to) Whom (in) What Channel (with) What Effect
and on politics:
 Politics is who gets what, when, and how
Lasswell: propaganda
1)form; and 2)channels
1. FORM in which the significant symbols are embodied to reach the public may be spoken, -written,
pictorial, or musical, and
2. CHANNELS : number of stimulus carriers is infinite: newspapers, (as students mentioned
propaganda warfare between the two parties in PNG) leaflets, placards, posters, billboards, sports
grounds, public transport;(today: radio, TV, Internet)

__________________________________________________________________

WALTER LIPPMANN’S THEORY OF PUBLIC OPINION FORMATION

 Walter Lippmann was a key figure in the shaping and studying of Public Opinion in the 20th
century.

 Increasing importance of propaganda as a tool of government. Propaganda played an

important part in WWI

 Similarly, nature of 20th century American society

o Mass communications, mass society, urbanization, European migration, people on the

move to America and across America, cars on the highways, trains criss-crossing
America, factories, cinema introduced new visual age (power of visual imagery) radio
introduced, mass production in industry, capitalism, advertising industry to sell the
goods being produced by the new technologies

o Result: whole new type of society; connected society, beginnings of a wired world

 In earlier times rulers could impose their will through force, rule by the sword; but this changes
with the coming of the Reformation and the Renaissance, the printing press, the industrial
revolution and the rise of the middle classes, and finally the working class now public opinion
matters, leaders have to win the consent of the governed.
 Literacy and the physical channels of communication have quickened the connection
between those who rule and the ruled.
 Conventions have arisen which favor the ventilation of opinions and the taking of votes. Most
of that which formerly could be done by violence and intimidation must now be done by
argument and persuasion.
 Public opinion, in turn, would be cultivated by a free and vigorous press But, Lippmann
thought that the 18th century equation of a free press, informed citizens and viable was no
longer possible in the modern age (then first half of 20th century)
 Ideas about formation of public opinion developed; using terms like: pictures inside our
heads, fictions and symbols, and stereotypes
 Most knowledge of environment through Fictions and Symbols

• IMPORTANT FOR EXISTING SOCIAL ORDER

• IMPORTANT TO HUMAN COMMUNICATION
• Nearly every individual deals with events that are out of sight and hard to grasp.
 Lippmann (1922) observes,

• "The only feeling that anyone can have about an event he does not experience is the feeling
aroused by his mental image of that event."

• We often respond as powerfully to fictions as to realities, and often we help create those
fictions.

• In every case, there has been inserted between us and the environment a pseudo
environment, and it is to this pseudo environment that we respond.

• Propaganda, is an effort to alter the pictures to which we respond.

 Why pictures inside our heads often mislead us in our dealings with the outside world:
 censorship;
 limitations of social contact;
 meagre time available each day for paying attention to public affairs;
 distortions as a result of compressing events into short messages—abstraction
 The use of a small vocabulary to describe a complex world
 and the fear of facing facts that threaten our lives

 The theory stressed the inability of average people to make sense of their world and make
rational decisions about their actions.

 STEREOTYPES: Lippmann introduced the term

 “Stereotype: A fixed, commonly held notion or image of a person or group, based on
an oversimplification of some observed or imagined trait of behaviour or appearance.”
 Some examples (not from Lippmann) Mexicans are lazy and came into America
illegally; all Arabs and Muslims are terrorists; the English have bad teeth; Italian or
French people are the best lovers; African Americans are all good at sport; blondes
are dumb.
  Lippmann presented “stereotypes” as a characteristic element of human perception. He
argued that they were essential in the modern world because the global reach of
contemporary society, made it impossible for people to make sense of the world on the basis
of first-hand knowledge.

 Where stereotypes come from

 For Lippmann, the stereotypes did not come from the individual. For the most part we
do not first see, and then define, we define first and then see.
 We pick out what our culture has already defined for us, and we tend to perceive that
which we have picked out in the form stereotyped for us by our culture.
 Lippman did not believe in the Libertarian assumptions of the rational audience; he thus
advocated the placement of control of information gathering and distribution in the hands of
a benevolent technocracy- a scientist elite that could be trusted to use scientific methods to
sort fact from fiction and make good decisions about who should receive various messages

_________________________________________________________________________

REACTION AGAINST EARLY PROPAGANDA THEORY

 One prominent critic of propaganda theory was philosopher John Dewey

 Dewey was a tireless and prolific defender of public education as the most effective means
of defending democracy against totalitarianism
 Dewey shared some of Lippmann’s basic concerns: nationalism, economic self-interest, the
management of public opinion and the “capacity for a new and dangerous alliance among
powerful, elite interests in business, government and the news”. But unlike Lippmann,
Dewey was also concerned about the class divisions that had been brought about by
industrial capitalism, which he felt were contrary to the ethics of democracy.
 The core of democratic politics was the effort to create the conditions for individuals in a
society to develop to their fullest potential. It was not just political; it was also civil and
industrial.
 Dewey believed that the press could be reformed, and that it must continue to serve as a vital
link between government and the people.
 He refused to accept the need for a technocracy that would use scientific methods to protect
people from themselves. Rather, he argued that people could learn to defend themselves if
they were only taught the correct defenses. He asserted that even rudimentary public
education could enable people to resist propaganda methods.

 He argued that newspapers needed to do more than simply serve as bulletin boards for
information about current happenings.

 Dewey based his arguments on Pragmatism, a school of philosophical theory emphasizing

the practical function of knowledge as an instrument for adapting to reality and controlling it.

 Dewey believed that communities, not isolated individuals, use communication (and the
media of communication) to create and maintain the culture that bonds and sustains them.

 When media assume the role of external agents and work to manipulate the “pictures in
people’s heads,” they lose their power to serve as credible facilitators and guardians of public
 debate; they become just another competitor for our attention. The potentially productive
interdependence between the community and media is disrupted, and the public forum itself
is likely to be destroyed.
___________________________________________________________________

Propaganda Theory
Strengths
1. Is first systematic theory of mass communication
2. Focuses attention on why media might have powerful effects
3. Identifies personal, social, and cultural factors that can enhance media’s power to have effects
4. Focuses attention on the use of campaigns to cultivate symbols

Weaknesses
1. Underestimates abilities of average people to evaluate messages
2. Ignores personal, social, and cultural factors that limit media effects
3. Overestimates the speed and range of media effects
________________________________________________________________________

MODERN PROPAGANDA THEORY

 This current reconsideration of propaganda theory comes primarily from critical theorists
and, as a result, its orientation tends to be from the political Left

 For example, economist and media analyst Edward S. Herman identified five filters that
ensure the “multi-leveled capability of powerful business and government entities and
collectives (e.g., the Business Roundtable; U.S. Chamber of Commerce; industry lobbies and
front groups) to exert power over the flow of information”.

 These filters enable powerful business and government elites

 to mobilize an elite consensus,
 to give the appearance of democratic consent,
 to create enough confusion, misunderstanding, and apathy in the general population
 to allow elite programs to go forward”

 The first two of Herman’s elite supporting filters are ownership and advertising, which “have
made bottom line considerations more controlling…. The professional autonomy of
journalists has been reduced”
 The next two are sourcing and flack, increasingly effective because “a reduction in the
resources devoted to journalism means that those who subsidize the media by providing
sources for copy gain greater leverage”. Here he is specifically speaking of the power of
corporate and government public relations.

 Finally, the fifth filter motivating media toward propagandists’ support of the status quo is the
media’s “belief in the ‘miracle of the market.’ There is now an almost religious faith in the
market, at least among the elite, so that regardless of the evidence, markets are assumed
benevolent and non-market mechanisms are suspect”
 Behaviorists Richard Laitinen and Richard Rakos (1997) offer another critical view of
contemporary propaganda. They argue that modern propaganda—in their definition, “the
control of behavior by media manipulation” (p. 237)—is facilitated by three factors:

 an audience “that is enmeshed and engulfed in a harried lifestyle, less well-informed, and
less politically involved, …

 the use of sophisticated polling and survey procedures, whose results are used by
the propagandists to increase their influence, …

 [and] the incorporation of media companies into mega conglomerates” (pp. 238–
239). These factors combine to put untold influence in the hands of powerful business
and governmental elites without the public’s awareness.

 There is also renewed interest in propaganda theory from the political Right. This
conservative interest in propaganda takes the form of a critique of liberal media bias. Other
than surveys indicating that a majority of journalists vote Democratic, there is little serious
scholarship behind this assertion. In fact, what research there is tends to negate the liberal
media bias thesis, as the large majority of media outlet managers and owners tend to vote
Republican, the majority of the country’s syndicated newspaper columnists write with a
conservative bent, and the majority of “newsmakers” on network and cable public affairs talk
shows are politically right-of-center. Media writer David Carr explains, “What is the No. 1
newspaper in America by circulation? That would be The Wall Street Journal, a bastion of
conservative values on its editorial pages. Three of the top five radio broadcasters—Rush
Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and … Michael Savage—have outdrawn NPR’s morning and
evening programs by a wide margin. In cable television, Fox News continues to pummel the
competition” (2012a, p. B1). Robert McChesney raises the added dimension of media
ownership, “The fundamental error in the conservative notion of the ‘liberal’ media [is] it posits
that editors and journalists have almost complete control over what goes into news…. In
conservative ‘analysis,’ the institutional factors of corporate ownership, profit-motivation, and
advertising support have no effect on media content…. The notion that journalism can
regularly produce a product that violates the fundamental interests of media owners and
advertisers and do so with impunity simply has no evidence behind it” (1997, p. 60).

 Finally, as we saw in the case of contemporary interest in mass society theory, some post
positivists are rethinking propaganda theory in light of effects theories such as agenda
setting, framing, and spiral of silence.

 These researchers point to the engineering of consent that sent the United States into an
invasion of Iraq on what is now acknowledged as false premises (Suskind, 2004) and the
media’s complicity in hiding the economic conditions and practices that would eventually
disable the world economy in 2008 (Mitchell, 2009) to support their contention that elites
continue to utilize propaganda for their own ends.
Normative Theory
Normative theories of communication are a group of four press theories proposed by
Fred Siebert, Theodore Peterson and Wilbur Schramm together in their book called
“Four Theories of the Press”.

The theories are also known as Western theories of mass media. The media does not
exist in a vacuum and normative theories try to explain how the socio-political
structures that surround the media affect its expected roles, freedoms and
accountabilities. This theory explains how media systems behave when operated by
different kinds of government in four different theories.

The theories do not give any kind of scientific predictions or explains them scientifically.
They just provide explanation on the relationship of press in different parts of the world
with their governments, ownership of press and how that kind of press affects
audiences. The theory also talks about control and censorship of press.

Concepts in Normative Theories of the Press

Media became competitive and yellow journalism developed in the nineteenth century.
Media used sensationalism to attract people to use media like newspapers more. So,
normative theories of press were developed to understand the use and responsibilities
of media for general public through the relationship of media and governments.

These theories were made to clean media practices and guide the press. Accuracy and
objectivity was taken to be the major improvement factors. These theories tell media
how they should behave even though their philosophies are different.

Normative theory of press describes what role media takes in which kinds of
government. It shows the ideal path to be taken by media, structures that media can
adopt and operation of media.

Media must be clean and yellow journalism should be avoided in all the press theories
in practice. Media must always be credible, truthful and reliable. Although very few
countries have a media that falls under a clear category and there is often a mixture of
two or more theories, understanding these theories can help us get the bigger picture of
the effect of the environment in which media operates on it.

Types and Examples of Normative Theories of the Press

Authoritarian Theory

Authoritarian theory of press is the control of media with government, elites or

authorities. Media is not allowed to criticize the powerful people or the government.
There is censorship by government on criticisms and other things negatively portrayed
about them.

Similarly, licensing of media, punishments and content approval are other means used
to curb full freedom of press. Media is taken as a means to serve the interest of
authorities and state. The reason given as to why it is done is “to achieve social order”.

The theory ignores needs of people and only establishes agendas and propaganda.
There is limited freedom. The press in Bhutan can be taken as an example of
authoritarian theory in practice.

Libertarian or Free Press Theory

Libertarian theory came in opposition to authoritarian theory. Press was given more
freedom and people involved were taken to be conscience and intellectual. They were
believed to possess the capability to find out truth from false. Public engagement was
also started. People were given a lot of press freedom and there was little to no
government control over press. “Laissez-faire” approach was used.

There were some restrictions in place for libel, false advertising and false news, but for
the most part, media was different body rather than a part of the government. Media
could criticize government and serve as gatekeepers or watchdogs for the society. It
ignored privacy and worked for capitalism. An example of it was U.S. adopting it after
the declaration of independence.

Social Responsibility Theory

In social responsibility theory, press is given freedom to publish anything but has to be
responsible in its actions. The main role of press is to help preserve and growth of
democracy. Guidelines and regulations make the press behave in a responsible
manner. Government can censor if it deems some information to be inappropriate for
democracy and social order.

Audience is also taken to be responsible in their understanding of things shown in

media. Government can not intrude media as per its will. Media is taken to be a
spokesperson of the poor and marginalized as well as provides diverse
views/perspectives.

It ignores corporations using press for commercialization and profit. It is found in most
European countries and other countries under European influence around the world
nowadays.

Communist Theory

Communist theory is also known as the Soviet Theory as it came from the then Soviet
Union after Russian Revolution of 1917. The main role of media in communist theory is
to promote communism and achieve communist goals. The main representatives of
communist power control the media. Information is controlled and is used to develop
people’s skills and fulfill their basic needs.

The target population is the working class people. It is more liberal than authoritarian
theory on information content in press. Media is self regulatory and there is no
censorship. An example of this theory is how press functions in China.

Additions to Normative Theories of the Press

McQuail is another theorist who added two more theories to the four normative
theories. One is Democratic-Participant Media Theory and the other is developmental
media (development communication) theory. The first one talks about participation of
audience in media. The second talks about media as a tool for development in local
level.

Normative theories are based on different types of government systems. So, which one
is good can not be measured by it. Media is important for states to survive and can be
used in any way the government wants it to.

There are other theories that have emerged after the normative theories to better their
aspects. Some of them are: Western concept (including both Libertarianism and Social
Responsibility), Development Concept Theory, Revolutionary Concept Theory,
Transitional Media Approach, etc.

Libertarian Theory of Mass Communication

“The basis of our government being the opinion of the people, the very first object
should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a
government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not
hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”
–Thomas Jefferson, the third president of United States (1787)

Libertarian theory or the Free Press Theory is one of the Normative Theories of mass
communication where media or press is given absolute freedom to publish anything at
any time and acts as a watchdog.

Libertarian theory or the Free Press Theory is one of the Normative Theories of mass
communication where media or press is given absolute freedom to publish anything at
any time and acts as a watchdog.

The theory came from the libertarian thoughts of Europe during the 16th century after
the invention of printing press and after the press movement. It was advocated by many
renowned personalities like Lao Tzu, John Locke, John Milton, John Stuart Mill,
Thomas Jefferson, etc. and is still famous in England and America.

Concepts of Libertarian Theory of Mass Communication

The libertarian theory is just the opposite of the Authoritarian theory of mass media
where information is controlled by the state or the authorities. In libertarian theory,
media is supposed to be privately owned.

The theory believes in freedom of thought and individualism. There is no control of

authority and everybody has the right to voice their opinion. There is also no censorship
and government must not hold any power to control and suppress media.

There is a flow of all kinds of information. All of the people are subjected to interpret
and decide which information they need and the authenticity of the information.
Rationality of human beings makes them able to do so. The press should not restrict
any information, even criticizing the policies. Though media has enormous power,
abuse of power can be dealt legally.

Major Features of Libertarian Theory of Mass Communication

 There is absolute freedom to media, media plays the role of a watchdog.

 In libertarian theory, there is freedom of thought and expression.
 There is also freedom of information and individualism.
 No censorship of any kind is to be done.
 There is high competition among alternative ideas and thoughts.
 The government does not own the media and media is a different body in the
functioning of the state.
 Media is accountable to the law of the country.
 Media must follow a code of conduct.
 Media encourages pluralist truths like both side of the same story.
 The media accepts a Laissez-faire approach in which there are not many set rules
that they have to follow. They can work as they want.
Example of Libertarian Theory of Mass Communication

Government reports of most of the countries can be found on the web nowadays.
People can criticize the government policies and works through social media or any
other media like newspapers.

These opinions cannot be censored unless it is against the rights of an individual. Also,
the person can file a law-suit if they are defamed or their privacy is compromised.

This is a complete example of Libertarian Theory of Mass Communication where

people and the media give comments or criticize the policies without any government
interference. It also prevents the growing effect of corruption by making government as
much transparent as possible and keeping people aware of their works.

Strengths of Libertarian Theory of Mass Communication

 Media can give true information without any control.

 There is no censorship.
 All individuals can express their opinions and thoughts in the media openly.
 The theory encourages healthy competition among the thoughts and ideas.
 Every work will be transparent to all.
 It checks the government and the state authorities and also prevents corruption.
 It functions with democracy.

Weaknesses of Libertarian Theory of Mass Communication

 Media might not always act responsibly.

 Individuals might not always have good intentions and ethics.
 People can not always make rational judgments.
 Freedom of different type of people, their ideas, opinions, school of thoughts, and
group objectives can be in a conflict.
 Media can misuse its power and harm other people’s privacy and dignity.
 Media might defame, cause sedition, libel or slander, be immodest, publish
obscenity and cause trouble.
 Media might challenge the security of the state.
Social Responsibility Theory
Social responsibility is ethics that guide any action, be it in media or other
organizations, that put an obligation towards environment, society, culture and
economy. The media like any other sector should not harm, but should promote
environment and socio-cultural aspects in relation to the economy of the place.

Social Responsibility theory of mass media is relatively a new concept which started in
the mid-20th century and is used mostly by developing and least developed countries.
The theory started from Europe and took a shape with the Commission on the Freedom
of Press that happened in United States in 1949.

The model was designed formally by Siebert, Peterson and Schramm in 1956 in their
book. It encourages total freedom to press and no censorship, but it should be
regulated according to social responsibilities and external controls. Content is also
filtered through public obligation and interference.

The theory replaced libertarian theory with the view that libertarianism was outdated.
The theory also incorporates some aspects of authoritarian theory. After the emergence
of this theory, professionalism in media started to be taken seriously.

Social Responsibility Theory Concepts

“Freedom of expression under the social responsibility theory is not an absolute right,
as under pure libertarian theory. One’s right to free expression must be balanced
against the private rights of others and against vital society interest.
– Siebert, Peterson, and Schramm

The social responsibility theory of mass media changed the way press published news
from objective reporting to interpretative reporting. Before this theory, facts were
presented without any interpretation.

The social responsibility theory of mass media changed the way press published news
from objective reporting to interpretative reporting. Before this theory, facts were
presented without any interpretation.

The audience interpreted it the way they wanted to. This caused problems as
interpretation was not based on reality and it affected the social order. Interpretative
reporting and investigative reporting started to uncover the reality behind every case.

In Social Responsibility Theory, the press is taken to be for the people and society. The
tasks of the press is to make a code of conduct and follow it, to develop a standard in
journalism, to make journalism better, to protect journalists and to have penalties if any
journalist violates the code of conduct.
This way, the facts provided by the press are analyzed and interpreted so that the
people get true information and understandable news. This helps maintain social
harmony by revealing social evils like corruption and discouraging other bad conducts.

The media is taken as a place for the voiceless to have a voice and develop public
opinions where each and every person has the right to speak, express and publish. . It
is considered not an end but a tool for social development. Therefore, the objectives of
media are stated to inform, document, analyze, interpret, mediate and mobilize by
creating and finding solutions.
Major Features of Social Responsibility Theory

 Private press ownership

Press is supposed to be owned privately. The government does not own the
press. The private owners should publish within the ethical guidelines and in a
responsible way.
 Helps democracy prosper
Media helps in maintaining democracy and does not encourage authoritarianism
or communism.
 Media as a democratic institution
Media is not a part of the government and it must work on its own. It has the
freedom to do anything they want, just not work out of the ethical standards.
 Public participation
Public must get to participate through comments, response, write and get involved
in all aspects of media’s work.
 Emphasis on social responsibility
The media must be responsible towards the society.
 Self-regulation in media
The media must have some boundaries within itself to be ethical. The regulations
are to be followed by all the media professionals involved in the particular
institution.
 Code of ethics
All the media institutions must have a written or unwritten code of ethics which
should be the standard followed by all.
 Professional standards
The quality of the publishing should be maintained, false interpretation of any
information should be avoided.
 Media role of criticizing government
Media is allowed to criticize the government roles, works and policies. It is done
to help the government get better.
 Helping eradicate social problems
 Media must speak against and aware people about social problems as it is
media’s responsibility to work for the betterment of the society.
 Pluralistic media (including ideas and people from different groups)
Media must write the views of different groups of people and not only about a
single group. It must never be biased.
 Social benefit
Media must work for the society and only do the things that are beneficial to the
 society. It should not write about the things that are ambiguous or contradictory
as those message might cause conflict in the society.

Examples of Social Responsibility Theory

Reports of health news in the media can be taken as media acting socially responsible.
The media gives information and awareness on health problems. It also provides
awareness on some basic health problems like diarrhea and how to cure them.

The media gives information about epidemics and health hazards. Here, acting
responsibly is by not spreading wrong news and panic.

There have been instances of mass panic among the people because of some
misunderstood news on health published by various media. Also, advertisements of
harmful substances like cigarettes and alcohol are considered to be wrong according to
the social responsibility theory.

Reporting on the performance of government institutions and unveil tyranny and

corruption by the media is also an example of socially responsible media as Media acts
like a critic of the government.

But, there are times when the media has severely damaged the reputation of some
politicians and political parties through irresponsible journalism, leading to major
conflicts in the society.

Strengths of Social Responsibility Theory

 It helps in avoiding conflicts during wars and conflicts.

 It accepts public opinion and works for the citizens.
 Press and media houses do not have monopoly as rules and ethics guide them.
 The media publishes truth due to regulatory activities and their moral obligation to
do so .
 Yellow journalism decreases as media can be questioned by the law and public.
 There is pluralism and diversification on news and people involved.
 The voiceless and marginalized people are able to raise their voice

Weaknesses of Social Responsibility Theory

 Ethics are always vague, ambiguous and differs from case to case.
 It is difficult to determine who sets clear principles and standards.
 Social responsibility and ethics are morally obligatory things. Any form of legal
limitations should not be imposed if media is just working in the principle of
responsibility. Laws are authoritative and not democratic concepts.
Development Communication Theory
The main idea behind development communication theory is media for development of
people in a nation or to help the target population. Communication seeks to serve the
people without manipulation and encourage genuine response.

There is no propaganda as ulterior motive of communication. Communication is to

develop Conscientization or critical consciousness which can be about self-
responsibility, social conscience and self-determination for right judgments and for social
communication. The theory was used for social change.
Explanation of Development Communication Theory

Development used to be taken as bridging the disparity between the so-called 1st world
and the 3rd world countries before the 20th century. Development was believed to be the
process which made the third world countries follow the first world countries/ western
countries, which were considered to be fully developed.

The under-developed countries had to follow their kind of political and economic
systems, like heavy industries, capital intensive technology, etc. All other countries had
to replicate a single form of development process which was practiced in some specific
countries.

Thus, development was linked with Westernization. Development communication was

at first based on the developmental theory of westernization but later had its own basis
in the developmental theory of modernization (1950s).

The definition of development communication has been evolving with time from
considering people as audiences who were to be influenced (one way) and the process
rooted in the SMCR model. The unilateral communication flow was criticized for cultural
imperialism. The socially engineered messages were disseminated for a propaganda to
control the culture of the poor countries by glorifying the conditions of the rich nations.

The theory focused on passive audience which was not participatory. This gave the
notion that development was being, like the developed countries, one way influence.
After that, the aspect of feedback was added.

Then, communication was said to be horizontal. Today, development communication is

about working for local development and creating opportunities. Its objective is to uplift
the quality of life of people not only economically but also socially, culturally, politically,
etc. by using the tools of development communication.

The theory later became known for its use in the developing and under developed
countries. The concept of participation was later added which paved the way for model
to be used for social change, development communication and democratic-participant
communication theory.
Development communications process can be adjusted according to the needs, which
improves the program as a learning process, as the concept of development
communication is continuously evolving. Development of different digital technologies
have made the concept broader and more participatory.

The implementation of this theory plays an important role in the overall development of
a country. If done for international development projects, the communication process
becomes a catalyst for the project to be successful.

Major Features of Development Communication Theory

 Development roles and objectives

 To help people
 No manipulation or propaganda
 Generates genuine response from the audience
 Used to develop critical consciousness
 Self-responsibility and self-determination
 Two way communication flow
 Uses development communication tools

Examples of Development Communication Theory

The reports and brochures of international development projects along with the
Information Education Communication and Behavioral Change Communication
materials can be taken as the examples of development communication tools. The
posters, brochures, documentaries, etc. used for development projects like awareness
in rural areas are development communication tools.

Strengths of Development Communication Theory

 Specified tools for communication makes communication effective.

 Helps in international development projects.
 Participation in communication media makes it inclusive.

Weaknesses of Development Communication Theory

 It enforces westernization more than modernization.

 Cultural hegemony is occurred through development communication
implementation.

Democratic-participant Theory of Mass Communication

The idea of Democratic participant Theory was started by grass-root level media in
1960s. It emerged because of the dissatisfaction with other models such as Libertarian
theory, social responsibility theory, etc. The democratic-participant theory believes there
is democratic and professional hegemony in the media today and the media is totally
commercial.
All these ill practices should be removed for the media to be democratic and be easily
accessible or participatory. It considers there should not be monopolization
(public/private), centralization of press and top down approach in the media.

The press should be pluralistic, decentralized, bottom-up or horizontal and must have
equality. The major concept is participation and full circular communication.

The theory places greater importance to the receivers. There are no political regulations
but some legal regulations. The theory is also known as Democratization theory.
Concepts of Democratic-participant Theory of Mass Communication

Media is said to be important in rural settings and in the cultures that are degrading with
time. The theory is believed to conserve and revive local cultures by promoting the right
to information (global and local), right to express (feedback), right to use new
technologies (means of communication), freedom to local data, freedom to take part in
social action, etc. In the process, it expects the government to provide funds, trainings
and subsidies after identification if they have financial or technical difficulties.

The democratic-participant theory is more relevant in liberal democratic developed

countries than developing and least developed countries because the countries in
transition from underdevelopment and non-democracy are alleged to lack the
infrastructures and professional skills needed for free media in democracy.

The theory considers local information, feedbacks and social action in community level
to be the roles of media. It discourages uniform, monopolized and commercialized
media culture. Rather, it wants local non-institutionalized media to provide the
information relevant to small groups of population.

This theory makes interaction between the media and the audience possible as the
population is less. It also encourages feedback which is only possible in small groups
and communities. The model is completely non-political and does not bolster political
control; its main objectives being encouraging national development, supporting local
culture and maintaining a good relation with other countries.

It also promotes equality between various genders, classes, castes, races, etc.
controlled by the group. This focus on equality is known as association mode which is
the opposite of command mode (sender superior to receiver).

Major Features of Democratic-participant Theory of Mass Communication

 Encourages horizontal and bottom up approach in media

 Supports democracy, existing political rule, national socio-economic development
efforts and to implement policies
 Media has supportive rather than critical role
  Government controls some aspects if media does not act as it should by the
process of registration, licensing, censorship, by preparing guidelines for media,
monitoring, etc.
 Self regulation of media is also encouraged
 More applicable to new media
 Development of creativity and innovation in small media
 Replacement of media from big media houses to small media
 Participation and interaction of media and audience (as both are from the same
group of population)
 Different communities, groups and organizations possessing their own media

Examples of Democratic-participant Theory of Mass Communication

The examples of democratic-participant theory are the present concepts of community

newspapers, community radios and televisions. Another examples are the trend of
social action through social media and language programs through phone apps. Even,
underground and alternative press are examples of this theory.

The theory is in use in Western Europe which can be seen by the cultural and ethnic
revival through media. Many countries have started following the theory in mass media
such as Yugoslavia, Kosovo, Ghana, Bangladesh, Nepal, India, US, UK, etc.
Community radio is mostly popular in South East Asian countries.

Strengths of Democratic-participant Theory of Mass Communication

 The audience can participate and get alternatives if not satisfied with one media.
 The theory is stricter than libertarian and social responsibility which makes it more
responsible towards the needs of the audience.
 The community can work for themselves as social action.
 The theory is not very authoritative unless the press hinders the work of the
government.
 There are the concepts of equality, inclusion and equal access which makes it
eliminate marginalization.
 Democracy becomes strong with the application of this theory.
 Small media gets the chance to work for local people.

Weaknesses of Democratic-participant Theory of Mass Communication

 Criticizing the government is not considered to be productive role of media.

 Local level media might lack professionalism and skills.
 The small local media might not be able to compete with media giants.
The Two-Step Flow of Communication Theory

"The mass do not now take their opinions from dignitaries in Church or State, from ostensible
leaders, or from books. Their thinking is done for them by men much like themselves, addressing
or speaking in their name, on the spur of the moment…."
-John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

Introduction
Development of the Two-Step Flow of Communication Theory
The Opinion Leaders
Criticisms
Praises and Support
Recent Studies Based on the Two-Step Flow of Communication Theory
Applications of the theory

Introduction

Man has forever fought against the forces of entropy, working very diligently at creating order and
meaning, dissecting and perusing until order is achieved. For civilization this has been important. It
has lent the world many fascinating theories about our surroundings and the effect human beings
can have. As order driven beings, we seek to stretch and apply knowledge gained in all aspects of
life to situations and experiences very different from the origin of the knowledge. It is through the
stretching and manipulating of old thought that new insights are made, and new psychological
mountains are tackled. It is through this stretching and manipulating of one socio-political based
theory that the field of Advertising has defined some of its capabilities and constraints in the area
of mass communication. This theory involves the two-step flow of communication.
This paper will address insights to the history and development, the criticisms and praises, recent
studies, and current applications of the two-step flow of communication theory. The ultimate goal
is to answer one question: "What does a theory based on socio-political research have to do with
advertising, anyway?"

Development of the Two-step Flow of Communication theory

As with most theories now applied to Advertising, the Two-step flow of communication was first
identified in a field somewhat removed from communications-sociology. In 1948, Paul Lazarsfeld,
Bernard Berelson, and Hazel Gaudet published The People's Choice, a paper analyzing the
votersi decision-making processes during a 1940 presidential election campaign. The study
revealed evidence suggesting that the flow of mass communication is less direct than previously
supposed. Although the ability of mass media to reach a large audience, and in this case
persuade individuals in one direction or another, had been a topic of much research since the
1920's, it was not until the People's Choice was published that society really began to understand
the dynamics of the media-audience relationship. The study suggested that communication from
the mass media first reaches "opinion leaders" who filter the information they gather to their
associates, with whom they are influential. Previous theories assumed that media directly reached
the target of the information. For the theorists, the opinion leader theory proved an interesting
discovery considering the relationship between media and its target was not the focus of the
research, but instead a small aspect of the study.

Lazarsfeld et al suggested that "ideas often flow from radio and print to the opinion leaders and
from them to the less active sections of the population." People tend to be much more affected in
their decision making process by face to face encounters with influential peers than by the mass
media (Lazarsfeld, Menzel, 1963). As Weiss described in his 1969 chapter on functional theory,
"Media content can be a determining influence…. What is rejected is any conception that
construes media experiences as alone sufficient for a wide variety of effects." The other piece in
the communication process is the opinion leader with which the media information is discussed.

The studies by Lazarsfeld and his associates sparked interest in the exact qualities and
characteristics that define the opinion leader. Is an opinion leader influential in all cases, on all
topics? Or is the influence of an opinion leader constrained to certain topics? How does an opinion
leader come to be influential?

The Opinion Leaders

Who are they? How have they come to be defined?

A study by Robert Merton revealed that opinion leadership is not a general characteristic of a
person, but rather limited to specific issues. Individuals who act as opinion leaders on one issue,
may not be considered influentials in regard to other issues (Merton, 1949). A later study directed
by Lazarsfeld and Katz further investigated the characteristics of opinion leaders. This study
confirmed the earlier assertions that personal influence seems more important in decision making
than media. Again, influential individuals seem constrained in their opinion leading to particular
topics, non-overlapping among the individuals. The opinion leaders seem evenly distributed
among the social, economical, and educational levels within their community, but very similar in
these areas to those with whom they had influence.

Katz and Lazarsfeld did not identify any particular traits amongst opinion leaders that stand out.
The traits that characterize each of the opinion leaders in their niche did have things in common,
though. For one thing, the opinion leaders were identified as having the strongest interest in their
particular niche. They hold positions within their community affording them special competence in
their particular niches. They are generally gregarious, sociable individuals. Finally, they had/have
contact with relevant information supplied from outside their immediate circle. Interestingly
enough, Katz and Lazarsfeld observed that the opinion leaders receive a disproportionate amount
of their external information from media appropriate to their niche.

Studies by Glock and Nicosia determined that opinion leaders act "as a source of social pressure
toward a particular choice and as a source of social support to reinforce that choice once it has
been made (1966)." Charles Glock explained that opinion leaders often develop leadership
positions in their social circles. They achieve these positions based on their knowledge of
situations outside their circles (1952).

Criticisms

Although the theory of indirect flow of information from media to the target was quickly adopted,
the original study performed by Lazarsfeld, Berelson, and Gaudet was not. It had a few faults. The
panel method by which they attempted to better understand the influences reaching a voter was
unfaulted. It very effectively allowed the researchers to notice changes in a voter's feelings almost
immediately. The resulting unit of change was an objective measurement that could easily be
recorded and compared. The faults lie in the manner with which the researchers addressed the
flow of influences.

Since the research was not designed to specifically test the flow of influence, the experiment was
decidedly lacking in explanations. The first problem concerning the findings of the study were that
the data had to be collected in a random sample, but subjects in a random sample can only speak
for themselves. For these reasons, each person could only say whether or not they considered
his/herself an advice giver. Lazarsfeld and his associates in the 1940 election study were unable
to determine the specific flow of influence. They determined there were a number of opinion
leaders spread throughout the socio-economic groups; however, these leaders were not directly
linked to particular groups within the socio-economic levels.

Even within studies specifically designed to determine who opinion leaders are and how they are
different from the average populace, there have been problems born from experimental design.
"The criticisms of the concept of opinion leaders has focused mainly on its methodological
deficiencies (Weimann, 1991)." As Weimann suggested in his 1989 study of pervious research,
much of the design problems involved determining the opinion leaders while studying the flow of
information. There seemed to be too many factors to control. Despite the difficulties in qualifying
the influentials, the theory of a group of individuals that filter the flow of media information has
lived on.

Praises and Support

Although the empirical methods behind the two-step flow of communication were not perfect, the
theory did provide a very believable explanation for information flow. The opinion leaders do not
replace media, but rather guide discussions of media. Brosius explains the benefits of the opinion
leader theory well in his 1996 study of agenda setting, "The opinion leaders should not be
regarded as replacing the role of interpersonal networks but, in fact, as reemphasizing the role of
the group and interpersonal contacts."

Lazarsfeld and his associates detailed five characteristics of personal contact that give their theory
more validity:

Non-purposiveness/casualness One must have a reason for tuning into a political speech on
television, but political conversations can just "pop-up". In this situation, the people are less likely
to have their defenses up in preparation, they are more likely open to the conversation.
Flexibility to counter resistance In a conversation, there is always opportunity to counter any
resistance. This is not so in media, a one sided form of communication.
Trust Personal contact carries more trust than media. As people interact, they are better able
through observation of body language and vocal cues to judge the honesty of the person in the
discussion. Newspaper and radio do not offer these cues.
Persuasion without conviction The formal media is forced to persuade or change opinions. In
personal communication, sometimes friendly insistence can cause action without affecting any
comprehension of the issues.
Menzel introduced another strong point in favor of the two-step flow of information theory. First,
there are an abundance of information channels "choked" with all types of journals, conferences,
and commercial messages. These are distracting and confusing to their target. With the barrage of
information humans are flooded with daily, it is not hard to understand why someone might turn to
a peer for help evaluating all of it.

Recent Studies Based on the Two-step Flow of Communication theory

The true test of a theory lies in its timelessness, its ability to spark interest and provoke thought
years after its introduction. The two step flow of communication theory has been able to remain
relevant throughout the years. This should not be difficult to believe considering it has fueled at
least the past few pages this year, forty years after its debut. There have been several recent
studies that have addressed issues arising from Lazarsfeld's, Katz's, and Merton's studies from
the 1940s. In two such studies Gabriel Weimann (1994) and Hans-Bernd Brosius (1996)
addressed the setting of agendas as a two step flow of communication.
In Weimann's paper addressing the re-emergence of the opinion leader theory into modern day
(1991), he addresses several problems that have been overcome sparking the new interest in the
old theory. As is further discussed in the section on theory criticisms, the two-step flow of
communication theory is difficult to witness in the field. Many researchers have attempted to
design credible models for testing the theory, but with only minor success (Weimann, 1991).
Brosius and Weimann set out to explain agenda setting using the basis of the two-step flow of
communication theory determined by Lazarsfeld, Katz, and the many other researchers. To avoid
the difficulties in studying the actual flow of communication, Weimann and Brosius separated the
opinion leaders from their two-step flow of communication theory. Participants were studied
against a scale to determine the "Strength of Personality".

The Brosius-Weimann study attempts to describe the individuals whose personal communication
has impact on agenda setting. These individuals are the archetypal opinion leaders, who still
control the flow of information. Weimann and Brosius define agenda setting as a two-step flow,
wherein certain individuals (influentials) "collect, diffuse, filter, and promote the flow of information"
from media to the community. The difference between these influentials and the opinion leaders,
as Weimann stresses, is that these influentials are usually elitists, not spread throughout the
community as the old theory suggested (Weimann, 1991). Are these influentials a new breed? Or
is there really a difference between influentials and opinion leaders? This, as yet, has not been
addressed. Weimann and Brosius suggest the influentials are a subsection of the opinion leaders.

Applications of the Theory

To those who claim that there are no applications of a socio-political theory in advertising, exhibit
A is the barrage of articles written daily on the very subject. No longer does the advertising
industry doubt the existence or qualities of influentials, as they are most commonly referred to
today. Instead, the discussion revolves around effectively targeting messages to reach these
influentials.

For fifty years, the research organization Roper has considered the group of "influentials"
important enough to track. Regularly, reports and studies are performed in an attempt to unlock
the secret to reaching these influentials. Who are they? What has the term "influential" come to
describe? According to Diane Crispell, these people are the "thought leaders" and "pioneer
consumers". "Influentials are better educated and more affluent than the average American, but it
is their interest in the world around them and their belief that they can make a difference that
makes them influential (Crispell, 1989)."

The influentials today seem to be isolated in the upper class. They are the trend-setters. It is this
group that is first to adopt new technology, and remains on the leading edge of trends (Poltrack,
1985). This is the group that advertising attempts to reach. Daily articles are published on
maximizing the market by reaching these influentials. The idea remains that the most efficient
media is word-of-mouth, and it is by reaching the influentials with other forms of media that this
word-of-mouth is generated. It seems the opinion leaders of yesterday have been overlooked for
the smaller subset of influentials.