Analysis of Communication Theories On

Magic Bullet Theory and Media Richness Theory

By

Mohd Norhazli Bin Mohamed Azlanudin

Master of Corporate Communication
Faculty of Modern Language and Communication
University Putra Malaysia
2008

Introduction

Communication is the production and exchange of information and meaning by use of

signs and symbols. It involves encoding and sending messages, receiving and decoding

them, and synthesizing information and meaning. Communication permeates all levels of

human experience and it is central to understanding human behavior and to nearly all

public health efforts aimed at fostering health behavior change among individuals,

populations, organizations, communities, and societies.

According to Miller.K (2005), communication may be studied empirically and critically

at different levels of interaction. These levels, often described on a "micro-to-micro"

range are "intra-personal" (how individuals process information), "inter-personal" (how

two individuals interact to influence one another), group (how communication dynamics

occur among many individuals), formal and informal "organizations" (how

communication occurs and functions in the context of organizations such as hospitals,

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schools, or public health agencies), and "community" and "society" (how communication

builds or changes the agenda of important issues).

Empirical study means applying scientific methods to the study of communication; as in

the study of behavior change resulting from exposure to a communication campaign.

Critical study means applying methods of cultural, literary, or normative criticism to the

study of communication; as in the analysis of how media content creates health-related

meaning and influences behavioral norms through commercial advertising or

entertainment (Witzany.G, 2007).

Many fields emphasize the importance of communication theory as a basis for

understanding human behavior. For the field of public health, the use of applied

communication perspectives involves how communication activity positively or

negatively contributes to health behavior, and how the planned use of communication

influences health behavior within the context of health education and health promotion

according to (Littlejohn S. W, 2002)

The Theories

Magic Bullet Theory

The magic bullet theory implied that had a direct, immediate and powerful effect on their

audiences. The mass media in the 1940s and 1950s were perceived as a powerful

influence on behavior change. Several factors contributed to this "strong effects" theory

of communication, including: the fast rise and popularization of radio and television, the

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emergence of the persuasion industries, such as advertising and propaganda, the Payne

Fund studies of the 1930s, which focused on the impact of motion pictures on children,

and Hitler's monopolization of the mass media during World War II to unify the German

public behind the Nazi party stated by Stewert, M. (2003).

This view of propaganda took root after World War I and was championed by theorists

such as Harold Lasswell in his pioneering work Propaganda Technique in the World War

(1927). He argued that the people had been duped and degraded by propaganda during

the war. Lasswell based his work on a stimulus-response model rooted in learning theory.

Focusing on mass effects, this approach viewed human responses to the media as uniform

and immediate. E. D. Martin expressed this approach thus: "Propaganda offers ready-

made opinions for the unthinking herd". The "Magic Bullet" of direct influence effects

was not as widely accepted by scholars as many books on mass communication indicate.

The magic bullet theory was not based on empirical findings from research but rather on

assumptions of the time about human nature. People were assumed to be "uniformly

controlled by their biologically based 'instincts' and that they react more or less uniformly

to whatever 'stimuli' came along" according to Brown, B. (2000)

The phrasing "magic bullet" is meant to give a mental image of the direct, strategic, and

planned infusion of a message into an individual. Like a bullet that give direct impact to

the person who been shot. But as research methodology became more highly developed,

it became apparent that the media had selective influences on people.

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The most famous incident often cited as an example for the magic bullet model was the

1938 broadcast of The War of the Worlds and the subsequent reaction of widespread

panic among its American mass audience.

However, this incident actually sparked the research movement, led by Paul Lazarsfeld

and Herta Herzog, that would disprove the magic bullet theory, as Hadley Cantril

managed to show that reactions to the broadcast were, in fact, diverse, and were largely

determined by situational and attitudinal attributes of the listeners.

In Malaysia, mostly the people get the information from media such as television, radio,

news paper or internet. Magic bullet theory always happens a lot in local situation

because of the culture and on how Malaysian people thinking about something. Over here

the press media already become the ‘main hand’ in situation that happened including

politic, government and local event. Press media could give huge effect to change

reputation of someone, make someone perspective and make lies looks true.

For example in News Strait Times dated on early 2006 shocked the local by showing the

filthy bread factory condition owned by Silver Bird Group Limited at Nilai, Negeri

Sembilan. Silver Group Limited is a company that produces variety of bread and junk

food for local market. They popular products such as HI5 bread, Silver Bird layer cake

and Silver Bird fruit cake. Some local eyewitness captures the internal factory and gave it

to the press media. This topic become huge until many hand push the government to

investigate the story. Many people believe the pictures and the locals boycott any product

from the company.

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In the end of 2006, The Star comes out news about Silver Bird Limited factory actually

already move from Nilai to Shah Alam, Selangor. The pictures that media display to the

locals are come from their old factory at Nilai. They stated to the press that the pictures

maybe come from unauthorized parties that want to make their reputation bad and they

already make police lodge on that case.

Media Richness Theory

Media richness theory, sometimes referred to as information richness theory, is a

framework that can be used to describe a communications medium by describing its

ability to reproduce the information sent over it. It was developed by Richard L. Daft and

Robert H. Lengel according to Ngwenyama, Ojelanki K., & Lee, Allen S. (2000)

For example, a phone call will not be able to reproduce visual social cues such as

gestures. This makes it less rich (as a communication medium) than video conferencing,

which is able to communicate gestures, at least to some extent. More specifically, media

richness theory states that the more ambiguous and uncertain a task is, the richer format

of media is suitable to it. It is based on contingency theory and information processing

theory. Essentially, it explains that richer, more personal means of communication are

generally more effective for communication of equivocal issues than leaner, less rich

media.

The most immediate and profound application of media richness theory is for senders in

choosing a medium for communication. The theory implies that a sender can (and should)

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use the richest possible medium to communicate the desired message. In reality, senders

are often forced to use less-rich methods of communication.

Kock, N. (2005) refers that the senders that use less-rich media of communication should

understand the limitations of that medium in the dimensions of feedback, multiple cues,

message tailoring, and emotions. Take for example the relative difficulty of determining

whether a modern text message is serious or sarcastic in its tone.

Information richness is defined by Daft and Lengel as "the ability of information to

change understanding within a time interval”. Communications that can overcome

different frames of reference and clarify ambiguous issues to promote understanding in a

timely manner are considered richer. Communications that take a longer time to convey

understanding are less rich.

According to Daft and Lengel's theory, media richness is a function of the medium's

capacity for immediate feedback, the number of cues and channels available, language

variety; and the degree to which intent is focused on the recipient. The greater social

presence of a medium creates a greater immediacy and warmth of the communication,

because of the greater number of channels.

In Malaysia, this theory mostly applicable in the local organizations or between two local

person. Take internal situation observation at Kuala Lumpur Metropolitan University as

example, most of the decisions making is came from Dato’ Idrus as the Presiden. When

come into decision making or new order from Dato’ Idrus, employees always get lack of

full information. This is because Dato’ Idrus will give his orders to head of department,

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senior executive and goes through the employees below the department but mostly they

didn’t receive a perfect information. The information always changing when goes

through on one person to another.

Over here employees don’t get full media richness and this will change the information

genuine. Because of this situation, some of the organization is hard to achieve their goals.

Suggestions

Magic bullet and media richness theories maybe can be improve in line with the changing

of human lifestyle and daily technology that around. Magic bullet theories can be change

on the quality of the information.

The quality of the information can be control by some organization in the country. The

most immediate and profound application of media richness theory is for senders in

choosing a medium for communication.

In Malaysia for example, there is agency for media production content censorship such as

Lembaga Penapisan Filem Malaysia or National Film Censorship Board. Every new

movies or videos need to be analyze and censored (depend on the content) so that the

screening will not give bad effect on the audience. These will control the magic bullet

theory in order manner. Someone needs to control their own message to others.

For media richness theory, it can be enhance on information delivery using multiple

medium of channel. Now day, lot of technology companies design technologies that

increasing the media richness in the media.

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Human right now can talk to other not only using telephone but they can feel talking each

other in digital video conference same like they talk face to face in far distance.

Technology actually can be proven medium to giving the effective communication

among humans.

Conclusions

Here will concluded that in human typical communication, human have variety of

channel to use to communicated and sending the message throughout the universe.

Technologies can bring up the information delivery near to perfect and give ability to

everyone to communicate effectively. Technology actually can be proven medium to

giving the effective communication among humans. Determination of the theories could

change the perception and awareness of the way to communicate but human need to be

wise to choose their actions or others will choose actions for them.

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References:

 Littlejohn, S. W. (2002), Theories of human communication. 7th edition,

Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

 Newberry, Brian (2001). "Media Richness, Social Presence and Technology

Supported Communication Activities in Education".

http://learngen.org/resources/module/lgend101_norm1/200/210/211_3.html.

Retrieved on 2009-08-04.

 Miller, K (2005)., Communication Theories: Perspectives, processes, and

contexts. 2nd Edition. New York: McGraw-Hill.

 Ngwenyama, Ojelanki K., & Lee, Allen S. (2000). Communication richness in

electronic mail: Critical social theory and the contextuality of meaning. MIS

Quarterly, 21(2), 145-167.

 Witzany, G (2007) , "The Logos of the Bios 2. Bio-Communication", Helsinki,

Umweb.

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 Kock, N. (2005). Media richness or media naturalness? The evolution of our

biological communication apparatus and its influence on our behavior toward e-

communication tools. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, 48(2),

117-130.

 Filthy Hi5 bread factory. (2006, February 3). The New Strait Times. p.3

 Quality of bread strictly controlled, assures baker. (2006, September 14). The

Star.p. 12

 Brown, B. (2000, January 28). Mass Communication Theories. Retrieved July 24,

2009, from University Virtual African Website:

http://uva.ulb.ac.be/cit_courseware/research/theories4.htm

 Stewert, M. (2003, June 6). Hypodermic Needle Theory. Retrieved July 12, 2009,

from University of Twente Website:

http://www.tcw.utwente.nl/theorieenoverzicht/Theory%20clusters/Mass%20Medi

a/Hypodermic_Needle_Theory.doc/

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