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Propaganda Theory
First systematic theory of mass communication.
Focuses on the media’s ability to have a direct impact on
the mass society.
Audience’s role here was also passive and defenseless.
Overestimates the speed and range of the mass media’s
influence.
Mass society theories greatly exaggerated the ability of media
to quickly undermine social order.
This notion was mainly propagated by the powerful social and
cultural elites, who saw the traditional social order that was
serving them so well undermined by popular media content. LIMITATIONS
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) IMPORTANT THEORIES
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.
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
A. Selective Exposure
B. Selective Perception
C. Selective Retention
Though most mass communication researchers in the United
States found limited-effects notions and empirical research
findings on which they were based persuasive, researchers in
other parts of the world were less convinced.
Mass society notions continued to flourish in Europe, where
both left-wing and right-wing concerns about the power of
BACKGROUND
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
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.
One group of European social theorists who vehemently resisted
postwar U.S. influence was the neo-Marxists (Hall,1982).
These left-wing social theorists believe that media enable
dominant social elites to maintain their power. Media provide the
elite with a convenient, subtle, yet highly effective means of
promoting worldviews favorable to their interests.
During the 1970s, questions about the possibility of powerful BACKGROUND (CONTINUED)
media effects were again raised within U.S. universities. These
arguments were routinely ignored and marginalized by social
scientists because they were unsupported by “scientific evidence.”
Some of these scholars were attracted to European-style cultural
criticism. Others attempted to create an “authentic” American
school of cultural studies – though they drew heavily on Canadian
scholars like Harold Innis and Marshall McLuhan (Carey, 1977).
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