COMS 361 - Lecture 5, Media Models and Beneficial Propaganda

Media Models Related to Beneficial Propaganda

• Increasing use of positive propaganda strategies via mass media.

• Effective message delivery leads to significant behaviour changes when combined with community components.

• Various media theories can explain these messages in the context of media, technology, and society.

• Three key communication theories discussed:

Linear Models of Communication

• One-Way Communication

  • A sender transmits a message and a receiver absorbs it in the presence of noise.

  • No feedback of response

• Things That Affect the One-Way Communication Process

  • The choice of channel selected

  • Linear communication examples:

    • Emails, blog posts, social media posts

• Critiques

  • Lack of feedback does not account for continuous communication exchanges

  • These model don’t explain other forms of communication

Shannon & Weaver’s Communication Model

This model was developed by Shannon & Weaver and depicts the flow of communication.

• Describes communication as a linear process involving:

  • Sender → Signal → Receiver.

  • Noise that may disrupt the interpretation of the signal.

• Key features:

  • Viewed as sending and receiving information.

  • Message can be conveyed in spoken or textual form.

  • Noise (psychological factors) can affect message interpretation.

• Strengths:

  • Simplicity, generality, and quantifiability.

  • Direct public information messages from authorities to audiences.

Harold Lasswell’s Linear Model

• Looks at the relationship between the communicator and the receiver

• Focuses on sender, receiver, and the effect of the message

  • Lasswell famously says “Who says what in which channel and to whom with what effect”.

• Prioritizes the messages and draws attention to its effect

Two-Step Flow Model of Communication

This model (developed by Lazersfeld et al.) proposes that interpersonal interaction has a far stronger effect on shaping public opinion than mass media outlets.

• Mass media content reaches “opinion leaders”

  • Active media users who collect, interpret, and diffuse the meaning of media messages to less-active media consumers

  • Suggests that most people receive information from opinion leaders through interpersonal communication rather than directly from mass media.

• Authors based their argument on their survey of US voters in 1940:

  • Most voters got their election information about the candidates from other people who read about the campaign in the newspapers, not directly from the media.

  • Suggests that word-of-mouth transmission of information plays and important role in the communication process and that mass media only have a limited influence on most individuals.

• This model challenged and reversed the dominant paradigm in mass communication at the time:

  • It used to be assumed that mass media have a direct influence on a mass audience who consume and absorb media messages

  • Interpersonal communication with members of a person’s social surroundings (family, friends, coworkers) turned out to be better predictors of voting behaviour than someone’s media exposure

• This theory, applied to mass media campaigns, suggests that the use of opinions leaders, credible experts, or credible interpersonal relations in delivering the message, can have a significant impact on the resulting message and its impact on audiences

Media Functionalism

This model looks at the word of media through the lens of its operations as a social actor in the smooth running of the social structure.

• There are four functions to the media according to Charles Wright:

  • Surveillance of the environment

  • Correlation of the parts of society in responding to the environment

  • Transmission of the social heritage from one generation to the next

  • Entertainment

    • Distinction between intended mass media purposes and unintended consequences.

• Additional functions:

  • Information-providing function of media is important because it ensures that audiences are provided with credible and timely information.

  • Provides necessary education to audiences in which persuasion is an important technique.

  • Offering surveillance of the social system which it serves in order to warn audiences of impending harms that may occur.

Summary

• We have covered communication theories that can be applied to media messages and campaigns that aim at conveying messages deemed important and urgent.