Theory of Mass Communication by Harold Lasswell

Harold Dwight Lasswell (February 13, 1902 — December 18, 1978)

Harold D. Lasswell (1902-1978) is known for his studies in the field of Politics. He is considered a pioneer in the application of Psychology principles to Politics, as well as in constructing a system of Politics based on theories of Natural Sciences.

Harold Dwight Lasswell was born in Donnellson, Illinois, on February 13, 1902. His father was a Presbyterian clergyman and his mother was a schoolteacher.

Due to his successes in school, Lasswell obtained a grant for studying sociology at the University of Chicago, where he graduated in 1922. In 1926, with only 24 years old, he received the title of doctor from the same institution. His dissertation on "Propaganda Technique in the World War" (1927) is considered a leading study on Communication Theories. During this period of his life, Lasswell was influenced by the pragmatism taught by John Dewey and George Herbert Mead, among others.

But he also studied at the universities of London, Geneva, Paris and Berlin - where he studied Sigmund Freud, whose theories were determinant for Lasswell's psychological approach to Political Science.

The University of Chicago made Lasswell an assistant professor in 1927 and an associate one in 1932. He stayed there until 1938, when he transferred to the Washington School of Psychiatry. But the Second World War started and Lasswell became the director of War Communications Research at the Library of Congress. He also worked as a professor at the New School of Social Research in New York City and at Yale Law School.

Primary Articles:

 

     Laswell, H (1948). The structure and function of communication and society: The communication of ideas. New York: Institute for Religious and Social Studies,  203-243.

Mass communication occurs when a small number of people send messages to a large anonymous and usually heterogeneous audience through the use of specialized communication media.

The units of analysis for mass communication are the messages, the mediums, and the audience.

Mass Communication represents the creation and sending of a homogeneous message to a large heterogeneous audience through the media. Mass communication studies the uses and effects of the media by many as opposed to the study of human interaction as in other communication contexts.

Harold Dwight Lasswell, the American political scientist states that a convenient way to describe an act of communication is to answer the following questions

• Who

• Says What

• In Which Channel

• To Whom

• With what effect

 

This model is about process of communication and its function to society, According to Lasswell there are three functions for communication:

1. Surveillance of the environment
2. Correlation of components of society
3. Cultural transmission between generation
4. Entertainment
5. Mobilization

Lasswell model suggests the message flow in a multicultural society with multiple audiences. The flow of message is through various channels. And also this communication model is similar to Aristotle’s communication model.

In this model, the communication component who refers the research area called “Control Analysis”,

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

Who: the sender.

This component of communication has to be studied through the “Control Analysis”. This requires the researcher to investigate things such as which company owes certain TV channel or newspaper, the ideology of the different media it owes, etc.

What: the message.

Lasswell’s main preoccupation was the mass communication, so he was especially concerned with the messages present in the media. The “Content analysis” is usually related to representations of concrete persons and situations in the media, this is, with stereotypes. For example: how are women represented in television? If one common representation of women is the housewife that cleans the house and takes care of the children, we would have to compare the percentage of that kind of women in TV to the real or objective percentage by resorting to official statistics.

Channel: the media.

In simple terms, we can state that messages can be sent in channels corresponding to our five senses. Each sense, and therefore each channel, suits better in different cases. The “Media analysis” is aimed to study the choice of one medium among all the possibilities, which will depend on lots of factors such as the content of the message, the purpose of the message, the target public, etc.

Whom: the receiver.

The question of the audience is of vital importance in order to be successful in a concrete communicational situation. By the “Audience analysis” we will try to know every important thing about the target public of one message, from gender and age to social status and tastes.

Effect: the consequences.

Lasswell was especially concerned by the consequences of mass communication on the population, so one of his major contributions was the concept of “effect”. Through the “Effect analysis” we will try to know how certain message has affected its receivers.

Although Lasswell’s model was aimed to study mass communication, it is positively known for being suitable to different situations, including interpersonal communication

Example:

CNN NEWS – A water leak from Japan’s tsunami-crippled nuclear power station resulted in about 100 times the permitted level of radioactive material flowing into the sea, operator Tokyo Electric Power Co said on Saturday.

Who – TEPC Operator

What – Radioactive material flowing into sea

Channel – CNN NEWS (Television medium)

Contributions

Lasswell made these contributions to the field of communication study:

• His five-questions model of communication led to the emphasis in communication study on determining effects. Lasswell’s contemporary, Paul F. Lazarsfeld, did even more to crystallize this focus on communication effects.
• He pioneered in content analysis methods, virtually inventing the methodology of qualitative and quantitative measurement of communication messages (propaganda messages and newspaper editorials, for example).
• His study of political and wartime propaganda represented an important early type of communication study. The word propaganda later gained a negative connotation and is not used much today, although there is even more political propaganda. Propaganda analysis has been absorbed into the general body of communication research.
• He introduced Freudian psychoanalytic theory to the social sciences in America. Lasswell integrated Freudian theory with political analysis, as in his psychoanalytic study of political leaders. He applied Freud's id-ego-superego via content analysis to political science problems. In essence, he utilized intraindividual Freudian theory at the societal level.
• He helped create the policy sciences, an interdisciplinary movement to integrate social science knowledge with public action. The social sciences, however, generally resisted this attempt at integration and application to public policy problem.

Major works

• Propaganda Technique in the World War (1927; Reprinted with a new introduction, 1971)
• Psychopathology and Politics, (1930; reprinted, 1986)
• World Politics and Personal Insecurity (1935; Reprinted with a new introduction, 1965)
• Politics: Who Gets What, When, How (1936)
• "The Garrison State" (1941)
• Power and Personality (1948)
• Political Communication: Public Language of Political Elites in India and the US (1969)

Advantage of lasswell model:

• It is Easy and Simple
• It suits for almost all types of communication
• The concept of effect