Theories Classifications: According

to Contexts
 Theories Classifications: According to
Contexts
 Collating the Contexts:
 These seven categories help us
discuss the communication process more clearly and specifically.
 There is often overlap among the categories.
For instance, when people belong to an online cancer support
group, their communication has elements of at least four contexts:
intrapersonal, interpersonal, small group, and mass communication.
 Technology similarly pervades each of these contexts
and consequently, communication is affected.
For example, online dating sites are not always researched
with a mediated lens; it is a topic that is also both intrapersonal
(e.g., the personal decision to go online) as well as interpersonal
(the communication between two people).
 Core theories of mass communication, and theories of
intrapersonal, interpersonal, group communication and
cultural context, which are relevant to mass communication
field.
1- Mass Communication: Media effects:
Magic bullet theory, Limited effects theory, Uses and gratifications,
Agenda setting theory and framing theory, Cultivation theory,
knowledge gap theory, Third person theory, Models and theories of
persuasion, Social Cognitive Theory.
2- Intrapersonal communication: Cognitive dissonance.
3- Interpersonal communication: Two step flow of communication,
Symbolic interactionism.
4- Group and public communication: Narrative paradigm.
5- Cultural context: Gender and communication: Genderlect styles.
First theories of effects: Magic Bullet theory/ Hypodermic
needle theory/ Direct effects
Mass Communication:
Media effects:
Magic Bullet theory/ Hypodermic needle/ Direct effects

Introduction
Weaknesses
 Magic Bullet theory/ Hypodermic needle/ Direct effects
 Introduction
 They represent a milestone in mass communications studies as
they represent the first phase of media effects research.
 It presumes that the mass media fire messages like bullets and all
individuals are susceptible to these powerful messages in the
same way.
 The metaphor also reinforces the idea that many people will
receive the same message at the same time.
 This theory uses a medical term to describe a mass
communication theory describing mass media effects on an
audience. The theory holds that the mass media wield a direct,
immediate, and highly influential effect by injecting or shooting
information into an audience, as a hypodermic needle does into a
patient.
 Magic Bullet theory/ Hypodermic needle/ Direct effects
 Introduction:
 The term was frequently used during World War I in support of the
idea that people were thought to be brainwashed, in effect, by
mass media messages.
 It assumed that audiences passively accepted media messages and
would exhibit predictable reactions in response to those
messages.
 These approaches claimed that when a message reached its
audience, it would exert powerful and uniform effects on each
person who processed the message.
 For example, following the radio broadcast of War of the Worlds
in 1938 (which was a fictional news report of an alien invasion),
some people panicked and believed the story to be true.
 Magic Bullet theory/ Hypodermic needle/ Direct effects
 Weaknesses:
 The hypodermic theory is today generally perceived as outdated
and oversimplified, as it was coined before substantial research
was done on mass media effects.
 It has since been criticized for promoting a pessimistic view of
society and portraying audiences as impressionable, passive,
defenseless, and having uniform reactions.
 The original model did not take into account the intervening
factors.
 Depending on one's personal orientation—intelligence level,
previous experience, personality—the media will affect each
person differently.
Magic Bullet theory/ Hypodermic needle/ Direct effects

 Weaknesses:
 The idea that each member of an audience receives and
processes information in the same way has been
discredited.
A study performed in response to the radio broadcast of
the “War of the Worlds,” which caused great panic
among its listeners, found that certain characteristics of
the listeners did, in fact, influence whether they
checked other sources of information before
succumbing to panic.
 Limited effects theory/model Mass Communication:
Media effects:

 Introduction
 Main premise
 Selectivity
 Limited effects
relation to magic
bullet theory
 Limited effects theory

 Introduction:
 This theoretical approach emerged in the late 1940s
and early 1950s in large part because of a team of
researchers at Columbia University (Paul Lazarsfeld,
Bernard Berelson, and Hazel Gaudet) who conducted
a series of studies in Erie County, Ohio, to learn how
and why people decided to vote as they did.
 The results of the study indicated limited effects
with regard to the influence of media exposure
leading to a change in vote intention from one
candidate to the other.
 Limited effects theory

 Introduction:
 Rather, they concluded that media exposure led to a
reinforcement of voting choice as “correct” among participants
instead of a change in vote intention.
 The media messages over the course of the campaign, instead of
serving to move voters toward a decision, were mostly valuable
to support a voter's decision regarding for whom to vote.
 Additionally, the study conclusions indicated that people tend
to seek out communication messages that are in line with their
personal opinions and perspective, while those messages that
are in contrast with one's opinion are discarded or avoided.
 Limited effects theory

 Main premise:
Limited effects theory is an
approach to mass media effects
that claims the media
have limited effects on their
audiences and/or on society.
 Limited effects theory

 Main premise:
 The notion of selective exposure was further
explained by Joseph T. Klapper, an influential
author in support of the limited effects theory.
 He notes that people will have selective exposure
to mass communication that supports their opinions
and interests, selective perception in how they
process the messages from mass media, and
selective retention in choosing to remember those
messages that support their opinions.
 Limited effects theory
 Main premise:
 Klapper presented generalizations about the effects of
mass communication, of which is the following:
Mass communication ordinarily does not serve as a
necessary cause of audience effects, but rather
functions among and through mediating factors.
 The mediating factors that Klapper was referring
include selective processes, in line with group
processes, group norms, and opinion leadership.
 The effects of mass communication are limited .
 Limited effects theory
 Selectivity: Four rings of defenses

Selective Selective Selective Selective

exposure attention perception Retention
 Limited effects theory

 Selectivity:
 Remember: There are four basic selective processes which a
human being can utilize when he receives a message:
 Four rings of defenses:
 Selective exposure: The person actively seeks to avoid
exposure to messages or media that do not agree with his
needs, attitudes, or values.
 Selective attention: People have a tendency to pay attention to
those parts of the message that are consonant with their
strongly held attitudes, beliefs or behavior, and to avoid parts
otherwise different or contradicting their existing beliefs,
attitudes, behaviors or values.
 Limited effects theory

 Selectivity:
 Remember: There are four basic selective processes which a
human being can utilize when he receives a message:
 Four rings of defenses:
 Selective perception: Even if a person had to expose himself and
pay attention to a message which he does not agree with, he still
can misperceive such a message. He may only perceive those
parts of the message which he agrees with, and distorts other
parts, or use denial techniques to reinterpret the meaning of the
message.
 Selective retention tendency: The recall of information to be
influenced by wants, needs, attitudes, and other psychological
factors.
 Limited effects theory

 Limited effects relation to magic

bullet theory:
 The limited effects approach
contrasted with the dominant
theoretical approaches of the “magic
bullet” model or the “hypodermic
needle” model of mass communication
 Limited effects theory

 The pure limited effects theory and approach to

mass communication was relatively short-lived.
 In the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s, many
researchers returned to a theory advancing
stronger, more powerful effects of the mass media.
 However, researchers tend to agree that the media
do not have all powerful effects on audiences, but
rather the effects are mediated by a number of
different things.