Welcome to Media in Minutes' where I talk

you through important concepts in media and

communication.

Today we're talking about the Hypodermic

Needle Theory

which was one of the earliest ways of

thinking about how the mass media

influences audiences.

It was developed in the 1920s

and 1930s after

researchers observed the effect of

propaganda during World War I and

events like the Orson Welles 'War of the

Worlds' broadcast.

The hypodermic needle theory is a

linear communication theory which

suggests that media messages are

injected directly into the brains of a

passive audience.

It suggests that we're all the same

and we all respond to media messages in

the same way.

This way of thinking about communication

and media influences is no longer really

accepted.

In the 1930s many

researchers realized the limitations of

this idea

and some dispute with early media theorists

gave the idea any serious attention at

all.

Nevertheless,

the Hypodermic Needle Theory continues

to influence the way we talk about the

media.

People believe that the mass media has a

powerful effect.
Parents worry about the influence of
television in violent video games.

News outlets run headlines like 'Is Google

making a stupid?' and 'Grand Theft Auto

led teen to kill.'

So how did this way of thinking about

the mass media develop?

Back in 1927, Harold Lasswell

an American political scientist

and communication theorist published a book

called 'Propaganda Technique in the World

War'

Writing about the effect of Allied

propaganda during World War I, Lasswell

wrote: "From a propaganda point-of-view it

was matchless performance

for Wilson brewed the subtle poison

which industrious men injected into the

veins of a staggering people until the

smashing powers of the Allied armies

knocked them into submission."

The Payne Fund Studies which were

conducted between 1929

and 1932

and looked at the effect movies have on

children also contributed to this idea

that the mass media has a powerful

and direct influence on the audiences.

Although these studies have been

criticized for the lack of scientific

rigour,

they were really one of the first and

most comprehensive examinations of how

the media works

Writing about the influence of movies

the project chairman W.W Charters
wrote that they have the potential to
profoundly affect the way children

behave.

Even in the 1930s, however,

researches were starting to realize that

this way of thinking about media

influence was kind of inadequate.

Then, in 1938 Orson Welles and

the Mercury Theatre broadcast a

dramatisation of HG Wells' 'War of

the Worlds.'

Ladies and gentlemen, I have a grave

announcement to make.

Incredible as it may seem, both the

observations of science and the evidence

of our eyes

lead to the inescapable assumption

that those strange beings who landed in

the Jersey farmlands tonight

of the vanguard of an invading army from

the planet Mars.

The battle which took place tonight at

Grovers Mill has ended in one of the

most startling military defeats ever

suffered by an army in modern times;

seven thousand men armed with rifles

and machine guns

pitted against a single fighting machine

of the invaders from Mars.

One hundred and twenty known survivors.

The rest strewn over the battle area from

Grovers Mill to Plainsboro

crushed and trampled to death under the

metal feet of the monster,

or burned to cinders by its heat ray.

The program, which was presented in the

format of a news bulletin,

caused some listeners to believe that the

Earth was being invited by martians.

The New York Times claimed that thousands

of people were gripped by mass hysteria.

While thousands of people may have been

panic-stricken, they were only a small

proportion of the six million people who

enjoy a quiet night around the radio.

On the surface, events like they seem

to suggest that the media can have a

powerful influence on audiences.

Nevertheless,

The Hypodermic Needle Theory is kind of

inadequate to describe the process of

communication immediate influence

It just doesn't work.