10/19/2023

•
13 Course: Introduction to Mass Communication
Course Instructor: Javeria Tahir
Week 03
Lecture 06
Dated: October 6, 2023
BS-Psychology
Semester 1
Fall 2023

14
• Harold Dwight Lasswell, an American political scientist, was a prominent scholar in the area of
“Propaganda Research”, his dissertation “Propaganda Technique in the World War” (1927) is
recognized as a leading study on communication theory.
• He was interested in studying the use of propaganda communication through the media during
the Second World War; he began with the principle that “mass communication is something that
does something to another person”
• Harold Lasswell was mainly concerned with “Mass Communication” (media) and “Propaganda”.
The former is a process in which a person or a group of people or an organization sends a
message through a channel of communication (including TV broadcast, radio, social networks and
print) to a large group of anonymous and heterogeneous people. Advertising, journalism (such as
news) and politics are types of “mass communication”. The latter refers to information spread in
order to gain support for a political leader, party, etc.
• In fact, mass communication research was always concerned with political influence over the mass
media that is one of the primary devices of influencing people.
• In 1948, Lasswell developed his communication model in his article entitled “The Structure and
Function of Communication in Society”.
• The “Lasswell Formula” (1948) is a typical model of what are referred to as “Transmission Models
of Communication” because communication is reduced to transmission of information.

15
Lasswell stated:
“A convenient way to describe an act of communication is to answer the following questions or what
is referred to as the “Principle of 5Ws”:
 Who” refers to the research area called “Control Analysis”.
 “Says what” refers to “Content Analysis”
“In which channel” refers to “Media Analysis”
“To whom” refers to “Audience Analysis”
“With what effect” refers to “Effect Analysis”
•

16
Who: It refers to the communicator or the person who formulates the message. Many
communication specialists refer to the communicator as source or transmitter or the sender of the
message.
Control Analysis:
This element of communication has to be studied through “control analysis”. It investigates things
such as:
• Which company owns a certain TV channel or newspaper?

1
 10/19/2023

such as:
• Which company owns a certain TV channel or newspaper?
• What is its ideology? Its aims?
• What are its political allegiances
What: It refers to the content of the message.
Content Analysis:
Being concerned with the mass media, Lasswell was particularly interested in the messages present
in the media. It is related to an area of study known as “content research” that takes in charge
counting the number of occurrences of a particular representation of concrete persons or situations
in the media and comparing that with some kind of objective measure like official statistics.
E.g.: -How are Blacks represented in TV?
-How is a given society represented in the movies?
-How are women represented in TV?
If one common representation of women is the housewives that clean the house and take care of
children, we would have to compare the percentage of that kind of women in TV to the real or
objective percentage.

17
Channel : It is the medium by which the message is being communicated/ transmitted or what
carries the message. Messages can be sent in channels corresponding to humans’ five senses. It
refers to the content of the message.
Media Analysis:
Media Analysis” investigates the choice of the suitable channel or medium , among other
possibilities, to use to carry a particular message, depending on the content, the purpose of the
message, the target audience, etc. It asks questions such as:
-Is the medium appropriate to the message/audience?
-Can it explain what we want to explain?
E.g.: Advertising agencies decide what is the most appropriate magazine, newspaper or TV channel
to reach their audience.
Whom:
It refers to the person(s) who receive the message or the audience or the readership of mass
communication. This element of audience is of vital importance for a communication situation to
be successful .
Audience Analysis: “Audience Analysis” attempts to know everything about the target public of a
given message, from gender and age to social status and tastes. The mass media find it crucial to
know as much as possible about their audiences.

18
Effects: Lasswell was especially concerned by the outcomes or consequences of messages by mass
communication on people. He says that people do not communicate in a vacuum rather so as to
achieve something.
Effect Analysis:
It endeavors to know whether the media (mass communication) have any effect or not, if so, how
they affect their audiences.

2
 10/19/2023

It endeavors to know whether the media (mass communication) have any effect or not, if so, how
they affect their audiences.

Advantages of Lasswel's Model:

•It is useful, easy and simple.
•It suits for almost all types of communication.
•Although Lasswell’s model was intended to deal with mass communication, it is suitable and useful
for different categories of communication including “Interpersonal Communication” that is everyday
communication/interaction with family, friends, etc.
•The concept of effect.
•The model supposes that messages always have effects.
19
Dawn News: Pakistan and China on Wednesday agreed to expand the scope of the multibillion-
dollar CPEC infrastructure project, which will now diversify to areas like industrial development, ICT,
livelihood projects, mining and mineral exploration, and agriculture. Presently, the corridor is
confined to road and rail connectivity and economic zones.
• Who – Pakistan and China
• What – Expansion of CPEC
• Channel – Dawn NEWS (Newspaper medium)
• Whom – Public
• Effect – Update about agreement of Industrial Development.
Tribune: In a show of solidarity with the Palestinian people, President Dr Arif Alvi on Thursday
visited the Palestine Embassy in Islamabad, as the nation flew tones of humanitarian aid for the
people of Gaza, currently under the siege of Israel.
• Who – President Dr Arif Alvi
• What – Visit Palestinian Embassy
• Channel – Tribune NEWS (Newspaper medium)
• Whom – Public
• Effect – Solidarity with Palestine and Humanitarian Aid

20
Weaknesses of Lasswell’s Model:
•The model is linear and unidirectional. It represents a one-way flow of communication.
•It does not mention the element of feedback. To find out what kind of impact a communication
has, some kind of feedback is needed yet this is not shown in Lasswell’s model.
•It focuses on simplicity and lack in depth discussion. Greenberg and Salween state "Lasswell model
draw attention to mass communication but touch general areas". It does not discuss noise as a
barrier of communication. It does not consider the affect of context on communication. It is
outdated and does not apply on new media.
•While the communicator is central in the process of communication, the audience members are
passive receivers of messages. The model assumes that the intention of the communication is to
influence the receiver since for Lasswell the primary function of communication is influence and
persuasion.
•The model exaggerates and puts much emphasis on the effects of mass communication.
•This explains the model’s propaganda usage in political communication.