Presented by: Dahmani kahina and Toumi Sabrina
University Mouloud Mammeri of Tizi-ouzou
Year:2014/2015
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Introduction
Biography of Harold Lasswell
Lasswell’s Contribution to Information and Communication Theory
His Model of Communication
Advantages of Lasswell’s Model
Weaknesses of Lasswell’s Model
Conclusion
Bibliography
Nowadays, a great deal of people do not apprehend the
importance of communication. Notwithstanding, communication is
like breathing it is inevitable as it is the core element of every
exchange and interaction with people. In fact, communication
requires being familiar and aware about the different factors that
intervene in the process of communication. These factors can help
people to better communicate hence be good communicators.
The process of communication has been theorized by means of
diagrams of diverse forms, they vary from the simplest one to the
complex mathematical one. It is crucial to cite one of the principal
models that is Lasswell’ s.
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Harold Dwight Lasswell, an American political scientist born in Donnellson,
Illinois, USA on February 13th, 1902
Lasswell 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 defined “propaganda” as
being a “control of opinion by significant symbols, by stories, rumours, reports,
pictures, and other form of social communication” (Lasswell, 1927), also he
defined it to be a “technique of influencing human action by the manipulation
of representation…which can be spoken, written, pictorial or
musical…”(Lasswell, 1927).
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”
In 1948, Lasswell developed his communication model in his article
entitled “The Structure and Function of Communication in Society”.
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His model of Communication:
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.
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.
In his 1948 article “The Structure and Function of Communication in Society”,
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”:
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who?
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Says what?
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In which channel?
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To whom?
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With what effect? “
•In fact, the Lasswell’s Formula consists of five major components as illustrated in
the figure below.
Figure: The Lasswell’s Model of
Communication
Example:
CNN News: The Tokyo Electric Power Company Operator announced that a water
leak from Japan’s tsunami crippled nuclear power station resulted in about 100
times the permitted level of radio-active material flowing into the sea.
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Who: The Tokyo Electric Power Company Operator
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What: Radio-active material flowing into the sea
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Channel: CNN News (TV medium)
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Whom: Public
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Effect: To alert people of Japan from radiation
(communicationtheory.org)
 Lasswell defined each of the five elements representing his model and the areas
of research that investigate each of them:
 “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”
1. 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?
-What is its ideology? Its aims?
-What are its political allegiances?
2. 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.
3. 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.
. E.g: When a person speaks, his/her words are carried via the channel of air waves
“auditory channel.
The radio news is carried by both air waves radio waves. A message tapped out on the
back of one’s head in Morse code “tactile channel”.
•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.
4.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
E.g: In the USA, advertisers in the print media use information from the Gallup
organization to know what their audiences are like.
5.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 endeavours to know whether the media (mass communication) have any effect or
not, if so, how they affect their audiences.
Advantages of Lasswell’s Model:
•It is useful, easy and simple.
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•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.
 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.
•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.
To conclude, Lasswell’s model represents the earliest and the simplest
diagram in communication theory. Yet, it has been criticized for its
weaknesses, and this pushed scholars afterwards to bring changes to this
model and thus creating their owns.
Books:
 Almond, G. (1987) Harold Dwight Lasswell. Washington: National
Academy of Science
 Lasswell, Harold D. (1927) Propaganda Technique in the World War.
New York
 Lasswell, Harold D. (1948) The Structure and Function of
Communication in Society.
http://www.themedfomscu.org/media/elip/The%20structure%20and
%20function%20of.pdf
 Websites:
 www.britannica.com
 www.encyclopedia.com
 www.communicationtheory.org
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