Lasswell model

Lasswell's Model
Harold Lasswell a political scientist in 1948 proposed a linear model, which explains the communication
process as "Who says what to whom in what channel with what effect." Lasswell’s model focuses primarily
on verbal communication just as Aristotle’s. The model is a simple description of one-way communication
process, which comprises of a speaker who communicates a message to a receiver by making use of any of
the media like print, radio, television, etc to finally convey the information.

who (says) What (to) Whom (in) What Channel (with) What Effect

Lasswell's model of communications is significantly different from those of engineers, including Claude
Shannon, and his notion of channel is also different, since it includes different types of media. For example,
newspapers, magazines, journals and books are all text media, but are assumed to have different
distribution and readership, and hence different effects.

Lasswell studied at the University of Chicago in the 1920s, and was highly influenced by the pragmatism
taught there, especially as propounded by John Dewey and George Herbert Mead. More influential,
however, was Freudian philosophy, which informed much of his analysis of propaganda and
communication in general. During World War II, Lasswell held the position of Chief of the Experimental
Division for the Study of War Time Communications at the Library of Congress. Always forward-looking,
late in his life, Lasswell experimented with questions concerning astropolitics, the political consequences of
colonization of other planets, and the "machinehood of humanity." Lasswell's work was important in the
post-World War II development of behavioralism.

Lasswell
Harold Lasswell produced Propaganda and the War in 1927. Later, Carl Hovland and his group of
sociologists from Yale published an important book in 1949 describing the experiments they conducted on
Army troops during the war. At about the same time Lasswell introduced an important model, elements of
which survive in more developed modern models.

Who
Says What
In Which Channel
To Whom
To What Effect

The "Who" is the "Source", "Says what", the message; and "To Whom", the destination. Communications have a source who communicates a message
through a channel o r medium to a destination (audience) that, hopefully, creates the desired effect. Claude Shannon's model is similar, but more graphical.
Model Comment
Lasswell formula (1948) • Useful but too simple.
• It assumes the communicator wishes to influence the receiver and therefore sees
communication as a persuasive process.
• It assumes that messages always have effects.
• It exaggerates the effects of mass communication.
• It omits feedback.
• On the other hand, it was devised in an era of political propaganda
• It remains a useful INTRODUCTORY model
• Braddock (1958) modified it to include circumstances, purpose and effect

Harold Lasswell

Harold Dwight Lasswell (February 13, 1902 — December 18, 1978) was a leading American
political scientist and communications theorist. He was a member of the Chicago school of sociology and
was a student at Yale University in political science. He was a President of the World Academy of Art and
Science (WAAS). Along with other influential liberals of the period, such as Walter Lippmann, he argued
that democracies needed propaganda to keep the uninformed citizenry in agreement with what the
specialized class had determined was in their best interests. As he wrote in his entry on propaganda for the
Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, we must put aside "democratic dogmatisms about men being the best
judges of their own interests" since "men are often poor judges of their own interests, flitting from one
alternative to the next without solid reason".

Lasswell studied at the University of Chicago in the 1920s, and was highly influenced by the pragmatism
taught there, especially as propounded by John Dewey and George Herbert Mead. More influential,
however, was Freudian philosophy, which informed much of his analysis of propaganda and
communication in general. During World War II, Lasswell held the position of Chief of the Experimental
Division for the Study of War Time Communications at the Library of Congress. Always forward-looking,
late in his life, Lasswell experimented with questions concerning astropolitics, the political consequences of
colonization of other planets, and the "machine hood of humanity."

•Lasswell's Model
Harold Lasswell a political scientist in 1948 proposed a linear model, which explains the communication
process as "Who says what to whom in what channel with what effect." Lasswell’s model focuses primarily
on verbal communication just as Aristotle’s. The model is a simple description of one-way communication
process, which comprises of a speaker who communicates a message to a receiver by making use of any of
the media like print, radio, television, etc to finally convey the information.