People see the world from where they stand; this is their standpoint. Everybody have different standpoints depending on their social, political, economic, life, which affects their worldview. It sets the attitude of a person and changes their perception. The theory that defines this viewpoint is known as Standpoint Theory. [Related Reading: Cultural Identity Theory] The … Read more
Spiral of silence theory was first proposed by Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann in 1984. She was a German political scientist, President of “World Association for Public Opinion Research” and one of the founders of “Public Opinion Organization”. As per her analysis, people’s political support to Germany was the main cause for Germany’s defeat in world war II. … Read more
Social responsibility is ethics that guide any action, be it in media or other organizations, that put an obligation towards environment, society, culture and economy. The media like any other sector should not harm, but should promote environment and socio-cultural aspects in relation to the economy of the place. Social Responsibility theory of mass media … Read more
Social marketing theory is a theory of mass communication that promotes socially valuable information and socially accepted behaviors. It tries to integrate marketing ideas, principles, tools, techniques and socially beneficial concepts to promote communication and benefit society. The theory emerged in 1970s when marketing techniques were realized to sell ideas, attitudes and behaviors rather than … Read more
Priming theory, which is considered to be the predecessor to agenda setting theory, is about the media effect on audience’s decision making, like agenda setting. It is also taken as an effect of agenda setting as priming is done before setting an agenda. Priming provides basic perception and relative comparison, which makes judgment easier and … Read more
Normative theories of communication are a group of four press theories proposed by Fred Siebert, Theodore Peterson and Wilbur Schramm together in their book called “Four Theories of the Press”. The theories are also known as Western theories of mass media. The media does not exist in a vacuum and normative theories try to explain … Read more
“The basis of our government being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.” –Thomas Jefferson, the … Read more
Hypodermic Needle Theory, also known as Magic Bullet Theory (hypodermic syringe model or transmission-belt model) was promulgated by Harold Lasswell in 1920s. It was written in the book “Propaganda Technique” in the World War. The theory is a linear model of communication and talks about media’s power on audience. The message, in this theory, is … Read more
‘Group think’ is a process where certain number of people come together with unanimous decisions that concerns the whole group and decide a possible course of action. These groups come to situations where they have to decide between unanimity (agreement by all people involved) and objective solution and they go for unanimity rather than going … Read more
Billions of events take place around the globe in a single day. People cannot access them all, so they use these mediators to manage the information according to relevancy and proximity. Gatekeeping is the information managing process by media for selecting information to be broadcasted in media on the basis of the type of information, … Read more