12 Lasswell_The structure and function of communication in society.pdfVIP

The structure and function of communication in society1 Harold D. Lasswell 1 In Schramm, W. ＆ Roberts, D. F. 1971 . The Process and Effects of Mass Communication. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, pp. 84-99. Original published in Lyman Bryson 1948 ed. The Communication of Ideas. New York: The Institute for Religious and Social Studies. 216 H. D. Lasswell The act of communication Convenient way to describe an act of communication is to answer the following questions: Who Says What In Which Channel To Whom With What Effect The scientific study of the process of communication tends to concentrate upon one or another of these questions. Scholars who study the who, the communicator, look into the factors that initiate and guide the act of communication. We call this subdivision of the field of research control analysis. Specialists who focus upon the says what engage in content analysis. Those who look primarily at the radio, press, film, and other channels of communication are doing media analysis p. 84 . When the principal concern is with the persons reached by the media, we speak of audience analysis. If the question is the impact upon audiences, the problem is effect analysis. Whether such distinctions are useful depends entirely upon the degree of refinement which is regarded as appropriate to a given scientific and managerial objective. Often it is simpler to combine audience and effect analysis, for instance, than to keep them apart. On the other hand, we may want to concentrate on the analysis of content, and for this purpose subdivide the field into the study of purport and style, the first referring to the message, and the second to the arrangement of the elements of which the message is composed. Structur