a critique of the hypodermic media theory

The hypodermic needle theory / model (also known as the hypodermic - syringe model) is a model of communication also referred to as the "magic bullet" perspective or the transmission - belt model. Essentially, this model, as propounded by one very famous scholar" Harold Lasswel" holds that an intended message is directly received and wholly accepted by the receiver.
The theory which was postulated in 1935 implied mass media had a direct, immediate and powerful effect on their audiences. The mass media in the 1940 and 1950 were perceived as a powerful influence on behaviour change. The popularization of radio and television, The emergence of persuasion industries such as advertising and propaganda contributed to the "strong effects" of the theory of media and communication.
Providing an unbias and objective critique of this very popular theory in media and communication circles, it's direct influence effect was not as widely accepted by scholars as many books on mass communication indicate. The unrealistic assumption that people were "uniformly controlled by their biologically based instincts and that they react more or less uniformly to what ever stimuli came along" was quite without empirical backings.(Lowery and, 1995,p.400)
Lasswell in his work"propaganda techniques in world war", (1927), argued that the people had been duped and degraded by propaganda during the war and his work further viewed human responses to the media as uniform and immediate. This is again without proof since growth in research methodology revealed that the media had selected influences on the people. Here the most famous incident often sited as an example for the hypodermic media theory was the 1938 broadcasts of" the war of the worlds" and the wide spreed panic it brought in it's wake among it's American mass audiences. The theory was disproved for it's assumptive nature by Hadley Cantil who managed to show clearly reactions to the broadcast were, in fact, diverse and were largely determined by situational and attitudinal attributes of the listeners and not the direct and immediate effects that it (media) had on the people.
Also why some individuals don't often verify the news carried by the media but believe them as they hear is, as a result of the pre-existing mind sets, which make it possible for them to understand what is broad casted. people holds certain things and it is very difficult if not impossible to change their mind sets. It is therefore unrealistic and out of place to say that media an immediate and uniform change as the hypodermic media tries to portray.
Media is viewed of having a very limited effects on it's audiences as portrayed by Paul Lazarsfeld an Austrian born scholar and his colleagues at the Bureau of Applied Social Research at Colombia university developed the limited effects theory. " their theory posites that media messages have only limited and indirect effects on the public". To be more effective, the postulation argued that the messages needs to be mediated by opinion leaders. The idea of the media being powerful is seriously debunked and it concluded that there are several intervening variable that mediated the media audience connections.They then created the "two-step flow of communication" model, which states that ideas flow from the media to opinion leaders and from them to less active sections of the population. In this relationship, the tendency of the media is to reinforce predispositions, rather than change them. Individuals only search for information that goes with their believes, avoiding media content that challenge their position, determining a process of "selective exposure" (Czitrom, 1982)
Viewing the hypodermic media theory from the other side of the coin, one could argue that the audience is impressionable, passive and equally susceptible to media messages. The media is assumed to have the ability to influence the masses and persuade public opinions towards any given subjects. The believe is that messages are like "magic bullets". They strike all members of the public uniformly, creating even effects among them. This is postulated by the magic bullet theory (1930).
Lastly, the mass media between 1940 and 1950 were perceived as a powerful influence on behaviour change. The popularization of radio and T.V aided this "strong effect" theory of communication.