Lasswell Model: What It Consists in, Elements, Advantages and Disadvantages

He Lasswell model is a communication model proposed in 1948 by Harold Lasswell, professor at Yale University. This model tries to define the communication by focusing on the following variables: who has communicated, what said, by what channel has been communicated, who has been addressed and what result produced the communication.

This model, despite being one of the first that dealt with the subject of communication, is also considered one of the most influential. Describes the communication process as linear and unidirectional. The organization of this model has laid the foundations for the scientific investigation of the communication process.

Harold Lasswell, creator of the model

Therefore, several disciplines have arisen that examine each of the components described by Lasswell: analysis of control (who), content (what), media (how), audience (to whom) and effect (effect produced).

What is the Lasswell model?

Although at first Lasswell developed his model to analyze the media massive, today his system is also used to analyze interpersonal or group communication.

Effective communication

In principle, the main objective of this thinker was to study the process of the call effective communication . Therefore, he focused on the different elements of communication and how changing some variables affected the effect that this process caused.

Therefore, the main idea of ​​the model was to study the way in which a communicator could change his way of communicating in a way that affected the recipient of the message in a concrete way.

Due to the fact that the model did not initially contemplate the response of the receiver, this classification is usually classified within the models that consider communication in a unidirectional way.

In his analysis of the media, Lasswell also focused on the subject of propaganda and the motives behind it.

Reasons of the media to communicate

According to him, the media communicate because of three reasons:

Surveillance of the environment

The news and news programs focus on reporting events that occur throughout the world.

Correlation of society components

Instead of telling the facts objectively, the mass media interpret the reality around them and transmit it filtered by their own thoughts and beliefs.

Transmission of culture between different generations

The spectators collect the information transmitted by the media and interpret it according to their own filter.

In this way, Lasswell thought that the media had the ability to impact the way its viewers viewed the world. Its model was developed to study the impact that each of the components of communication has on the transmission of information by these media.

Elements of the Lasswell model

The Lasswell model focuses on the analysis of five fundamental elements in communication: emitter, content, medium, receiver and result.

Transmitter

The emitter in the Lasswell model is the subject that generates the communicative stimuli. Its intention is to produce a certain response in the receiver, so it is considered to have an intentionality. It is the"who"element.

Content

In this model, the content (which in other areas is called message) is the set of communicative stimuli originated by the action of the issuer. It is also the information transmitted to the receiver and is the"what"element.

Medium

The medium is the way in which the sender transmits his message to the receiver. It can be through speech, written text, images or other ways. In this model, it is studied through the question"how".

The objective of studying the medium is to discover how information can be better transmitted according to factors such as the content of the message, the purpose or who is the receiver.

Receiver

The receiver is the person who receives the information contained in the message that the sender has transmitted through the medium. It is also the element of communication in which one seeks to provoke a certain reaction; it is studied through the question"to whom".

In the specific case of the media, understanding the characteristics of the receiver is of vital importance and is carried out through the process of studying the audience.

Result

Also called"effect", is the element of communication that studies what has been achieved with the transmission of information. In this model, it is observed by means of the question"for what".

Lasswell was especially concerned about this element of communication, since he wanted to study the effects that the mass media had on the population in general.

Advantages and disadvantages of the model

This model of the study of communication has been one of the most used since it was first raised, but has also received a lot of criticism. Next we will see some of its most important advantages and disadvantages.

Advantage

- It is a simple and easy to understand model, since it does not recharge the communication process and focuses on its most basic elements.

- It is valid for practically any type of communication, regardless of the type of medium by which it occurs, who the sender and receiver are, or what type of message is transmitted.

- It was the first model to focus on the effect produced by a certain type of communication and to study its effects.

Disadvantages

- No feedback is mentioned by the receiver, which has been included in more modern and complex communication models.

- No mention is made of noise, which is any element of communication (usually part of the channel) that can hinder the process of transmitting information.

- It is a linear model of communication, which can be a problem to study information exchanges in which the receiver and the issuer exchange roles continuously.

References

1. "Lasswell's Model of Communication"in: Wikipedia. Retrieved on: March 9, 2018 from Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org.
2. "Model of Lasswell"in: Comuniclogos. Retrieved on: March 8, 2018 from Comuniclogos: comunicologos.com.
3. "Lasswell's Communication Model"in: Businesstopia. Retrieved: March 8, 2018 from Businesstopia: businesstopia.com.
4. "Lasswell's Model of Mass Communication"in: Study. Retrieved on: March 8, 2018 from Study: study.com.
5. "Asswell's Model of Communication"in: Mass Communication Theory. Retrieved: March 8, 2018 from Mass Communication Theory: rahmanjmc.wordpress.com.