The Hypodermic Needle Theory assumes that audiences passively accept media messages without questioning. It suggests the media can directly "inject" ideas into people's minds to produce a desired response. The theory views audiences as passive recipients of one-sided media content. It has been widely criticized for lacking evidence and being an outdated view of human nature from the 1930s, when people had fewer media sources and may have been less skeptical than modern audiences who can access multiple perspectives.

1. Theory: Hypodermic Needle Model
Theorists:
Harold Lasswell – an American political scientist and communication theorist
published a book called Propaganda Technique in the World War where he
described the injection of information into the minds of the public via the media.
What is the theory?
The Hypodermic Needle theory was based on no more than assumption of human nature,
although was widely accepted by scholars without any empirical research.
The hypodermic needle theory suggests that audiences of the media do not question the
information they are being fed. For example, a children may fall for an advert that says
“best toy ever” or an adult falling for a spoof or one sided news reports. The assumed
effect of the Hypodermic needle in the media is to ‘Inject’ or ‘Shoot’ the audience with
appropriate messages created for a desired response. According to the theory, the effect is
“direct, immediate and powerful” upon the audience.
Does this theory see the audience as active or passive? Why do you think this?
This theory suggests that audiences facing the media are very passive. It describes how the
audiences will not question the media, especially if the messages are ‘created for a desired
response’. This quote suggests that the effect of the hypodermic needle is most prominent
when a presidential candidate, for example, creates a TV promotion that will manipulate
the audience’s thoughts in favour of voting.
What are the criticisms of this theory?
This theory is widely criticised for lack of evidence, as it was simply an assumption based
on human nature. It is also criticised for being very out dated, in the 1930s influential
media was very new, people were possibly not as sceptical as we are today. Nowadays
with so much information being fired at us we constantly question what we are reading
and filter out most of it. Where as in the 1930s it is possible that a lack of scepticism and
lack of media sources led people to believe more than we would today. Multiple media
sources would allow people to gain different sides to stories or reports, but when you have
limited sources it is hard to differentiate between truth and lies in the media.
Apply the theory:
A living example of this story was the ‘War of the Worlds’ radio broadcast on October 30th
1938. A radio show decided to run a 60-minute show of the story. According to reports
that should be taken with a pinch of salt the radio show has 12Million listeners, and that 1
million believed that America really was under invasion by aliens. Newspapers and radio
stations told how mass panic was spread across the nation, shops were raided and roads
blocked with traffic during the incident, even stories of panic suicides arose in days
following the incident.