Hypodermic needle model
From Free net encyclopedia
The hypodermic needle model is a model of communications also referred to as the magic bullet perspective. Essentially, this model holds that an intended message is directly received and wholly accepted by the receiver. The model emerged from the Marxist Frankfurt School of intellectuals in the 1930s to explain the rise of Nazism in Germany.
The most famous example of what would be considered the result of the magic bullet or hypodermic needle model was the 1938 broadcast of The War of the Worlds and the subsequent reaction of its mass American audience.
The phrasing "hypodermic needle" is meant to give a mental image of the direct, strategic, and planned infusion of a message into an individual. This view entails a conceptually fatal flaw in that it tends to ignore matters such as interpretation which are crucial aspects to the communicative process.
A more modern version is the two-step flow of communication theory.