The Hypodermic Needle Theory

The Hypodermic Needle Theory

During the mid 1930’s, experts discovered the first theory on how media affected behavior.  During WW2 media played a vital role in both the US and Germany to influence people’s mind set.  Germany used the film industry for propaganda and they produced movies showing their achievements, which made a great impact in the German people’s mind. Later the US also used Hollywood and produced films like “Its Happened one night”, “It’s a wonderful life” and Mr. Smith goes to Washington” to portray Germany as an evil force which also made an impact in American people’s mind.  In these cases, the audience accepts the information the media is providing with out refusal.  The media broadcasted the message directly into audience head without their own knowledge. The message caused an instant reaction from the audience mind without any hesitation and this was referred to as the “Magic Bullet Theory” or the “Hypodermic Needle Theory”.  The media, who is acting as the needle, injects the message into audience mind, which causes changes in behavior towards the message.  Both theories deal with the impact of media messages in audience’s mind and how they react toward the message.  The "Magic Bullet" theory graphically assumes that the media's message is a bullet fired from the "media gun" into the viewer's "head" (Berger 1995). Similarly, the "Hypodermic Needle Model" uses the same idea of the "shooting" paradigm. It suggests that the media injects its messages straight into the passive audience (Croteau, Hoynes 1997).

Cherry, K. (2011, September) 28% Persuasion Techniques [Web Article] Retrieved from:  
 http://psychology.about.com/od/socialpsychology/a/persuasiontech.htm

Underwood, M. (2010) The Hypodermic Needle Model [Web Article] Retrieved from:  

 http://www.cultsock.org/index.php?page=media/hypoderm.html