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Models of Communication | 101

model of mass communication is to highlight these differences between the
two modes of communication. Newcomb’s (1953) theory of communicative
acts is used as the analogue for the model.
Social need for information underlines Westley and MacLean’s (1957)
extension of Newcomb’s model. They adopt it specifically for the mass media.
They introduced a new element, C, which is the editorial-communicating
function. It is the process of deciding what and how to communicate.
Westley and Maclean argue that in mass communication, situations the
people involved are not in one another’s presence and the object may not be
familiar to them. When person B cannot receive the information about other
persons and objects he needs to re-orient himself to his environment. For
this he must rely on a gatekeeper (C) to select relevant information from the
environment and pass it on to him. The gatekeeper in this model is the mass
media and it functions to select and transmit information otherwise unavail-
able to B. The mass media, insofar as it functions as a gatekeeper, survives only
if it satisfies B’s needs for information to orient himself to his surroundings.
In a sense, the function of the mass media is to extend selectively people’s
information environments.

X 1 f BA
X 1
X 2 X 2 f CA
X 3 X′ X′′
X 3 A C 1 B
X 3m
X 4 X 3c
f BC
X 4

X 5
Figure 5.17
Westley and MacLean’s Model (1957)
Source: A Conceptual Model for Communication Research, Bruce Westley and
Malcolm S. MacLean Jr 1957.

The messages C transmits to B(X”) represent his selections from both
messages to him from As (X’) and Cs selections and abstractions from Xs
in his own sensory field (X X ) which may or may not be Xs in A’s field.
3c
4
Feedback not only moves from B and A (f ) and from B to C (f ) but also
BA
ac
from C and A (f ). Clearly, in the mass communication situation, a large
CA
number of Cs receive from a very large number of As and transmit to vastly
large number of Bs, who simultaneously receive from other Cs.
The authors argue that one of the advantages of this model is its gener-
ality. The gate keeping function, C, may be any form of mass media. They

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