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understand human nature from a personal perspective on one hand and
from a collective or interactive point of view on the other.
Numerous concepts, hypothesis and generalization about process and
effects of communication were yielded by an increasing number of studies.
At the same time the structure of the emerging theoretical development in
the early years was uncoordinated and even chaotic. It did not follow the
neat and orderly model of an unfolding science where latter day investiga-
tors systematically tested the idea, pioneers of those who went before. In
spite of this unorganized nature of mass communication research in the
early years, there gradually accrued a body of knowledge about the media
and their effects as well as an increasing consensus about how they should be
studied. Out of that accumulated body of knowledge a discipline called mass
communication eventually emerged decades later.
Yet the argument as to whether the study of mass communication can
be considered as a discipline, or only as a loosely organized field of inter-
disciplinary interests, still continues. Therefore a body of explanation of the
mass communication process was developed that can collectively be called
selective influence theories (De Fleur 1975).
Two events occurred early in the twentieth century that would eventually
make it necessary to abandon the idea that exposure to mass communica-
tions had immediate, uniform, and direct effects on the audiences. First,
large-scale empirical research on the process and effects of mass communi-
cation was begun. The findings from such research slowly revealed a picture
inconsistent with the magic bullet theory.
The second event was significant as new conclusions were developed by
psychologists and sociologists concerning the personal and social attributes
of human beings. These conclusions resulted from a radical revision of the
basic theory concerning both the sources and the characteristics of human
nature. The new paradigms had clear implications for understanding the
influences of mass communication and they were completely inconsistent
with the basic theories from which the magic bullet theory had been drawn.

The Uses and Gratification Perspective

During the 1940s the realization of the consequences of individual differ-
ences and the social differentiation of behaviour related to mass communi-
cation led to a new perspective in the relationship between audiences and
the media. It was a shift from the view of audience as passive to the realiza-
tion that its members are active in their selection of the preferred content
and messages from the media. Earlier theories (e.g., the magic bullet formu-
lation) considered the audience as relatively inert, passively waiting for the
media to transmit the information, which was then perceived, remembered,
and (presumably) acted upon more or less uniformly.

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