Page 77 - Historical Dictionary of Political Communication in the United States

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HYPODERMIC EFFECT
HYPODERMIC EFFECT, also know as the magic bullet theory, was the name
coined to describe the powerful, direct, and uniform effects of the media on a
society hypothesized by communication researchers in the early twentieth cen-
tury. The needle theory was based on incorrect views of modern society. It
predicted that an appropriate stimulus message would produce a consistent re-
sponse from the receiver in line with the intent of the message sender. This led
to concerns about government's ability to use media to spread propaganda and
influence people in their voting behaviors and their participation in war. Because
individuals were viewed as isolated from their institutions and other citizens,
media were thought to be able to shape public opinion in oppressive ways. This
was the dominant theory of media and society prior to the beginnings of the
scientific research ushered in by the Payne Fund studies in the 1920s. This
somewhat crude stimulus-response model eventually was replaced by theory that
stressed the social and cultural factors that limit the media's power to influence
people.
SOURCE: Melvin DeFleur and Sandra Ball-Rokeach, Theories of Mass Communication,
1989.
LeAnne Daniels