News Effects
According to Harold Lasswell (1948), communication in society serves three essential functions:(1) the surveillance of the environment, (2) the correlation of adaptive responses to the environment, and (3) the transmission of social inheritance. The institution of the news certainly serves these functions, although it does each to different degrees. Surveying the physical and social environment for threats and opportunities would have to be considered the primary function of news. Citizens are informed of happenings; but as a rule, actions toward these happenings are not suggested. The news may also, however, aim at instigating and coordinating civic action when such action can be considered, with some degree of consensus, to serve the welfare of the citizenry. Finally, the transmission of cultural information is obviously another component of the news.
In the interest of survival, humans have, no doubt, monitored their environments throughout the ages, looking for both perils and opportunities. For thousands of years, individuals had to rely on personal observation and the observations of a limited number of other people. This condition was dramatically changed, of course, with the coming of message distribution by the mass media via print, radio, television, and computer. Countless others now share, through these media, their experiences, observations, and beliefs quasi-instantaneously with massive audiences.
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