Theory strives to formulate statements or propositions that will have some explanatory. This is our most basic definition and generalized way of looking at theory. Theory seeks to explain the effects of mass communication on society, audiences and people. These effects can either be intended or unintended by those sending the message or messages. Theory seeks to explain the uses to which people put mass communication. Sometimes it is far more useful and meaningful to study the uses as opposed to the effects. This tenets recognizes the active role of the audience within the process of mass communication.

1. Theories of mass
communication

2. Media Dependency Theory
• This theory states that the more dependent an individual is
on the media for having his or her needs fulfilled, the more
important the media will be to that person.
• Theorist: Sandra Ball-Rokeach and Melvin DeFleur
• Individual Interpretation:
• This theory is based on the Uses and Gratifications Theory
and ties into the Agenda Setting Theory. Uses and Grats
identifies how people use and become dependent upon the
media. People use the media for many
reasons. Information, entertainment, and parasocial
relationships are just a few of them. The Dependency
Theory says the more a person becomes dependent on the
media to fulfill these needs, the media will become more
important to that individual. The media will also have
much more influence and power over that individual. If
someone is so dependent on the media for information, and
the media is that person’s only source for information, then
it is easy to set the agenda. The individual falls victim to
Agenda Setting. As you can see, these three theories
intertwine quite a bit.

3. McCombs & Shaw’s Agenda
Setting Theory
• importance of the issue presented. Agenda Setting
Theory: The term was coined by Maxwell McCombs
and Donald L. Shaw (1972) in the context of election
campaign where politicians seek to convince the voters
about the party’s most important issues.
• An agenda is selection of items arranged to give some
items more importance than others. Agenda theory
says that the news media present the public not with
the picture of the world as it is but with an agenda of
their own –a selection of reports about what is
happening in the world. Agenda theorists try to
describe and explain (a) how stories are selected,
packaged and presented-a process -known as
gatekeeping, (b) the resulting agenda, and (C) how this
agenda affects what people think about the relative

4. McCombs & Shaw’s Agenda
Setting Theory
• The theory also ‘predicts’
that if a particular news
item is presented
prominently and
frequently by the press,
the public will come to
believe that it is
important. Thus, the press
does not necessarily tell
us what to think, but it
does tell us what to think
about. A host of research
studies of newspapers,
television and other news
sources has confirmed
that are personal agendas
are indeed set in this
manner.
• Newspapers receive an
abundance news in their
offices and only a few of
them are selected. This
process is called
gatekeeping. It results in
some stories being in the
news and some not, in
some being given some
strong emphasis and others
being buried. Thus,
gatekeeping results in a
news agenda presented by
the media to the public.

5. McCombs & Shaw’s Agenda Setting Theory
• There are numerous factors which affect gatekeeping at
various stages, including the ethics of individual
journalists, the policies of editors or publishers, a desire to
get ahead, to protect one’s job, or to avoid conflict; time
and space limitations, dependence on handouts from
government or from public relations offices as the source of
news.
• Shaw, and McCombs and their associates found substantial
correlation between the agendas set by the media and the
public’s beliefs about the importance of the issues. It was
found that audience had different sets of beliefs depending
on their social categories. That is, young people’s
perceptions of the important issues differed from other
people’s and men’s patterns were different from women’s.
Differences in attention to issues and evaluations of their
importance also varied among people with different income
levels and different political preferences. But the authors
did find strong support for the Agenda Setting Theory.

6. McCombs & Shaw’s Agenda Setting
Theory
• Among their additional conclusions were these:
 There is a progressive increase in the use of mass
communication during a presidential campaign .
 The influence of the media’s agenda on an
individual’s concern with issues is directly related
to how much he or she is exposed to mass
communication. Those individuals most frequently
exposed to mass communication show higher levels
of agreement between personal agendas and mass
media agendas.
• Generally, then, agenda-setting appears to be one
indirect way in which the media can change society
over a long period of time.

7. Uses and Gratification
• Explanation of Theory:
• Blumler and Katz’s uses and gratification theory
suggests that media users play an active role in
choosing and using the media. Users take an
active part in the communication process and
are goal oriented in their media use. The
theorist say that a media user seeks out a
media source that best fulfills the needs of the
user. Uses and gratifications assume that the
user has alternate choices to satisfy their need.

8. Individual Interpretations and Critique:
• Uses and gratifications theory takes a more
humanistic approach to looking at media use. Blumler
and Katz believe that there is not merely one way that
the populace uses media. Instead, they believe there
are as many reasons for using the media, as there are
media users. According to the theory, media
consumers have a free will to decide how they will use
the media and how it will effect them. Blumler and
Katz values are clearly seen by the fact that they
believe that media consumers can choose the
influence media has on them as well as the idea that
users choose media alternatives merely as a means to
an end. Uses and gratification is the optimist’s view of
the media. The theory takes out the possibility that
the media can have an unconscience influence over
our lives and how we view the world. The idea that
we simply use the media to satisfy a given need does
not seem to fully recognize the power of the media in
today’s society.

9. Ideas and Implications
• Uses and gratification theory can be
seen in cases such as personal music
selection. We select music not only to
fit a particular mood but also in
attempts to show empowerment or
other socially conscience motives. There
are many different types of music and
we choose from them to fulfill a
particular need.

10. DIFFUSION OF INNOVATIONS
• DOI theory sees innovations as being
communicated through certain channels over
time and within a particular social system
(Rogers, 1995). Individuals are seen as possessing
different degrees of willingness to adopt
innovations and thus it is generally observed that
the portion of the population adopting an
innovation is approximately normally distributed
over time (Rogers, 1995). Breaking this normal
distribution into segments leads to the
segregation of individuals into the following five
categories of individual innovativeness (from
earliest to latest adopters): innovators, early
adopters, early majority, late majority, laggards
(Rogers, 1995).

11. Cont…..

12. Members of each category typically
possess certain distinguishing
characteristics as shown below:
• * innovators - venturesome,
educated, multiple info
sources
• * early adopters - social
leaders, popular, educated
• * early majority -
deliberate, many informal
social contacts
• * late majority - skeptical,
traditional, lower socio-
economic status
• * laggards - neighbours
and friends are main info
sources, fear of debt

13. Cont…
• When the adoption curve is converted to a cumulative
percent curve a characteristic S curve is generated that
represents the rate of adoption of the innovation within the
population (Rogers, 1995). The rate of adoption of
innovations is impacted by five factors: relative advantage,
compatibility, trialability, observability, and complexity
(Rogers, 1995). The first four factors are generally positively
correlated with rate of adoption while the last factor,
complexity, is generally negatively correlated with rate of
adoption (Rogers, 1995). The actual rate of adoption is
governed by both the rate at which an innovation takes off
and the rate of later growth. Low cost innovations may have
a rapid take-off while innovations whose value increases with
widespread adoption (network effects) may have faster late
stage growth. Innovation adoption rates can, however, be
impacted by other phenomena. For instance, the adaptation
of technology to individual needs can change the nature of
the innovation over time. In addition, a new innovation can
impact the adoption rate of an existing innovation and path
dependence may lock potentially inferior technologies in
place.

14. THANK YOU