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Information about Harold Lasswell


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The cover of "Harold Lasswell on Political Sociology" from the University of Chicago Press.''


Harold Dwight Lasswell (February 13, 1902 — December 18, 1978) was a leading American political scientist and communications theorist. He was a member of the Chicago school of sociology and was a student at Yale University in political science. He was a President of the World Academy of Art and Science (WAAS). Along with other influential liberals of the period, such as Walter Lippmann, he argued that democracies needed propaganda to keep the uninformed citizenry in agreement with what the specialized class had determined was in their best interests. As he wrote in his entry on propaganda for the Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, we must put aside "democratic dogmatisms about men being the best judges of their own interests" since "men are often poor judges of their own interests, flitting from one alternative to the next without solid reason". [1]

He is well known for his comment on communications:

Who (says) What (to) Whom (in) What Channel (with) What Effect


and on politics:
Politics is who gets what, when, where, and how.


Lasswell's model of communications is significantly different from those of engineers, including Claude Shannon, and his notion of channel is also different, since it includes different types of media. For example, newspapers, magazines, journals and books are all text media, but are assumed to have different distribution and readership, and hence different effects.

Lasswell studied at the University of Chicago in the 1920s, and was highly influenced by the pragmatism taught there, especially as propounded by John Dewey and George Herbert Mead. More influential, however, was Freudian philosophy, which informed much of his analysis of propaganda and communication in general. During World War II, Lasswell held the position of Chief of the Experimental Division for the Study of War Time Communications at the Library of Congress. Always forward-looking, late in his life, Lasswell experimented with questions concerning astropolitics, the political consequences of colonization of other planets, and the "machinehood of humanity."

Lasswell's work was important in the post-World War II development of behavioralism.

Major works

  • Propaganda Technique in the World War (1927; Reprinted with a new introduction, 1971)
  • World Politics and Personal Insecurity (1935; Reprinted with a new introduction, 1965)
  • Politics: Who Gets What, When, How (1935)
  • "The Garrison State" (1941)
  • Power and Personality (1948)
February 13 is the 1st day of the year (2nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 0 days remaining.

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Motto
"In God We Trust"   (since 1956)
"E Pluribus Unum"   ("From Many, One"; Latin, traditional)
Anthem
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Political science is a branch of social science concerned with theory, description, analysis and prediction of political behavior, political systems and politics broadly-construed.
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communication theory.

Other commentators suggest that a ritual process of communication exists, one not artificially divorceable from a particular historical and social context.
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See also
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Yale University is a private university in New Haven, Connecticut. Founded in 1701 as the Collegiate School, Yale is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is a member of the Ivy League.
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Political science is a branch of social science concerned with theory, description, analysis and prediction of political behavior, political systems and politics broadly-construed.
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The World Academy of Art and Science (WAAS) is an international non-governmental scientific organization, an informal and non-official world network of individual fellows elected for distinguished accomplishments in the fields of natural and social sciences, arts and the
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This article discusses liberalism as a worldwide political ideology, its roots and development, and some of its many modern-day variations, including American, European, classical, and modern traditions.

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Walter Lippmann (September 23, 1889 - December 14, 1974) was an influential American writer, journalist, and political commentator.

Early life

Lippmann was born in New York City to German-Jewish parents, Jacob and Daisy Baum Lippmann.
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Democracy describes small number of related forms of government. The fundamental feature is competitive elections. Competitive elections are usually seen to require freedom of speech (especially in political affairs), freedom of the press, and some degree of rule of law.
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Propaganda [from modern Latin: 'propagare', literally "extending forth"] is a concerted set of messages aimed at influencing the opinions or behaviour of large numbers of people.
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Communications may refer to:
  • Communication, allows organisms to exchange information by several methods
  • Telecommunication, the transmission of signals over a distance for the purpose of communication

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Politics is the process by which groups of people make decisions. Although the term is generally applied to behavior within civil governments, politics is observed in all human group interactions, including corporate, academic, and religious
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Claude Shannon

Claude Shannon
Born 30 March 1916(1916--)
Petoskey, Michigan
Died 24 January 2001 (aged 86)
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John Dewey (October 20, 1859 – June 1, 1952) was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer, whose thoughts and ideas have been greatly influential in the United States and around the world.
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George Herbert Mead (February 27,1863 – April 26,1931) was an American philosopher, sociologist and psychologist, primarily affiliated with the University of Chicago, where he was one of several distinguished pragmatists.
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Behavioralism (not to be confused with the learning theory, behaviorism) is an approach in political science which seeks to provide an objective, quantified approach to explaining and predicting political behavior.
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The Garrison State was a 1941 article in the American Journal of Sociology by political scientist and sociologist Harold Lasswell. It was a "developmental construct" that outlined the possibility of a political-military elite comprised of "specialists in violence"
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