COMMUNICATION, ELITES AND POWER IN TIMES OF WARS OF IDEAS: A LOOK AT THE ‘WHO?’

Abstract

With the publication of Harold Lasswell's thesis Propaganda Techniques in the World War in 1926, and his article The Structure and Function of Communication in Society in 1948, scholars were able to establish how didactic the paths to understanding communication processes could be. But this political scientist's contribution is much greater, especially in his analyses of the relationships communication/elites/power. This article draws a parallel between Lasswell's trajectory through the theoretical-methodological approach of the political economy of cultural and media industries, concluding that if study of Lasswellian’s “Who?” had been better interpreted, many of the phenomena of the last 100 years could have been better understood.