Hypodermic Needle Theory

          This theory is about the absolute power of the media to affect the lives of its audience. The Hypodermic Needle Theory of mass communication, sees the mass audience as incapable of assessing the kind or content of information given to them by the mass media.the theory also assumes that, the mass audience do not have any other source of information with which to check the information from the mass media. With this theory (in my view), the media is always subjective in its reportage, since it is assumed that the mass media is incapable of assessing the content of the mass media. Thus media content is forced on the mass audience who are believed to decode the message uniformly.
          A weakness of this theory is that, it refuses to recognize any power of the mass audience to receive and interpret the information encoded by the mass media.it should be well recognized that, the mass audience do have different cultural backgrounds and are influenced by other environmental factors such as their family, institutions, occupation, etc and all these inform them as to how to understand issues.
          Also, in today's world (which is full of technologies), the theory is inapplicable.This means that, the theory is outdated, because the mass audience now have access to other  sources of information with which they can clarify issues.Thus, the mass audience is now independent on the mass media. the other sources of information include books, the Internet, friends, associations and other people they associate with. i mean that, there is an interconnectivity of different cultures.