Suggestion theory

Historical context

At a time when scholarly inquiry was becoming more specialized and fields of sociology and psychology were brand new, many scholars were trying to understand how social influence occurred. Suggestion theory drew upon studies of crowd behavior, social movements, public opinion, rumor, and fashion, and it was situated at the intersection of the new academic disciplines of sociology and psychology, which were rival traditions. The new field of communication which was established in the post-World War II era did not embrace the earlier generation's work in propaganda and social influence. Because new academic discipline of communication proclaimed itself to be cross-disciplinary and focused on "behavioral sciences," it rejected earlier scholarship and mislabelled it as the hypodermic needle theory, the idea that communication messages affected all people in the same way. During and after World War II, academics in many fields worked actively on behalf of the federal government. Communication scholars worked on propaganda campaigns for both domestic and foreign audiences. They had a vested interest in rejecting and marginalizing suggestion theory. According to Jefferson Pooley, suggestion theory "had a disqualifying impertinence: It failed to distinguish between good and bad persuasion." After World War II, communication departments in U.S. universities were created by bringing together scholars with an interest in interpersonal communication and those with an interest in mass communication, and they became unified under a theory called the two-step flow, the idea that mass media and interpersonal communication both function to influence public opinion. The shift to marginalize suggestion theory helped to cement "a détente in a young field where sociological and psychological inquiry into mass communication and interpersonal communication were envisioned as interdependent parts of the same field of study."

In the 1950s, suggestion theory was explored by psychologists and sociologists interested in conformity, and this theory emphasized that interpersonal networks acted as a buffer that protected individuals from the direct effects of mass communication. But an idealistic vision of interpersonal communication becomes less compelling in the age of the Internet, where anyone can create emotionally-compelling propaganda using memes and videos, and social networks are intentionally designed to cultivate outrage, creating stifling, conformity-inducing places where emotion trumps reason.