Concept
the three social functions of communication
The three jobs communication does for society, according to Lasswell: surveillance of the environment, correlating the parts of society in their response, and transmitting the social heritage across generations.
In 1948 Lasswell treated communication not only as a matter of carrying messages but also as a way in which society keeps itself going. In his account communication performs three functions in society: (1) surveillance of the environment: reporting the threats and opportunities that could affect the values of the community and its parts; (2) correlation: coordinating the parts of society so that they respond to the environment as one; (3) transmission: passing the social heritage from one generation to the next.
In Turkish sources the functions appear as “keeping the environment under surveillance, the mutual relation between the parts of society and the response given to the environment, the transmission of the social heritage” (Yaylagül 2006); “korelasyon” is also used for correlation.
These functions are at the level of society, not of the person; why people use the media is the subject of a later approach, uses and gratifications.
A common error is to credit Lasswell with “entertainment” as a fourth item. Lasswell’s list has three items; adding entertainment as a fourth function is attributed to Wright (1960), who carried functional analysis over to mass communication. The functions and the later debates are treated in Functions of the Media.
Example
Hypothetical example: a warning issued for a storm approaching the coast (surveillance); the municipality, fishermen and school agreeing on the same precautions (correlation); the story of “what happened last time” told to children (transmission).