Westley–MacLean model

Westley and MacLean’s article extends Newcomb’s two-person model so as to cover mass communication as well. A stands for advocacy roles (those who transmit purposively), B for behavioural-system roles (the receiver: a person, group or society), X for the objects and events of the world, and X′ for transmissible abstractions. In mass communication B cannot reach most Xs directly; so a C enters in between: it selects the abstractions suited to B’s needs, turns them into symbols and transmits them through a channel. The authors treat C as the counterpart of Lewin’s gatekeeper (as adapted by White) and of Bush’s “encoder”.

C is the agent of B and not of A, and it survives only to the extent that it satisfies B’s needs. Feedback runs on three lines: from B to A, from B to C and from C to A; it can be purposive or non-purposive. The authors present their model not as a theory but as a paradigm, a first step toward one. Sapienza and colleagues write that the model is still regarded as transmission-based because of its terminology.