Communication was the great 20th century revolution, but to what extent is it used to control people’s lives? In this 133 page essay, his first book, José Rodrigues dos Santos studies the way academics and politicians have faced the media and its power.

Comunicação (Communication) begins with the first communication theories, which believed the media were all powerful, like the Magic Bullets Theory and Lasswell’s Paradigm, and from there it moves to other hypothesis, like the Two-Step Flow of Communication and the Persuasion studies. It explains the Marxist and the non Marxist critiques, the Innis and McLuhan Canadian school, the productive studies, agenda-setting and other research.

This is an essay for those who wish to understand the media.