Needles and Bullets: Media Theory, Medicine, and Propaganda, 1910–1940

Abstract

In this chapter, Thibault retraces the emergence and the circulation of the “magic bullet” metaphor in medicine and media theory in interwar USA. He argues that media were not only crucial in shaping cultural understanding of contagious and endemic diseases but that rhetoric about the power of media to educate the public on these diseases was itself constructed as an epidemiological model. Revisiting the history of mass communication research through the lenses of medicine and microbiology, Thibault concludes that a contagion theory in media studies should interrogate “curing” as a counterpart narrative to the panic often associated with viral narratives. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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