Influence travels through locally respected individuals who interpret media content for those around them, rather than directly from medium to audience.
Katz and Lazarsfeld's 1955 study found that people's voting and consumption decisions were shaped more by conversation with particular acquaintances than by media directly. The opinion leader is domain-specific and socially close rather than prominent, which is why the model predicts influence poorly if leadership is equated with visibility.
In practice
- A product adopted across a department because one respected colleague uses it, not because of the vendor's campaign.
- A village's view of a planning application is set by three people whom nobody outside would identify as influential.
- Standing
- Supplies the mechanism behind the two-step flow.
- Further reading
- Wikipedia
- Subject
- Communication & Media
- Essay
- Theories of what stands between an event and its audience