Two Step Flow of Communication

Two Step Flow of Communication

               This two-step flow of communication hypothesis was first introduced by Paul Lazarsfeld, Bernard Berelson, and Hazel Gaudet in The People's Choice, a 1944 study focused on the process of decision-making during a Presidential election campaign. To understand this flow is very simple, this flow of communication explains the very basic structure of how information reaches to us, the audience, from the media and through the opinion leaders. Yes, opinion leaders are those people who pay attention and listen attentively to the message from the mass media and then these opinion leaders, interpret the whole message based on their own opinion and pass it on to the individuals who are in contact with these leaders. Opinion leaders play a very important role in forming our opinions, as they technically influence us. 

                     Because of this flow, the term “Personal Influence” was originally coined to refer to the process intervening between the media’s direct message and the audience’s ultimate reaction to that message. The two-step flow theory has improved our understanding of how the mass media influence decision making. The theory refined the ability to predict the influence of media messages on audience behavior, and it helped explain why certain media campaigns may have failed to alter audience attitudes and behavior. The two-step flow theory gave way to the multi-step flow theory of mass communication or diffusion of innovation theory.

                     Eventually, this theory had a lot of base in earlier stage, when people weren’t advanced on the technology and didn’t received message aka information back then the way we do now. So obviously they had to rely on such opinion leaders as they were their only source for the information. But do to digitalization, now anyone can easily access the information, be a judge for the information that he or she receives from such opinion leaders, cross check and find he’s own source to rely on and not be influenced by someone else’s opinion or interpretation of the message.