Two step-flow of communication

Publication type:

Chapter

Metadata:

Autoren

Marcus Maurer

Sammlungen

metadata

Editoren

Wolfgang Donsbach

Schlüsselwörter

070 Nachrichtenmedien
070 News media

Paginierung

Seiten: 5189 - 5192

Buchtitel

The international encyclopedia of communication. Bd. 11. Student communication competence - Zines

Ort der Veröffentlichung

Malden, MA

Datum der Veröffentlichung

2008

Herausgeber

Blackwell

Datum der Datenerfassung

2020

Datum, an dem der Datensatz öffentlich gemacht wurde

2020

Zugang

Public

Titel

Two step-flow of communication

Data source: METADATA.UB

Other metadata sources:

Abstract

The two‐step flow of communication hypothesis was first formulated by → Paul F. Lazarsfeld and his colleagues in their classical study on the 1940 American presidential election (1944). It states that there is usually no direct influence of the mass media on the general public. Rather, “ideas often flow from radio and print to the opinion leaders and from them to the less active sections of the population” (Lazarsfeld et al., 151). This assumption, challenging the popular idea of strong direct media effects on the public (→ Stimulus–Response Model), turned out to be one of the most influential ideas in communication research from the 1940s to at least the 1960s. While recent research has contradicted the original hypothesis in its rigid form, many of its underlying ideas have stimulated fruitful further research. This holds especially true for the concept of opinion leadership and the analysis of social networks (→ Network Analysis; Opinion Leader).

Autoren