Applying The Two-Step Flow Theory to My News Gathering Routines
According to video by Mr. Sinn, in mass communication theory, the two-step flow model believes that the distribution of information and news goes through opinion leaders before reaching the intended audience. Opinion leaders are individuals who exert a significant amount of influence within their network and who can affect the opinions of connected individuals, according to Science Direct. Opinion leaders play an important role within the two-step flow of communication model, where information is transferred from the mass media to the public in two steps: first, from the media to opinion leaders and then from opinion leaders to the larger audience.
The mass media are the news and financial market networks that focus on politics, and events happening around the world. The most popular types of mass media include newspapers, radio, television, internet, magazines, and social media. During my lifetime, what was reported when I was a child were actual facts, and over the past decades, less and less people trust the news. The distribution of facts now goes through opinion leaders which leaves room for more opinion than fact to reach the mass audience and what they choose to share. They decide what’s relevant what’s not. Then the audience takes the word of the reporter delivering the information as fact.
Opinion leaders are important to this theory because of the influence on those the follow them. One good example of an opinion leader is social media influencers. Brands will market to influencers with a large following to get them to market certain products for them.
Someone I follow on Instagram is Rachel DeVaux and she is a great example of an opinion leader/influence in the health, wellbeing, and fitness markets.
She is not just another influencer for being famous. She has substantial credentials and certifications. She posts fitness routines, healthy recipes, and healthy treatment of her dachshunds. She was approaches by The Farmer’s Dog fresh dog food and I love it. The company and Rachel (health guru) connected the health of her dog to their new product. It’s grown substantially and has national TV commercials now too.
She has written fitness books and was approached by athletic product companies which pairs perfectly, but now she created her own brand. She posts cooking her recipes and talks about the stores, such as Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s, where she gets her products.
Opinion leaders have an important role to play in our society, especially journalists, talk-show hosts, and the news networks. “Fake News” creates a false narrative and separates our poltical parties and elected officials. It creates conflict in society when we aren’t willing to work to correct this. It is one of the greatest problems in our country, in my opinion, today. I intend to play a role in two-step flow model to help society by not spreading political opinions that are negative. And to know where I get my information from is proven and fact based.
References
Sinn. (2020, Jan 22). Two step flow theory: Media theories (Links to an external site.). )YouTube.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/computer-science/opinion-leader
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Two_step_flow_of_communication.png