Implementation of Two-step Flow Theory in Modern Day

Since the 1940s, the story line of the historical backdrop of media research has acknowledged the constrained media effects theories, despite the fact that it never got on with the individuals who really work in and around media, marketing and publicizing. They "reflexively" acknowledge the old convention of a powerful media, saying, "Our programs and advertisements," we believe, "produce individuals' opinions and it's a fundamental profoundly held by marketing specialists also, anchormen alike."[i] Ironically, the true power of media by means of networking may now be strengthened by a reevaluation of the two-stage flow theory. In our society individuals tend to use distinctive techniques or sources to get decisions and settle on choices about different issues in their lives. Some of those issues might be close to home while others might be political.  While some individual may look for information from the mass media, institutions, experts, for example, doctors, many reviews have demonstrated that an expansive number of people get medical and political information through interpersonal providers. These include individual experiences, information from relatives, friends, partners, neighbors and so forth. As indicated by Katz Lazersfeld (1957) People's inclination to look for guidance from these sources as their first alternative rather than print and electronic media possibly portrayed as the "two stage theory". Friends, relatives, partners and other individuals who people swing to for information when making individual, political or other critical choices that influence their lives may likewise be portrayed as "opinion leaders" as per Katz Lazersfeld. "Opinion Leaders" tend to impact people's basic leadership and are seen by the people as knowledgeable and reliable sources of information.

The age of social networking represented by Facebook, MySpace and YouTube and also the interactive capacity of the different web engines, similar to Google and Yahoo!, is not in a general sense diverse from the conventional interaction of interest groups and opinions leaders, aside from that it is transformative over limitless stages with worldwide reach at extraordinary speed. That implies that the social networking stage, now  coordinated with tradtional media have far more capacity both as a middle person (for the media messages it aggregates) and additionally the original content it embraces.

Associations through these sites can mimic an personal connection with people and organizations that are trusted for counsel and information. One need just view the "followers' or 'fans' of a superstar for a quick investigation of their impact. In a health context, Dr. Oz has 328,000+ followers as of the beginning of today. The web and social networking extend an interpersonal system, both through empowering passive correspondence with a bigger gathering of family and companions and furthermore through getting day by day communication through a more extensive network of famous people or specialists.

Refrences:

Everette E. Dennis. 2008. two step flow. [ONLINE] Available at: http://mj.unc.edu/sites/default/files/images/documents/ante/ante_two-step.pdf.

Anon 2017. Is two-step flow theory still relevant for social media research? [Online]. Available at: http://matei.org/ithink/2010/07/30/is-stop-step-flow-theory-still-relevant-for-social-media-research/

Effects of Media on Active and Passive Audiences

All media text is produced with the audience in mind. Audience is the people who ‘read’ or consume different media text. Because we all perceive different information in different ways audience as a whole has been divided in two types; Active and Passive.
An active audience is one that actively engages with the media product. They question what they are presented with and do not easily accept it. They build their own interpretation on it according to their past experiences.

A passive audience is one that does not question the text and accepts the message as it is intended. They do not have their own perceptions on the message as planned.
The behavior of these two types of audiences can be better explained according to different theories.
For example the hypodermic needle theory suggests that all audience is passive and readily accepts whatever the media ‘injects’ into its brain. This theory is backed up by an experiment carried out by Orson Wells in the 1930s in which a fake news bulletin was broadcasted saying that earth was being invaded by aliens. Out of 12 million people one million believed this to be true.

As technology grew theories claiming all audience as passive was debunked and new theories emerged which suggested that audience is actually not as blind as first perceived. One theory that explains this is the Uses and gratification theory.
The Uses and gratification theory states that the audiences have different choices in order to satisfy their needs. According to this theory audience is free to decide how they will use media and how it affects them. Apart from this there is also the two step theory that says that people tend to be influenced by opinion leaders more than the media itself. Opinion leaders are those who consume media and have their own perception about it which is further shared by them to other people. Opinion leaders are mostly people who have a stronger or alpha position in society which is why they are able to influence those around them.

In today’s world audience is more complex and has their own tastes and needs. They cannot be categorized into just one type, active or passive. Now the audience is a consumer that interacts with the media due to the rise of digital media. In the past one way communication did not allow feedback which led to the old ideologies on audience behavior but since the rise of two way communication these theories have drastically changed and the audience cannot be put in one category anymore due to the vast diversification of the sorts of audiences.

References:
Influence of mass media (2017) in Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influence_of_mass_media

http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/417/1/Chapter_in_Valdivia_Blackwell_volume_2003.pdf

Mass Society Thoery

Mass Communication is a process of transmitting a message to a larger audience. Mass communication is done through different mediums such as radio, television, newspaper and the internet. It is the quickest way of reaching a large audience.

There are four eras of the Mass Communication Theory. These are ; The Era of Mass Society Theory ,The Era of the Scientific Perspectives, The Era of Limited Effect Theory ,The Era of Cultural Theory.

The Mass Society Theory was brought into being during the 18^th and 19^th century. It shows that media has a large influence on shaping people’s minds and their perception as well as setting social classes. It also says that there are no alternative perceptions in media and that the actions of media reflect on mass society. It was also assumed that mass media is higher than culture and it can inevitably cause decline in civilization.

The first mass media medium was print media. This started with the distribution of religious texts and then went on to literature. This also brought in the Renaissance period in history. Then the industrial revolution came in which marked itself as the most rapid social revolution in history. New social classes were developed which consisted of the upper class (bourgeois) and lower class (proletariat). Slowly the taste of the bourgeois became more important than that of the proletariat causing a huge disturbance within the social order. Average people were being made to believe they are lower class so that the capitalists can stay in control. This continued in making life for the bourgeois better and created the “bourgeois idealism” (according to Horkheimer and Adorno). Thus the idea of mass society became “both elites and non-elites lack social insulation; that is, when elites are accessible to direct intervention by non-elites, and when non-elites are available for direct mobilization by elites” (Kornhauser 1959: 43, emphasis in original).

Marxism is a theory derived by Karl Marx. This states that society is divided into two parts. The bourgeois are the wealthy people who possess power over the media and are less in number. The proletariat are more in number but aren’t wealthy and do not possess any power over the media thus having lower value in society as well.

Mass Society was a centralized way of thinking meaning that there were no realized aims in the local groups in media. It had a narrower public sphere and it was just used to control people. This brought about a number of problems like social dissolution, moral degeneration and breakdown of consensus.

But as media began to develop, the lower class started to rise against this. For media to survive there was the need of audience acceptance. It also became known that media power can vary throughout different times and we can see this in history.

References:

Naveed, F. (2016) ‘THE RISE OF MEDIA INDUSTRIES AND MASS SOCIETY THEORY’, Theories of Mass Communication, 29 November. Available at: http://www.masscommunicationtalk.com/rise-media-industries-mass-society-theory.html

No Date) Available at: http://www.slideshare.net/hllbrh/mass-society-and-early-theories-of-mass-media

businesscom (2013) What is mass communication? Available at: https://thebusinesscommunication.com/what-is-mass-communication/ 

Hypodermic Needle Theory

The Hypodermic Needle Theory was brought about in the 1930s and for a very long time stayed very valid within the media world. The theory itself suggests that mass media could have a very direct influence on an audience uniformly by ‘injecting’ them with a message to trigger the desired response. This theory shows that the audience is relatively powerless or does not resist against whatever message they are being fed. In other words it calls the audience passive and accepting of anything the media says. It also expressed that the media is a very dangerous means of communication.

This theory plays on human behavior in such a way that humans are all supposed to react uniformly to stimuli. The audience thought the media is a source of accurate information due to which they accepted all the information they were given. This information was usually tailored strategically to what the audience would want to hear thus adding to their acceptance of it.

This theory was tested out in the 1930s by Orson Wells when they broadcasted a fake news bulletin over the radio. The broadcast was aired between the radio program ‘War of the Worlds’ and it said that aliens had invaded a city called Grover’s Mill in New Jersey, America. This message reached 12 million American people out of which 1 million believed that it was true thus throwing the whole country into chaos.

Because the Hypodermic Needle Theory was based on assumption rather than any extensive research it was soon disapproved of by a lot of media scholars. In 1940 researchers Paul Lazarsfeld and Herta Herzog conducted the ‘People’s Choice’ study in which they saw how much the media’s propaganda had an effect on the Franklin D. Roosevelt election. They discovered that interpersonal sources of opinion influences the audience more than the media itself and thus came to a conclusion that everyone has their own way of choosing which messages they want to be influenced by from the media.

Now as media is becoming more and more interactive this theory does not have much validity left anymore. Focus group testing, questionnaires and other sorts of marketing started coming into use along with more interactive media such as the internet or call-in shows so more theories have come up which have claimed to be much more of significance. Earlier because of one-way media the audience could not give their feedback but now due to two-way media the audience has learnt to question or talk back.

Even though this theory is out of date it can be regarded as one of the first theories in the media world and it is what made media scholars research more on audience behavior. Due to so many sources of information now in the present day people have the power to choose what to believe and what not to believe. The media’s influence on the audience grows more complex but the fact still stands that audience are more  influenced by their interpersonal relationships than the media itself.

References:

Hypodermic needle theory (1989) Available at: https://www.utwente.nl/cw/theorieenoverzicht/Theory%20Clusters/Mass%20Media/Hypodermic_Needle_Theory/.

AS, H.C.M. (2014) Katie Salmon. Available at: http://www.slideshare.net/HannahCharlesMedia/hypodermic-needle-theory-29639628

*, N. (2012) Hypodermic needle theory. Available at: http://www.communicationstudies.com/communication-theories/hypodermic-needle-theory

John (2010) MAGIC BULLET OR HYPODERMIC NEEDLE THEORY OF COMMUNICATION. Available at: http://communicationtheory.org/magic-bullet-or-hypodermic-needle-theory-of-communication/