Multistep Flow of Information

During the early decades of the 20th century, the transfer of information from mass media to an audience was seen as similar to injection with a hypodermic syringe. This changed when researchers analyzing opinion formation among voters during the 1940 presidential election unexpectedly observed that personal contacts appeared to have been more effective in opinion formation than the mass media. They developed the concept of a two-step flow of information, where opinion leaders filtered and passed on information from mass media to their social contacts. With time and further research, this model was seen to be overly simplistic. Opinion leaders were not omnipotent but were each respected for specific areas of expertise. Young women, for example, influenced opinion on fashion and moviegoing.

The simple two-step information flow was expanded to a multistep model and used to examine how innovations, new ideas, or technologies are adopted by members of a community. Information exchange among peers is seen as more significant than a top-down unidirectional information flow. Someone deciding whether or not to adopt an innovation passes through five stages, according to the researcher Everett Rogers: (1) knowledge (of the innovation), (2) persuasion, (3) decision (to adopt or reject), (4) implementation, and (5) confirmation (that the decision was correct or not). Rogers classified people according to the relative speed with which they adopted an innovation, labeling them as innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards. Change agents can speed the rate of adoption.

The use of interpersonal communication and change agents along with mass media is widely seen as the most successful way to get people to adopt a new technology. Advertisers using viral marketing techniques are attempting to make use of interpersonal communication in order to persuade people to buy products.

Diffusion of news stories tends not to follow the two-step or multistep models, as most people get exposed to news stories directly from a medium—television, radio, Internet. But news of great interest to large numbers of people travels farther and faster; that is it has a high “news value.” For further reading, see Rogers (1962) and Severin and Tankard (1997).