Dare to Resist Being Influenced
My last post talked about the Hypodermic Needle Theory and how vulnerable we are to the media’s messaging. The Hypodermic Needle Theory’s biggest flaw is that it assumes that people think identically and the media has complete control over the public’s opinion (think: book series turned movie series Divergent).
Contrasting the Hypodermic Needle Theory is the Two-Step Flow Model, which theorizes that the media disseminates information to opinion leaders, who then pass content onto the masses. Opinion leaders then decide what information to share to their following.
This video clip from Mr. Sinn explains the two-step flow theory, the impact of opinion leaders, the mass media, and the model.
Opinion leaders, also known as thought leaders, are authority figures of a given subject area. Their influence can be subtle or obvious — from product placement in a photo to lectures on why you should consider an idea, product, or business. Most commonly today, opinion leaders are social media influencers. Influencers develop a persona to attract large followings on social media platforms. Influencers are hired by businesses, organizations, and sometimes political groups to endorse ideas and products. Opinion leaders are integral to the distribution of information because they ultimately decide what information to share to their audience.
The clip below is from the television show, The Office. In the clip, Jan tells Michael that. Jan is the Vice President of Sales at the paper distribution company Dunder Mifflin and Michael is the regional manager. Even though Jan asks Michael to keep the information confidential until more decisions are made, Michael quickly tells his employees that the branch is closing. In this example, Jan is the “media” sharing information to the opinion leader, Michael, who then shares the information to the office employees, “the masses.”
The Two-Step Flow in Everyday Life
Whether we realize it or not, we apply the two-step flow theory when we gather and share news. Most people get their news from different sources — morning news shows, News push alerts on iPhones, even “trending” on Twitter. When we learn information from opinion leaders and influencers on Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, or Facebook, we assume the information is factual because we trust the people sharing it. However, it would be naive to say that all opinion leaders and influencers are unbiased and provide the complete, factual truth.
We have all seen celebrities endorsing products only to find out that they don’t actually use the products in real life. The Subway ad above features athletes Serena Williams, Megan Rapinoe, Steph Curry, and Tom Brady. Tom Brady has made headlines for his strict, exclusive, plant-based diet, so while it is unlikely that the first three athletes eat Subway, it is completely unbelievable that Tom Brady eats it.
These instances occur more often than not because of the sheer number of people on social media platforms and companies are vying for a piece of the limelight. To combat paid social content, platforms have started enforcing tagging sponsored posts with #ad or something similar so that viewers know that the influencer is being paid for their endorsement. Still, it is extremely important that the public fact-checks the news and information before they share it. Personally, I have shared news articles thinking they were factual, only to find out that the information is biased, dramatized, or flat out false. This has caused me to be hesitant when it comes to re-sharing news.
Nevertheless, I still scroll through TikTok and save videos of cooking recipes, places to explore around where I live, makeup tutorials, and life hacks. I gather my news from listening to clips of podcasts or snippets of news segments that are posted on Instagram Reels or TikTok. I definitely spend equal time watching multiple short videos as I would reading an entire article or watching a complete news segment, but in this day and age, shorter is better.
Where do you get your news from?