Lazarsfield- 2 Step Flow

It was developed by Lazarsfield together with Eihu Katz in the book Personal Influence (1955). It is a model hypothesis that ideas flow from mass media to opinion leaders (certain individuals) and from them to the wider population. It recognizes that most people watch media as part of a social network. The disadvantage is communications may involve many steps, not just two. Communication moves both ways, not just one.  Their opinion is not influenced by other factors, the message they receive from the mass media is not filtered by the OL. There is only one source. The audience is passive.

When looking at Paul Lazarfeld for my TV programmes it is possible to see Amazon Prime and other on-line entertainment delivery services as mass targeted, transnational algorithms that work as opinion leaders for individual consumers, beyond linguistic, geographic and cultural boundaries to suggest new programmes for consumption, usually based on a ‘match-rating’ from previous purchases.