Seminar paper from the year 2018 in the subject Communications - Research, Studies, Enquiries, grade: 1,3, Free University of Berlin (Publizistik und Kommunikationswissenschaft), language: English, abstract: This paper provides a theoretical background of Lazarsfeld's "Two-step Flow of Communication" and the debates around the validity of his theory in the digital era. It focuses on two Twitter studies conducted in the recent year, it presents and evaluates the results. Since its formulation, the theory of the two-step flow of communication has been tested and validated, on numerous occasions through replicative studies, conducted on different topics. However, changes in technology in the past decade, especially the proliferation of web-based media such as blogs, online communities and social networks, have led to reassess the validity of the theory in relation to the new media environment. Thanks to the Internet individuals can communicate instantly across geographic boundaries to one, few or many people. Social networking sites enable individuals to express opinions on any topic and instantly share them with others. The contemporary (social) media environment has renewed interest in the concept of two-step flow generally, and opinion leadership specifically. Several researches have been conducted to investigate if the model can still be explanatory of the flow of news and interactions occurring online on web platforms and social media. The purpose of this work is to present the actual stand of the research and discuss the main findings of the studies led by the questions: is the two-step flow still relevant as a theorical framework? How does information flow from traditional media to their audience in the digital age? Are opinion leaders still playing a role in this process? In the first chapters, a theoretical framework of the most discussed communication theories will be provided.

Since its development shaped by the turmoil of the World Wars and suspicion of new technologies such as film and radio, political communication has become a hybrid field largely devoted to connecting the dots among political rhetoric, politicians and leaders, voters' opinions, and media exposure to better understand how any one aspect can affect the others. In The Oxford Handbook of Political Communication Kate Kenski and Kathleen Hall Jamieson bring together leading scholars, including founders of the field of political communication Elihu Katz, Jay Blumler, Doris Graber, Max McCombs, and Thomas Paterson,to review the major findings about subjects ranging from the effects of political advertising and debates and understandings and misunderstandings of agenda setting, framing, and cultivation to the changing contours of social media use in politics and the functions of the press in a democratic system. The essays in this volume reveal that political communication is a hybrid field with complex ancestry, permeable boundaries, and interests that overlap with those of related fields such as political sociology, public opinion, rhetoric, neuroscience, and the new hybrid on the quad, media psychology. This comprehensive review of the political communication literature is an indispensible reference for scholars and students interested in the study of how, why, when, and with what effect humans make sense of symbolic exchanges about sharing and shared power. The sixty-two chapters in The Oxford Handbook of Political Communication contain an overview of past scholarship while providing critical reflection of its relevance in a changing media landscape and offering agendas for future research and innovation.

From the viewpoint of newspaper organizations the main competitive media has shrunk to only one, the internet. But the effect of this innovation has been devastating in capturing the vast majority of the advertising revenues on which newspapers have depended. The larger the internet-based media became the more newspapers and other media shrank. Pairing an academic and former industry news manager, this textbook assesses the situation in which the regional news media industry finds itself, and explores methods, processes and techniques, which might usefully be introduced to help the news media firm secure a viable future. In focusing on newspapers, magazines, TV and radio, the work is filled with real-life examples and interviews with news media managers, illustrating how management is being conducted in this age of turbulence. The goal is to give students practice in solving complex strategic problems and to provide them with a series of intellectual and professional exercises. Their method of using case studies will enable students to explore in detail key theoretical issues before applying them to real life management settings.

First published in 1955, "Personal Influence" reports the results of a pioneering study conducted in Decatur, Illinois, validating Paul Lazarsfeld's serendipitous discovery that messages from the media may be further mediated by informal "opinion leaders" who intercept, interpret, and diffuse what they see and hear to the personal networks in which they are embedded. This classic volume set the stage for all subsequent studies of the interaction of mass media and interpersonal influence in the making of everyday decisions in public affairs, fashion, movie-going, and consumer behavior. The contextualizing essay in Part One dwells on the surprising relevance of primary groups to the flow of mass communication. Peter Simonson of the University of Pittsburgh has written that "Personal Influence was perhaps the most influential book in mass communication research of the postwar era, and it remains a signal text with historic significance and ongoing reverberations...more than any other single work, it solidified what came to be known as the dominant paradigm in the field, which later researchers were compelled either to cast off or build upon." In his introduction to this fiftieth-anniversary edition, Elihu Katz discusses the theory and methodology that underlie the Decatur study and evaluates the legacy of his coauthor and mentor, Paul F. Lazarsfeld.

Although opinion leadership has been the subject of numerous studies, in areas ranging from politics to fashion and in many societies and cultures, The Influentials represents the first systematic analysis of the concept. It offers a multidisciplinary presentation of the definitions, typologies, methods, and findings of opinion leadership, from its early formulation, through the emergence of the first empirical evidence, to the most recent research. Weimann examines opinion leadership and personal influence in a number of areas, including marketing, public opinion and elections, education, fashion, science, agriculture, and health care. He also examines the growing criticism of the model based on theoretical and empirical weaknesses of the original concept and evaluates for the first time modifications that have emerged, including a new measure (the PS Scale) and its testing and application. The final chapters for the first time link opinion leadership with the important theoretical and research tradition of agenda setting.

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