The Two Step Flow- Theory

The Two Step Flow

Paul Lazarsfeld, Bernard Barelson and Hazel Gaudet were the three people from "The People's Choice" . This was a 1944 study focusing on the process of decision making during a presidential election campaign. Lazarsfeld, Barelson, Gaudet expected to find pragmatical support for the direct influence of media messages on voting intentions. However, their findings was a suprise to them, they discovered information is filtered through "opinion leaders". These "opinion leaders" then acquaint their information to the less active associates. Following this, the audience then take the information and try and come to terms with it all. These information are recieved directly from the media with the ideas and thoughts expressed by the "opinion leaders", influenced by a two step flow. The power of the media was abused in the eyes of researchers. Therefore they concluded that social factors were just as important. This is then seen as a more sophisticated explanation.