The two-step flow theory is one that has been around since the late 1940s and was created by Paul Lazarsfeld. This theory suggests that there are two steps involved in the flow of information and influence from mass media to their audience. This involves opinion leaders and the general public. The opinion leaders are there to collect and interpret information from mass media and diffuse this to less active media consumers. Thus, implying that most people receive information from opinion leaders through interpersonal communication rather than directly from mass media. This is evident on social media. Although opinion leaders usually come in the form of celebrities, family, and friends, in this case it’s influencers.
Over the years we have seen the rise in popularity and use of social media. As part of this, influencing and content creation have now become career paths for most. There are many different types of influencers, some more niche than others. A specific category of influencer that’ll be covered in this blog is pop culture commentators/newsfluencers. A pop culture commentator is pretty self-explanatory. It refers to an individual who makes content discussing trending pop culture topics, and a ‘newsfluencer’, a term coined by Edward Hurcombe, refers to an influencer that creates journalistic content covering current news stories.
Every year we see these types of creators come out in full force when new seasons of Love Island UK and USA are released. For those that are unfamiliar, Love Island is an extremely popular reality dating game show where single contestants live in an isolated villa and couple up with another in hopes of finding love. The latest series in the US version amassed over 800 million minutes watched, so it’s evident that this show is very popular. Although it’s a well-liked and trending show, not everyone has the time to sit down and watch the hour-long episodes. That’s where these types of influencers come into play and act as opinion leaders.
Pop culture commentators take to their social media accounts to debrief and catch audiences up on the events that occurred in each episode of the show. A very popular account for this is @Stephwithdadeets on TikTok. This creator has over 730,000 followers on the platform, with almost every video garnering over a million views.
Stephwithdadeets acts as an opinion leader by taking information from the mass media source, reality television in this case, creating her own interpretation and then sharing it with her followers, who are considered the general public/audience. With social media platforms like TikTok, audiences have the ability to share the content further by using the share and repost button, further passing on mass media information provided by the opinion leader.
Hailu, S. (2026) Available at: jhttps://variety.com/2026/tv/news/love-island-usa-season-8-ratings-peacock-1236768282/
Hopkins, D.A. (2025) Available at: https://yorkspace.library.yorku.ca/items/dfe1dab2-982a-4462-a328-0b60288b6520
IMBD (n.d) Available at: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4770018/
Postelnicu, M. (n.d) Available at: https://www.britannica.com/topic/two-step-flow-model-of-communication
Weimann, G. (2001) Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/social-sciences/two-step-flow-of-communication
