Two-level communication hypothesis refers to a mode of information transmission from media to opinion leaders and then to the audience
In 1940, the famous American sociologist Lazarsfield proposed in the book “The People’s Choice”. Lazarsfield found in his research on the American presidential election that media rarely had a direct impact on voters’ voting intention, and face-to-face communication between people was more likely to change people’s views and attitudes. Such changes were generally carried out through opinion leaders, who were the transfer stations for such communication and had more access to media than ordinary people. The majority of audiences regard them as the main channels of information. Information is transmitted from the media to the opinion leaders, and after receiving, remembering and transmitting selectively by the opinion leaders, it reaches the audience and exerts an influence on them, forming a process of information transmission. In this communication process, there are both mass communication and interpersonal communication. The former, as the first stage, is mainly the process of information transmission, while the latter, as the second stage, is mainly the diffusion of interpersonal influence. This is the famous two-stage propagation hypothesis.
Opinion Leaders:
An opinion leader is the leader of a group who provides details and information to the less active members of that group. In the office, the general manager is the opinion leader, in the public place, the political leader is the opinion leader. They explain the information to their team. But one thing is that opinion leaders are leaders of their own groups, not of everyone else.
In public, political leaders are opinion leaders. There are few people here who are not influenced by the leaders and their political views and ideas. These people will not support opinion leaders and will not be isolated from the people.
However, it is important to understand that opinion leaders have sufficient voice only in structured social groups, not in isolated individuals in the population.
Two-stage propagation demonstration diagram
From the information in the figure, we can see that the initial mass media information flowed directly to the whole people, rather than being forwarded by opinion leaders.
For example
The bottom hot child from China’s Tiktok has been hot on the whole network by releasing cross-dressing videos, and has risen 5.3 million fans in a month to attract cooperation from various big names, which can be seen that the flow is large.
None of the video is his original, but he is smart in his upgrade on the basis of each element, do iteration, there are many bloggers have done such a style, but not his hot, so it has created a unique, textbook to upgrade the explosive point iteration. He has pulled the “fashion show” in our consciousness from the “tall runway and glass window” back to the “fields of ordinary People’s Daily incense and gas”, this contrast potential energy, instantly disenchantment of ordinary people, unrereach luxury goods, and narrow the sense of distance with users. And he is not suddenly broke out, but has been continuously paving content before, accumulated a certain number of relevant users
He is like an opinion leader, the audience is the Internet users, through the great sense of contrast to capture the hearts of users. Can use traditional Chinese culture such as poetry to borrow the force of the mother of Chinese culture, detonate the topic and comment section, so as to find the traffic password. Shorten the sense of distance from the user.
The content sent will be used in tables or data tables, disassembled and recorded, and the upgrade iteration will be optimized based on this. Just like doing the brand, every change in the brand is a loss of the brand force, the best and most effective or, repeat again and again, do the user’s mind implantation.
Sum up
Under the prevalence of the media network, the popularity of “the bottom hot child” is accidental, but after in-depth analysis, we find that accidental also contains inevitable. In the short video platform, the path of popularity can be copied, but how to maintain a strong connection with users after popularity, how to innovate video content, and how to stabilize the way to cash out, this is the part that needs attention.
This case reflects the new characteristics of opinion leaders in the new media environment. The information dissemination activities of opinion leaders can guide the audience to understand the law and essence of things through the appearance of information, and in turn, opinion leaders also need to grasp their own role positioning and direction of action from the feedback of the audience, so as to better meet the information needs of the audience.
I very much agree with the example of China’s Tiktok you mentioned. They capture the attention of the Internet audience by shooting cross-dressing videos, which narrates the distance between people. Of course, in order to make a good work and build their own brand, users need to understand their role positioning and action direction, so that they can better meet people’s needs.