Multi step flow theory of mass communication

The Social Media Behaviors of Female Fashion Leaders

Alkharashi, N., Burns, R., Kensra, D. and Naz, F.

California State University, Northridge

Keywords: Fashion; SNS; Behavior

1. Possible theory/framework

1.1

The visual image of the concept/model with the source:

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Source: http://communicationtheory.org/two-step-flow-theory-2/

1.2

A brief introduction:

According to the two-step flow of communication theory, there are two steps in which the influence of mass communication flows. The first step being mass media messages’ influence on opinion leaders, also known as the “influentials”, and the second step being the opinion leaders relay of this mass communication to social networks close to them. The theory which was formulated in 1948 by Lazarsfeld, Berelson, and Gaudet was able to change the well believed view that mass media has a direct and powerful effect on people, but rather limited and indirect effects (Barnett, 2011). In the original study, opinion leaders were found to be similar to the people in their social network who they influenced; the major difference was their exposure to the mass media information. Later research on the theory by Deutschmann-Danielson found that the impact of the opinion leader was not as great when information was significant and of high interest; and later research by Trolldahl in 1961 indicated that the theory is better suited for attitudes and behaviors rather than news (Bostian, 1970). The theory has been expounded on several times and several researchers have criticized the model. Bennett and Manheim (2006) have recently challenged the multi-step flow model proposing a one-step model that argued that “social and technological changes such as social isolation, personalized media consumption, and narrowcasting technologies now allow people to receive messages directly from the media and have reduced the role of opinion leaders” (Choi, 2014). As mentioned before there have been additions and changes to this theory, however, this theory was one of the first to develop the idea of the opinion leaders role in disseminating information and their influence on attitudes and behaviors.

1.3

Application of the theory to our proposal:

Our research project is about to discuss the behavior of female fashion leadership in usage of social media in which communication plays a role of spine. Social networking is the most effective and efficient way of communication amongst the fashion leadership and their followers with the innovation in technology. By using different social networks like Facebook, twitter etc. fashion leadership update their status and they will gets like reply and reposting of the status or message by the followers. This two step flow theory of communication would be helpful for our research project to support the concept of communication in between fashion leadership and followers.

Research Design

Methodology

Our research will use a convenience sample of approximately 200 females age 18-30 who has an active Facebook, Instagram, and/or Twitter page. Ideally, each participant will complete a survey which questions will help us to determine their level of fashion opinion leadership as well as their self-image. Fashion opinion leadership is determined by fashion innovativeness, fashion involvement, perceived knowledge of fashion, and fashion related behaviors. The six item domain specific innovativeness scale developed by Goldsmith and Hofacker (1991) can be used to help us measure innovativeness; Mittal and Lee’s (1989) 3 item involvement scale can be used to measure fashion involvement; a 4-6 item self-report can be used to measure perceived knowledge and questions regarding the amount of time and money spent on clothing shopping can be used to measure fashion-related behavior. The top percentile of theses participants will be determined to be fashion leaders.

Our team will develop a scale to measure social networking site activity. The scale will measure amount of time spent visiting each of the 3 social networking sites mentioned above, the amount of time they spend providing content (posting and commenting) and the amount of time they spend reviewing the content of others. The scale will also ask questions to measure the amount of friends and followers they have. Lastly our questionnaire will consist of a scale to measure self-image. As there are several scales, which measure this variable, we may use more than one, but in our review of literature, we found that Malhorta’s (1981) scale of self-concept was valid and reliable.

Population

As indicated above, the population in which we intend to study are females between the ages of 18-30 who have active Facebook, Instagram, and/or Twitter pages. We choose these social networking sites, as they have several similarities and it can be convenient to post to these sites at the same time using a smartphone.

Possible Threats

A threat that may occur in this research is experimenter bias. It will be important for us to develop a method of selecting our sample that does not allow us a bias to choose participants we feel may or may not be fashion opinion leaders. We also do not want to indicate and therefore influence, through any of our behaviors what group a participant will be in. We want participants to answer honestly and without influence.

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