What is the Two-Step Flow theory?
The Two-Step Flow theory is based on how the mass media directly influence the public. Created in the 1940s, this theory focuses on how media first reaches ‘opinion leaders’ and interprets and distributes it to the masses and other people in their social network. An opinion leader is an ‘individuals who naturally gain trust and authority within their social circles’ (Perera, 2025). Paul Lazarsfeld and Elihu Katz used this as a way to talk about how people are socially influenced by who they idolise and deem trustworthy. This theory also comments on the interpersonal communication between the masses, media and opinion leaders.
The Role of the Opinion Leaders
Opinion Leaders are the people who are directly engaged with the media. They have gained the trust of the masses and have more authority over other people. These people tend to be teachers, activists or even TikTok influencers or YouTube influencers. Whilst influencers can be considered opinion leaders, not all opinion leaders can be considered influencers. The influencer is a more modern-day version of an opinion leader due to the fact that they are able to sway their fans (the masses) into believing an opinion of a product or take on a situation happening. One example of this is when travel influencers recommend a destination. On TikTok, one user with just over 5k followers, called Katafairy (2025), shows viewers good shops around London to visit. In the comment section, there are all the viewers commenting on the post, saying they love the shops or they are going to visit them when they are next in the area. This shows the opinion leader and the masses’ relationship because they soon follow the opinion leader on where to shop and are influenced by the opinion leader on where is best to go.
What are some critiques of the Two-Step Flow theory?
There is a critique of the Two-Step Flow theory that says that it oversimplifies communication down to 2 steps, leaving out all the extra steps it can go through, feedback and more. In reality, communication in media isn’t just 2 steps, especially in this modern world of social media. Information gets filtered down by so many people before reaching the masses. Another big critique of the Two-Step theory is that the original studies for the theory were done in the 1940s and can be argued to be relevant to the media at that time. The way the media has evolved, and the audience now has more access to wider, more diverse sources of information compared to the 1940s. Despite all this, the Two-Step Flow theory, whilst a very simple construct, is still able to be applied in new ways to media and the masses today.
References:
Perera, A (2025). Simply Psychological Available at: https://www.simplypsychology.org/two-step-flow-theory-of-communication.html (Accessed: 19th October 2025)
Katafairy (2025) ‘Where to shop in London’, 31st August. Available at: https://www.tiktok.com/@katafairy/video/7544835454173039894?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7562997233282876950 (Accessed: 19th October 2025)
