Media Influence: The Power of the Step Flow Model

The 💥step flow model provides the best explanation of media influence. Evaluate this view.

Key focus of the question:
Sociological attempts to explain media effects provide the underpinnings for this question. The 💥step flow model was an early attempt to question the assumptions in the hypodermic💥syringe model of how the media influences audiences. The hypodermic💥syringe model suggests that media content acts like a drug injected directly into a vein, having a direct and powerful effect. Later theorists have generally accepted that the media isn’t quite so overwhelming in its influence as the simple syringe analogy suggests.

The 💥step flow model, associated with Katz and Lazarsfeld, suggests that personal relationships and conversations with significant others, such as family members, friends, teachers and work colleagues, result in people modifying or rejecting media messages. Opinion leaders in a community, in particular, have a strong influence on how other people within their circle of acquaintance interpret media messages.

Good answers are likely to evaluate the 💥step flow model by drawing contrasts with other models such as uses and gratifications, reception analysis, and cultural effects. Candidates might also question the assumptions on which the 💥step flow model is based and/or consider whether the theory, which emerged in the 1950s, may be dated.

Indicative content:

For:
💥 The 💥step flow model rightly questions the assumptions of the hypodermic💥syringe model that audiences are passive and that audience members are all affected in the same way.
💥 The 💥step flow model played an important part in questioning the view inherent in the syringe model that the audience is an ‘atomised mass’ whose response to media messages is unaffected by their social relations with others.
💥 The 💥step model rightly questions how much influence the media has on audiences, noting that the way the latter interpret what they see, hear or read is mediated by opinion leaders within their community/circle of friends.
💥 Studies have shown that media content is a major topic of conversation for many people and also it is often a shared experience (shared with family/friends, for example). Accordingly, it can be expected that these social relations are an important influence on how individuals interpret media messages.

Against:
💥 The 💥step flow model is simplistic because audience members may or may not discuss what they see, read or hear with others.
💥 Even if people do discuss some messages, many messages go undiscussed.
💥 There is greater diversity of media today and fewer ‘mass media’ experiences where large numbers of people are exposed to the same media content.
💥 Media content is consumed on a more individual basis today, so potentially less scope for social factors to influence how the individual interprets media messages.
💥 The cultural effects model provides a more sophisticated version of the hypodermic💥syringe model in arguing that the media can have significant effects on attitudes and behavior. These effects come about indirectly and through long💥term exposure to media content; the short💥term impact of consuming media content is very limited.
💥 The uses and gratifications model and the reception analysis model both question the extent to which opinion leaders influence how media messages are interpreted. These models suggest that each individual selects how they use the media and their personal beliefs and values have a considerable influence on how they interpret media messages.
💥 It is not easy to prove or disprove whether or not the media has a powerful influence on behavior because of the difficulty of separating relevant variables and measuring the precise effects of media exposure.