The influence theory in communication

Our approach in this writing will consist in first of all, pointing out the two major theories related to media influence on people, secondly talking about personal influence, and conclude with social influence.

Direct effects and limited effects of media
Foremost, talking about the theory of influence comes to say some words about Lasswell with the “Magic Bullet” or “Hypodermic Needle Theory” describing the direct influence of media on individuals. «The “hypodermic needle theory” implied mass media had a direct, immediate and powerful effect on its audiences». In this paradigm people are considered as “massified” not able to think and make reasonable decision. Every attitude, behavior and life choice are dictated by media since there are in the center of anyone’s life as shown on the top right picture. According to the direct effect or direct influence, individuals are “atomized” by information. The problem of this theory is “what media does to people?”

However, that theory has been controversial when Paul Lazarsfeld, Bernard Berelson, and Hazel Gaudet first introduced the two-step flow in 1944 by asserting that information from the media pass through distinct channels and got filtered before getting to people. These filters could be opinion leaders, religious leaders, family members or friends who pay close attention to the mass media. That totally limited media’s power on consumers and gave to them some autonomy. They identified the problem of their research as “what people do to media?” Indeed, the influence in the society is not just related to media. It comes from elsewhere and affect individuals’ life in many ways. In that context, influence can be considered as a processes which is a part of anyone’s life by being interconnected to each overs or being in contact of each others.

Personal influence
Based on Katz and Lazarsfeld, the concept of Personal influence can be defined as the mechanism of change of opinions, attitudes and behaviors of everyday associates using social pressure and social support.

My own experience
Sharing my own experience comes to testify how personal influence can effectively be a part of everyone’s life. Personally, I like associative life but these past 5years, I did not give to myself a chance to get involved in any social life till I met with two ladies in September 2015, who are drastically changing my life. We started networking and all the natural disposition I had instinctively came out: self-confidence, leadership, motivator, inspiriting teens etc. In some ways, my situation confirm what George Gerbner was saying through his theory of culture or “cultivation theory” which considers that the television without being at the origin of the common culture seizes this culture and propagates it, maintains it to make it a standard (Gerbner, Gross, Morgan and Signorielli 1986) as well as influencers can be considered as the awakening of what we naturally have as disposition. At this stage of my analysis, I’ll say influence is just a kind of stimulus which send us a message and we evaluate before making the decision

Social influence
On the other hand, in order to better frame the social influence, we will based our analysis on Deutsch and Gerard (1955) Social influence theory with their two types of social influence “informational” and “normative”. Informational social influence is ‘‘influence to accept information obtained from another as evidence about reality,’’ while normative social influence refers to ‘‘the influence to conform to the expectations of another person to group.’’ Normative influence occurs in groups based on a desire to maintain group harmony or to elicit positive evaluations from others, and where discussion content presents the positions favored by other group members (Kaplan & Miller, 1987). Those kind of influences are within community as well as social Media with teenager in the search and fight for identity and self-representation through many plate forms as Facebook, Instagram, my space etc. Teens want to be a part of a group because they to create their own identity. In the community we can also see some group of prayer where members spontaneously believe in leader while some other are struggling because of devotion to materials nowadays and many so-called prayers who just want to take advantage of members. Based on Debra’s presentation on Friday 29 of January in CMN5995 class, I’ll say people in this last situation need to go through the five steps before any decision: Awareness, Information, Application, Trial and Adoption.

Finally, there are many ways to influence and diversity of influencers. But depending on the context and the reasons, influence can work or not. It’s not something which can systematically impact individuals because human have enough knowledge, wisdom and intelligence to make reasonable choices.

Bibliography
1. Chia-Ying Li (2012). Persuasive messages on information system acceptance: A theoretical extension of elaboration likelihood model and social influence theory in Elsevier. http://journals2.scholarsportal.info/pdf/07475632/v29i0001/264_pmoisalmasit.xml

2. Deutsch, M., & Gerard, H. B. (1955). A study of normative and informational social influence upon individual judgment. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 51, pp. 629–636

3. Kaplan, M. F., & Miller, C. E. (1987). Group decision making and normative versus informational influence. Effects of type of issue and assigned decision rule. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53, 306–313.

4. Attitudes, Behavior, and Persuasion 2012books.lardbucket.org1530 × 771Search by image. Spontaneous attitude change occurs as a direct or affective response to the message, whereas thoughtful attitude change is based on our cognitive

5. Gallery For > Fazio Attitude to Behavior Process Model imgarcade.com813 × 481Search by image Fazio Attitude To Behavior Process Model Subjective norm (sn): three

6. George Gerbner (1998) Cultivation Analysis: An Overview, Mass Communication and Society, 1:3–4, 175–194, DOI: 10.1080/15205436.1998.9677855 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15205436.1998.9677855