Fostering Friendships - Enhancing Social Bonds in the Classroom
Diffusion Networks
1.
2. “Every herd of wild cattle has its leaders, its influential
heads.” The Laws of Imitation (1903)
3. Opinion Leadership
The degree to which an individual is able informally
to influence other individuals’ attitudes or overt
behavior in a desired way with relative frequency.
Do you know anyone that fits the bill?
These people are called opinion leaders.
4. Opinion Leaders
Drive diffusion to critical mass through interpersonal
communication
Peer to peer
Their behavior helps determine the rate of adoption
in a social system
Most likely members of the social system.
5. Models of Communication
Flows
Hypodermic Needle
Postulates that mass media has direct and immediate
effects on a mass audience.
Two-Step Flow
Postulates that mass media messages flow to a mass
audience first with information, then from opinion
leaders to their followers through interpersonal
communication with influence.
6. “The most fundamental principle of human communication is
that exchange of ideas occurs most frequently between
individuals who are alike.”
7. Homophily vs Heterophily
Communication Networks
Homo = same
Hetero = different
Homophily occurs frequently because humans avoid
dissonance.
The more communication within a group, the more
homophilous the group will become
Homophily accelerates the diffusion process, but
limits the spread of an innovation to those
individuals connected in a close-knot network.
8. Heterophilous Networks
Often connect two cliques, spanning two sets of
socially dissimilar individuals in a system
We call these links, “bridges”
Especially important in conveying information about
innovations (strength of weak ties)
i.e., Agricultural Communicators
Agricultural science to consumer-base
Agricultural science to producer
9. Strength of Weak Ties
“The general notion of classifying network links on the
basis of the degree to which they convey information.”
Weak ties are often “bridge” links
“I know someone who knows someone”
“I met someone once that knows about that”
“My roommate's boyfriend works there”
Weak vs. strong ties are measured by communication
proximity.
Degree to which two individuals in a network have personal
communication networks that overlap
10.
11. Generalizations of SoWT
The information-exchange potential is negatively
related to their degree of communication proximity
and homophily
Individuals tend to be linked to others who are close
to them in physical distance and who are relatively
homophilous in social characterics
12. Characteristic of Opinion
Leaders
External Communication
Opinion leaders have greater exposure to mass media
than their followers.
Opinion leaders are more cosmopolite than their
followers.
Opinion leaders have greater contact with change
agents than their followers.
Opinion leadership is the degree to which an individual is able, informally, to influnece othe individuals' attitudes or overt behavior in a desired way with relative frequency. Opinion leaders are individuals who lead in influencing others' opinions. The behavior of opinion leaders is important in determining the rate of adoption of an innovation in a system. In fact, the diffususion curve is S-shaped because once opinion leaders adopt and begin telling others about an innovation, the number of adopters per unit of time takes off in an expoential curve.
Understanding opinion leadership and diffusion networks is aided by several models of communication flows.
The hypodermic needle model postulated that the mass media had direct, immediate, and powerful effects on a mass audience. In the 1940s and 1950s, mass media were percieved as having a strong influence on behaviour change.
People appreared to be much more influenced in their political decisions by face-to-face contact with other people... than by mass media directly.
The first step, from media sources to opinion leaders, is mainly a transfer of information, whereas the second step, from opinion leader to their followers, also involves the spread of interpersonal influence. This two-step flow hypothesis suggested that communication messages flow from a source, via mass media channels, to opinion leaders, who in turn pass them on to followers.
The two-step flow model helped focus attention upon the interface between mass communication channels and interpersonal communciation channels.
Mass communication channels are primarily knowledge creators, whereas interpersonal networks are more important in persuading individuals to adopt or reject.
What is known about the communication process is too detailed to be expressed in one sentence or two steps. Nevertheless, the two-step flow hypothesis focused communication study upon the study of opinion leadership.
Homophiliy is the degree to ehich a pair of individuals who communicate are similar. Social relationships are much closer between individuals who resemble each other in occupation and education.
Heterophily is the degree to which pairs of individuals who interact are different in certain attributes.
Talking with those who are markedly different requires more effort to make communication effective. Heterophilous communication between dissimilar individuals may cause cognitive dissonance because as individual is exposed to messages that are inconsistent with existing beliefs, an uncomfotable psychological state.
Heterophilious communication has a special informational potential, even though it may occur only rarely. Heterophilous network kinks often connect two cliques, thus spanning two sets of socially dissimilar individuals in a system. These heterophilous interpersonal links in a system, called "bridges" , are especially important in conveying information about innovations.
