ABSTRACT
Half a century ago, Katz and Lazarsfeld’s (1955) Personal Influence presaged the trajectory of late twentieth-century mass communication research and its move away from an assumption that mass media messages dictate people’s behavior directly. In that frequently cited volume, they noted that information often does not flow from media outlets directly to audience members, but instead travels via intermediary opinion leaders. In doing so, they highlighted the importance of understanding interpersonal communication in order to grasp media effects.
