Opinion Media Model

According to Lazarsfeld, two-step flow of communication model, individuals seldom make decisions based on their own beliefs. The idea that media influence on people’s behavior is limited by opinion leaders, people who initially consume media content, interpret it in light of their own values and beliefs, and then pass it on to opinion followers who have less frequent contact with media((Baran, 2002). Therefore the decisions are influenced by other persons in their lives, such as friends, family members, work supervisors, educators, leaders, professional, public officials, and the media..

Two step flow theory states that information from the media moves in two different stages (Weimann, Gabriel, 1994). Firstly, individuals which are the opinion

They interpret the information to their own group. But the Opinion leader is only a leader for their own group not for all. In some cases the Opinion leaders are filtering the actual content ensures the information is needed by the people (Merton, 1949). For example, in office, the managing director is an opinion leader and in public, a political leader is an opinion leader moreover, in Public, Political leader is an opinion leader.

In addition, opinion leaders in today's society typically share five characteristics included their education level, consume different type of media, activeness in public issues, new idea adopter and able to influence people (Bobbitt, W., & Sullivan, R., 2013)

The first characteristic is the opinion leader’s education level. They are higher degree of education than other around him. Their education levels have attended college, university and so on. If they have higher education level they have the ability to adapt more information as well as they tend to be more understand towards the

For example, friends, colleagues, or other people considered to be members of the peer group list, the first person to use the e-mail list, has a mobile phone, or design their own web sites may become the group's opinion leaders

Lastly, the most important characteristic is that opinion leaders are able to influence people around them, either because of position or personal qualities such as personality or confidence. For example, parents are the role models of their children.

The opinion follower as well as low active media user is the one who get the information and easily influence by the opinion leader. They receive second-handed information from the opinion leaders, about any media topic. These opinion followers receive not only facts but also the included of an opinion leader on that particular subject. The opinion follower’s economy positions are not that rich as the opinion leader so that they do have the ability to access the technology to gain information. Mostly of them are worker and people who are not affordable for getting information