In 2004, the American Society for Information Science and Technology commented:
“Information that was once obtained second-hand from friends and acquaintances–the traditional “two-step flow”–is now found easily through the Internet”.
We truly do live in the age of digital information. In just the past 5 years alone, we have witnessed websites like Facebook, Youtube, Delicious, and even Twitter grow exponentially more important in our day to day lives.
From up to the minute tweets and facebook statuses to youtube stardom, we have all become more involved in the theory of two step flow of communication, which is nicely summed up in Christine and Sarah’s recent blog posts.
In our blog, we have attempted to provide you, our readers, with tidbits of information from our extensive research which we think is relevant with this everchanging landscape of healthcare reform.
In a sense, we are taking part in the two step communication process as we decifer information and pass it along to our readers. Similarly, there are multitudes of social media users who are attempting to pass along journalistic information and shed even more light on the economic impacts of Healthcare reform.
Examples of this online, two-step communication theory can be witnessed everywhere.
–A Peace Corps Blog represents an example of an institution’s blog about healthcare and the new economy
–The Huffington Post is a very professional blog site, and has numerous articles on Healthcare and its economic impacts. Catch one HERE.
–Policy and Economics of Healthcare: The Blog of James Parsons. Two step flow doesn’t discriminate—we are all agents of this theory of communication. This example demonstrates a typical example of an amateur blog.
–Youtube as two step flow: Millions of Videos are posted on Youtube every day. As active participants in democracy, we not only have more access to Tv broadcasts and political campaign materials, but we can also post our own materials to facilitate the spread of something we feel is newsworthy.
