Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), Montréal, Canada; the HSE Center for international students mobility, Moscow, Russia, rribeirojumior@edu.hse.ru
This work presents an analysis of the use of the Internet within the United States society. We present an assessment of the market share of the two US presidential candidates during the 2016 campaign inside a social network. By placing them vis-à-vis the main channels of communication in the United States, especially on the Twitter platform, we are showing the influence they enjoy as «opinion leaders» within the American communications chain. To elaborate this study, we conducted an epistemological analysis of the theory of the two stages of communication (the two-step flow), while relying on a contemporary corpus which reviews the model advanced by by E. Katz and P. Lazarsfeld according to the technological evolutions, which appeared in the end of the 20th century. This work explores, among other things, how social media helped to position the current United States of America’s president as an «opinion leader» in equal conditions of influence inside the communication chain, compared to the «media of opinion» and the «public service media», during the 2016 presidential elections in the United States of America.
two-steps flow; one-step flow; communication strategy; election campaign; social networks; opinion leaders; traditional mass media; public information
Download textFor citing: Ribeiro R.jr. (2020). Traditional mass media and opinion leaders. Social media and the changes in the communications chain. Human being: Image and essence. Humanitarian aspects. Moscow: INION RAN. Vol. 2 (42): Discourses that frame life, pp. 59-73. DOI: 10.31249/chel/2020.02.04