-
In his book
The Tipping
Point
, Malcolm Gladwell argues that
“social epidemics” are driven
in large
part by the actions of a tiny minority of special
individuals, often called influentials, who
are unusually informed, persuasive, or
well connected. The idea is intuitively
compelling, but it
doesn’t explain how
ideas actually spread.
在
《引爆流行》
这本书中，
作者
< br>Malcolm Gladwell
认为社会流行潮流在很大程度上是由
一小部分特殊个体的行为引起的，
这些人就是人们常说的影响者。
他们异乎寻常的博闻多识，
能言善辩，人脉广泛。从直觉上讲，
Malcolm Gladwell
的理论似乎很有说服力，但是它没
有
解释流行观念的实际传播过程。
The
supposed
importance
of
influentials
derives
from
a
plausible-
sounding
but
largely
untested theory called the
“two
-
step flow of
communication”: Information flows from the media
to the influentials and from them to
everyone else. Marketers have embraced the two-
step flow
because it suggests that if
they can just find and influence the influentials,
those select people will
do
most
of
the
work
for
them.
The
theory
also
seems
to
explain
the
sudden
and
unexpected
popularity of
certain looks, brands, or neighborhoods. In many
such cases, a cursory search for
causes
finds that some small group of people was wearing,
promoting, or developing whatever it
is
before anyone else paid attention. Anecdotal
evidence of this kind fits nicely with the idea
that
only certain special people can
drive trends.
人们之所以认为影响者很重要，
是因为受到了
“
两级传播
”
理论的影响，
即信息先从媒体
流向影响者，然后再从影响者流向其他人。这一理论看似合理，但未经验证。营销人员接受
< br>两级传播理论是因为该理论认为，
如果他们能够找到影响者，
并对他们施加影响，
这些精英
们就会替他们完成大部分的营
销传播工作。
这一理论似乎还可以解释某些装扮、
品牌或社区<
/p>
为何会突然受到出乎意料的追捧。
对于许多诸如此类的情况，
如果只是走马观花地寻找原因，
你会发现总是有一小群人开风气之先
，
率先穿上、
宣传和开发人们此前从未留意的东西。
这
种事实证据与该观点正好一拍即合
——
只有一些特别的人才能引领潮流。
In
their
recent
work,
however,
some
researchers
have
come
up
with
the
finding
that
influentials have far less impact on
social epidemics than is generally supposed. In
fact, they don’t
seem to be required at
all.
但是，
在最近的研究中，<
/p>
一些研究人员发现，
影响者对社会流行潮流的影响力远比人们
认为的要小。事实上，他们似乎根本就是无关紧要。
The
researchers’ argument stems from a simple
observation about social influence: With the
exception
of
a
few
celebrities
like
Oprah
Winfrey
——
whose
outsize
presence
is
primarily
a
function
of
media,
not
interpersonal,
influence
——
even
the
most
influential
members
of
a
population
simply
don’t
interact
with
that
many
others.
Yet
it
is
precisely
these
non
-celebrity
influentials who, according to the two-
step-flow theory, are supposed to drive social
epidemics, by
influencing
their
friends
and
colleagues
directly.
For
a
social
epidemic
to
occur,
however,
each
person so affected must
then influence his or her own acquaintances, who
must in turn influence
theirs, and so
on; and just how many others pay attention to each
of these people has little to do
with
the
initial
influential.
If
people
in
the
network
just
two
degrees
removed
from
the
initial
influential prove resistant, for
example, the cascade of change won’t propagate
very far or affect
many
people.
研究者的观点源于对社会影响力的简单观察：
除了少数像
Oprah Winfrey
这样的名人之
外（她强大的人气影响力主要来自媒体影响力，而非她与观众互动的人
际影响力）
，即使人
群中最有影响力的人也无法与那么多的
“
其他人
”
互动，
从而引领潮流。然而，
根据两级传播
理论，
正是这些非名人影响者直接影响了他们的朋友和同事，
从而推动了社会流行潮流。<
/p>
但
是，
要让一种社会流行潮流真正发生，
每个受影响的人还必须影响他的熟人，
而他的熟人又
必须影响其他熟人，
依此类推；
但是会有多少人去
关注这些熟人中的每个人，
与最初的影响
者几乎没有关系。
举个例子来说，
在这个人际影响的网络中，
如果第一个影响者受到两次抵
制，那么他的连锁影响范围就不会继续扩大，或者说影响的
人不会很多。
Building
on
the
basic
truth
about
interpersonal
influence,
the
researchers
studied
the
dynamics
of
social
influence
by
conducting
thousands
of
computer
simulations
of
populations,
manipulating
a
number
of
variables
relating
to
people’s
ability
to
influence
others
and
their
tendency to be influenced. They found
that the principal requirement for what is called
“global
cascades” ——
the
widespread propagation of influence through
networks
——
is the presence
not of a few influentials but, rather,
of a critical mass of easily influenced
people.
基于这一人际影响力的基本事实，
研究者们研究了社会影响的动力机制。
我们对不同人
群进行了成千上万次计算机模拟，
不断调整人们影响他人和受他人影响的各种变量。<
/p>
他们发
现，人们所说的
“
全球连锁反应
” ——
影响力通过（人际）网络进行广泛传播
——
发生的
主要前提，
并不取决于是否存在着那么几个影响者，
而主要取决
于易受影响的人们是否达到
了临界数量。
注：从上下文的角度来看，插入成分中的
networks
应该指
“
人际关系网
”
。
In his book
The Tipping Point
, Malcolm
Gladwell argues that “social epidemics” are driven
in large part by the actions of a tiny
minority of special individuals, often called
influentials, who
are unusually
informed, persuasive, or well connected. The idea
is intuitively compelling, but it
doesn’t explain how ideas actually
spread.
在
《引爆流行》
这本书中，
作者
Malcolm Glad
well
认为社会流行潮流在很大程度上是由
一小部分特殊个体
的行为引起的，
这些人就是人们常说的影响者。
他们异乎寻常的
博闻多识，
能言善辩，人脉广泛。从直觉上讲，
Malcolm
Gladwell
的理论似乎很有说服力，但是它没有
解释流行
观念的实际传播过程。
The
supposed
importance
of
influentials
derives
from
a
plausible-
sounding
but
largely
untested theory called the
“two
-
step flow of
communication”: Information flows from the media
to the influentials and from them to
everyone else. Marketers have embraced the two-
step flow
because it suggests that if
they can just find and influence the influentials,
those select people will
do
most
of
the
work
for
them.
The
theory
also
seems
to
explain
the
sudden
and
unexpected
popularity of
certain looks, brands, or neighborhoods. In many
such cases, a cursory search for
causes
finds that some small group of people was wearing,
promoting, or developing whatever it
is
before anyone else paid attention. Anecdotal
evidence of this kind fits nicely with the idea
that
only certain special people can
drive trends.
人们之所以认为影响者很重要，
是因为受到了
“
两级传播
”
理论的影响，
即信息先从媒体
流向影响者，然后再从影响者流向其他人。这一理论看似合理，但未经验证。营销人员接受
< br>两级传播理论是因为该理论认为，
如果他们能够找到影响者，
并对他们施加影响，
这些精英
们就会替他们完成大部分的营
销传播工作。
这一理论似乎还可以解释某些装扮、
品牌或社区<
/p>
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