Patterns of Communication in a Rural Greek Village

Abstract

To what extent does the “opinion leader” hypothesis fit the communications behavior of a relatively undeveloped area? In this study of a rural Greek village, the author finds that in an area having low literacy and meager access to the mass media, the importance of the opinion leader is enhanced and, to some extent, formalized. He also distinguishes a category of “information controllers” who, because of their ownership of radios, are in a position to control the flow of news.

The author, now Assistant Director of a research project being sponsored by the Puerto Rican government, wrote this report when he was on the staff of the Bureau of Applied Social Research at Columbia University.