Online Social Influence And The Convergence Of Mass And Interpersonal Communication

Mass and interpersonal communication are rapidly converging as people integrate an assortment of Internet-based tools into their communication repertoires. This convergence prompts dramatic changes in the conditions that once were presumed to distinguish mass from interpersonal communication, most notably differences in communication directionality and scale, audience size and identification, and a host of cues that signal source credibility. This article proposes a number of features of technological convergence in this context-including shifts in message control, audience scale, and source, receiver, and temporal ambiguity-and describes illustrative implications for social influence processes. These features highlight areas that traditional mass and interpersonal communication perspectives cannot fully describe alone, and suggest new methods and directions for the examination of online social influence.