2010 Text 3

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.

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.

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.

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.

Building on this 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.

本文是一篇典型的“树靶—批驳”文。

开篇便介绍 Gladwell 的观点：社会流行潮主要由极少数有影响力的人推动。而后作者表达对这一观点的态度：虽然直觉令人信服，但未能真正解释现象。文中此处出现了成对副词“intuitively”和“actually”，一般作者在进行批判时，为了使其客观准确，通常会采取让步转折逻辑，成对副词或介词短语的出现便可指示虚实，凸显作者态度，即后者。

第二段介绍 Gladwell 观点的理论依据—“两级流动理论”，作者首先剖析营销者热衷该理论的原因，而后表达自己的态度：理论有效性还待可靠证据验试，并暗示后文内容，也就是拿出有效证据证明该理论为伪，从而驳倒 Gladwell 的观点。

第三段承上启下，通过介绍研究发现说明结论：有影响力认识对社会潮流的影响没有人民想象的那么大。

第四段继续驳斥，介绍研究发现指明：流行潮的形成要靠多级传播。本段一二句使用对比论证“研究发现的实情”vs“两级流动理论”，说明有影响力人士的影响有限；三四句使用正反论证，西安说明事实，再举出反例凸显。本段整体的论证逻辑为边驳便立。

第五段以计算机模拟的结果展现流行潮形成的关键：不是极少数有影响力人士，而是大量易受影响的人士。

做题时注意选项张冠李戴：将文中人物的观点说成作者的观点。