The Vaping Crisis: How We Got Here and How to End it.

The Vaping Crisis
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The Vaping Crisis:
How We Got Here and How to End it
Examining the Alarming Proliferation of E-Cigarettes and Vaping in Youth Circles Through the Lenses of Two-Step Flow and Inoculation Theories of Communication
Over the past few years, the number of teen vaping has been on the rise, leading to an outbreak of lung diseases and panic as regulatory agencies are trying to come up with legislation to control and prevent vaping among teens. E-cigarettes have become popular due to the internet age, and it is also easier to purchase the devices online. Despite the reports of lung illness, seizures, and exploding e-cigarettes, there is a lack of strict regulations, and investigations are still ongoing to determine the best solution to the issue. The problem can be resolved via health education projects which rely on the mass media to change people’s behavior and attitudes while improving resistance to environmental influence like smoking. This paper will focus on examining the alarming proliferation of e-cigarettes and vaping in youth circles through the lenses of two-step flow and inoculation theories of communication.
Definition of the Two-Step Flow Theory of Communication
In today’s society, most trends become popularized by word of mouth and influence from person to person. Instead of most people being influenced directly by the media, they are picking up on trends and opinions from others who pay attention to the media and then spread their thoughts. This type of influence was analyzed and defined by Paul Lazarsfeld and some of his other Columbia University colleagues as the two-step flow model. In 1944 Lazarsfeld and his colleagues conducted a study, known as The People’s Choice,into the role that media plays in influencing people’s decisions regarding the current presidential election. What they found was that of those surveyed, most reported that they learned about what was going on in the election from the people around them rather than the media directly.[Katz, Elihu. “Two-Step Flow of Communication: An Up-To-Date Report on an Hypothesis.” Political Opinion Quarterly. 1957.]
Through this research Lazarsfeld was able to conclude that media influences people in two stages: first, the media content is consumed by people who often pay attention to media. Second, these people then act as “opinion leaders” when they relay their opinions on the content to others, thereby influencing other’s opinions on the content. Simply put, these “opinion followers” are shaping their opinions on a matter off of someone else’s opinion. This type of opinion shaping does not just stop after one opinion follower receives the information, but it continues on from person to person to the point where most people’s opinions on a topic are barely shaped by the original media.[Turow, Joseph. “Media Today: Mass Communication in a Converging World.” Routledge. 2017.]
Because so many people rely on opinion leaders to help them shape their own interpretations of media content, these opinion leaders have a large amount of influence on how a topic is received that rivals the influence of the direct media. An issue ...