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“樹靶—批駁”文。

開篇便介紹 Gladwell 的觀點(diǎn)：社會(huì)流行潮主要由極少數(shù)有影響力的人推動(dòng)。而后作者表達(dá)對(duì)這一觀點(diǎn)的態(tài)度：雖然直覺令人信服，但未能真正解釋現(xiàn)象。文中此處出現(xiàn)了成對(duì)副詞“intuitively”和“actually”，一般作者在進(jìn)行批判時(shí)，為了使其客觀準(zhǔn)確，通常會(huì)采取讓步轉(zhuǎn)折邏輯，成對(duì)副詞或介詞短語的出現(xiàn)便可指示虛實(shí)，凸顯作者態(tài)度，即后者。

第二段介紹 Gladwell 觀點(diǎn)的理論依據(jù)—“兩級(jí)流動(dòng)理論”，作者首先剖析營銷者熱衷該理論的原因，而后表達(dá)自己的態(tài)度：理論有效性還待可靠證據(jù)驗(yàn)試，并暗示后文內(nèi)容，也就是拿出有效證據(jù)證明該理論為偽，從而駁倒 Gladwell 的觀點(diǎn)。

第三段承上啟下，通過介紹研究發(fā)現(xiàn)說明結(jié)論：有影響力認(rèn)識(shí)對(duì)社會(huì)潮流的影響沒有人民想象的那么大。

第四段繼續(xù)駁斥，介紹研究發(fā)現(xiàn)指明：流行潮的形成要靠多級(jí)傳播。本段一二句使用對(duì)比論證“研究發(fā)現(xiàn)的實(shí)情”vs“兩級(jí)流動(dòng)理論”，說明有影響力人士的影響有限；三四句使用正反論證，西安說明事實(shí)，再舉出反例凸顯。本段整體的論證邏輯為邊駁便立。

第五段以計(jì)算機(jī)模擬的結(jié)果展現(xiàn)流行潮形成的關(guān)鍵：不是極少數(shù)有影響力人士，而是大量易受影響的人士。

做題時(shí)注意選項(xiàng)張冠李戴：將文中人物的觀點(diǎn)說成作者的觀點(diǎn)。