Katz and Lazarsfeld see opinion leaders as people in certain segments of society that are interested in particular subjects who become, in effect, something like media experts on those subjects. It is these people, then, that absorb certain media messages and inform their friends, families, and peers. Rather, they are perceived experts in particular domains. Therefore opinion leadership appears restricted to peer groups, at least on the surface.
Cooks inform cooks on culinary issues, commuters inform commuters, and so on.
One of the main points in discussing opinion leadership as it relates to functional theory and the Two - Step Flow model is that mass media communication does not reach the public in one giant wave. Rather, there are two steps in the process, and there is a trickle-down effect among subgroups of a population. The opinion leader, then, is the key to this model of communication. This is not to say that people may belong to one group only as they lead their daily lives. For more specifics on what Katz and Lazarsfeld discovered about the concept of opinion leadership, click here .