Activity 1B/1C: Going into Detail

After reading The Tipping Point I realised the chapter I was most interested in was 'The Law of The Few'. I had never noticed before the different types of people that we need for social circles to work and after finishing the chapter I am beginning to notice the people I personally know who are the Connectors, Mavens and Salesmen. Even within totally different groups of people, for example my group of friends and family, who obviously don't spread important news like Paul Revere did, all 3 different types of people are important. I was quite fascinated by connectors and the incredible amount of people they know, if I were to sit down and count as many people as I know, I doubt very much I would reach the amount that any of the connectors that Gladwell met. Mavens also interested me, and I know a few family members who are quite close to being one! I however found it hard to believe some of the things written about Salesmen... Of course most are very persuasive and sometimes we do not realise this. However to go as far as saying the subtleties of the expressions on news reporters faces can  influence the viewers vote in a national election, I find a little hard to believe!

Annotated Bibliography

Hackett Fischer, D (1994). Paul Revere's Ride. New York: Oxford University Press.

Gladwell Used this book for all discussion of Paul Revere and was useful when finding out about all the different social groups and people he would have met in these groups, in order to be able to spread the word that the British were coming faster. 

Tjaden, B. The Oracle of Bacon. Available: www.cs.virginia.edu/oracle/

This is the 'six degrees of Kevin Bacon' experiment, which is a good demonstration of how a connector works. It shows that actors can all connect somehow, and even more so when in different genres of films, just like the way the connectors in the book have had different careers/hobbies and met different people.

Feick, L F. & Price, L. (1987).  The Market Maven: A Diffuser of Marketplace Information. Journal of Marketing. vol. 51, pp. 83-97.

Gladwell uses this book to explain exactly what a Maven is and the research defines what a Maven is interested in and what they do for society.

Mullen, B. (1986). Newscasters' facial expressions and voting behaviour of viewers: Can a smile elect a President?. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. vol. 51, pp. 291-295.

The Journal used for the argument that the news reporters expression had the ability to persuade the viewers who to vote for.