Wer spielt die Musik?

Media play a crucial role in the development of children and young people, together with the influence of parents, family and peer groups. Looking at an important topic in adolescents’ lives, i.e. contemporary music, this pilot study analyzes the relationship between media and interpersonal communication. Its theoretical grounds refer to the notion of a multi-step flow of communication. Based on a snowball sample of 72 pupils, aged between 14 and 16 and coming from different schools in Germany, 687 relations between respondents and their communication partners could be identified. Interviews were conducted face-to-face and by telephone in 2001. The questionnaire included a network generator based on seven items, an assessment of relationship characteristics and communication roles taken with each partner and several controls such as media use patterns or relevance and expertise in the field of music. According to our results, the concept of opinion leadership can be applied to the roles of pupils in the classroom, and the social network approach allows for a distinct view on their communication patterns. The size of pupils’ networks was between seven and 12 persons in average, most of the networks being dense and consisting of strong relationships. Due to the still important role of the parents, the homogeneity in age and education was rather low. The results also indicate the presence of opinion leaders among groups of adolescents, characterized by central positions within the communication network in class. The case study could identify several roles, e.g. stars, bridges, liaisons, structural holes and isolated persons. On the other hand, there is no evidence for a substantially different type of media use by opinion leaders, which challenges the original assumption of a multi-step-flow of communication.