<p>Social media superstars may be renowned for having the power to influence people, but it is local and modestly connected people who have the real power to mobilise ideas and causes, a scientist said.</p>.<p>This understanding is important to addressing problems like vaccine hesitancy while deciphering how social change groups like Black Lives Matter and the US Capitol Hill attackers mobilise support, the scientists added.</p>.<p>Speaking on Wednesday at an online lecture organised by the US Consulate General, Chennai, in partnership with Science Gallery Bengaluru, Damon Centola, a Professor of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, said breakthroughs in new science over the last 10 to 20 years had prompted paradigm shifts in the study of people.</p>.<p>“Instead of studying people as individuals, we have started studying people as collectives,” Professor Centola said, adding previous attempts to understand the dynamics of social change had erred by considering people on an individual scale.</p>.<p>“Consider a school of fish. You observe their collective behavior. You study each of these fish faces individually. If you are able to know all the physiological and neurological data about each of these fish, would you then be able to predict after you put them together how they produced their magnificent complex adaptive behavior? The answer is no,”<br />he said.</p>.<p>“Instead, we need to study the collective process as a whole,” he said, adding that adopting this new strategy could help address vaccine hesitancy.</p>.<p>“If you want to get people to adopt vaccination, the way to do it is not by targeting influencers. Instead, a more effective method is to go to local neighborhood networks to get the message across,” he said.</p>.<p>Professor Centola is the author of Change: The Power in the Periphery to Make Big Things Happen.</p>
<p>Social media superstars may be renowned for having the power to influence people, but it is local and modestly connected people who have the real power to mobilise ideas and causes, a scientist said.</p>.<p>This understanding is important to addressing problems like vaccine hesitancy while deciphering how social change groups like Black Lives Matter and the US Capitol Hill attackers mobilise support, the scientists added.</p>.<p>Speaking on Wednesday at an online lecture organised by the US Consulate General, Chennai, in partnership with Science Gallery Bengaluru, Damon Centola, a Professor of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, said breakthroughs in new science over the last 10 to 20 years had prompted paradigm shifts in the study of people.</p>.<p>“Instead of studying people as individuals, we have started studying people as collectives,” Professor Centola said, adding previous attempts to understand the dynamics of social change had erred by considering people on an individual scale.</p>.<p>“Consider a school of fish. You observe their collective behavior. You study each of these fish faces individually. If you are able to know all the physiological and neurological data about each of these fish, would you then be able to predict after you put them together how they produced their magnificent complex adaptive behavior? The answer is no,”<br />he said.</p>.<p>“Instead, we need to study the collective process as a whole,” he said, adding that adopting this new strategy could help address vaccine hesitancy.</p>.<p>“If you want to get people to adopt vaccination, the way to do it is not by targeting influencers. Instead, a more effective method is to go to local neighborhood networks to get the message across,” he said.</p>.<p>Professor Centola is the author of Change: The Power in the Periphery to Make Big Things Happen.</p>