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The research was further developed by Paul Lazarsfeld and Elihu Katz who named this the two-step flow theory of communications (Lazarsfeld and Katz, 1955) where the media communication was received by the influencer and then passed to other individuals.

There were limitations to the two-step flow theory of communications. It was based on one piece of research, which meant that it was not necessarily generalisable to other situations. It may be that this was a set of exceptional circumstances that could not be repeated. Another issue is that it was a simplistic binary model which assumed that this is how mass media worked. As a result of these limitations, the model was extended from two to multiple steps (the multi-step flow), which was developed by John Robinson (Robinson, 1976) and was used as a basis for other communications theories.

A key aspect of the digital environment is that we have moved from two-step or multi-step to a totally different understanding of communications with newer models emerging, such as media richness (see Chapter 11, Social Media Management) and uses and gratifications theory (see Chapter 13, Digital Marketing Metrics, Analytics and Reporting), although at the same time some much older theories, such as diffusion of innovations, have remained valid.