I tend to agree with the straw man accusation leveled against Watts. His research seems to be an extension of theories of influence, not so much contradictory.

I tend to agree with the straw man accusation leveled against Watts. His research seems to be an extension of theories of influence, not so much contradictory. But if he didn't pitch it as a war, he wouldn't get media coverage such as this article itself. Watts' main problem is that the Influence lobby sees one type of influential people when there are degrees of influential people. Complete farce: the Influence lobby itself is not one big bubble; it has lots of different theories, many of which talk about degrees and levels of social influence.