Who's a leader among fishermen? 



In New England, they're called 

 "highliners." Here, they're known 

 as "smart" or as "experimenters." 



They're the fishermen who are 

 respected. The ones whose names 

 always come up in conversations about 

 commercial fishing. The ones who are 

 first to try something new. They are 

 the leaders. 



Sea Grant researcher Jeff Johnson, 

 an anthropologist at East Carolina 

 University, recently completed a study 

 of social networks, information flow 

 and the adoption of technology among 

 North Carolina commercial fishermen. 

 He found that the relationships in a 

 fishing community have a strong in- 

 fluence on the way fishermen do 

 things. 



If you ask North Carolina fishermen 

 who their best friends are, they'll say 

 they are friends with everybody in 

 town, says Johnson. But, ask them 

 whom they respect, to whom they talk 

 and to whom they look for advice. 

 Chances are, the names of a few fisher- 

 men will be repeated. Johnson says 

 those fishermen are the leaders in the 

 community. And, they hold the key to 

 getting information circulated through 

 the community. 



Johnson's study is the first of its 

 kind to concentrate on fishermen. 

 Previously, studies focused on farmers. 

 Those studies pointed to people who 

 had higher incomes, had more educa- 

 tion, and who read a lot as the leaders 

 in the community. "But, fishermen are 

 different from farmers," says Johnson. 

 "Farmers may not see their neighbors 

 for weeks. But fishermen pull into the 

 same harbor every day. We need to 

 know how information gets passed 

 among those fishermen." 



Johnson hypothesized that people 

 do things because they talk to others 

 and observe others. To test that 

 hypothesis, he took his study to Crab- 

 town, North Carolina. He won't 

 divulge the real name of the town he 

 studied, but he does provide a few 

 clues. Crabtown is a rural village along 

 the central North Carolina coast. For 



the past two centuries, Crabtown's ex- 

 istence has depended on commercial 

 fishing. Johnson says fishing is more 

 than an occupation for the approx- 

 imately 500 Crabtown residents; it's a 

 lifestyle. 



Johnson spent a summer with the 

 fishermen of Crabtown. He talked 

 with them, fished with them, and in- 

 terviewed them. (Marcus Hepburn, 

 another Sea Grant researcher, helped 

 Johnson collect the data.) And, he 

 found that the Crabtown fishermen 

 were cliquish. By questioning the 

 fishermen about their associations 

 with other fishermen, Johnson was 

 able to construct a model of social 

 networks in the fishing village con- 

 sisting of four cliques. "Once we know 

 the structural relations in the com- 

 munity, we know how to get informa- 

 tion out," says Johnson. 



Crabtown fishermen consistently 

 referred to two main cliques — the Big 

 Fleet and the Little Fleet. The cliques 



Photo from ECU News Bureau 



are based on the age and fishing style 

 of its members and where they dock 

 their boats. The Big Fleet is composed 

 of fishermen in their late 30s. The Lit- 

 tle Fleet is made up of fishermen in 

 their late teens or early 20s. 



Out of the four basic cliques, at least 

 two fishermen emerged as "opinion 

 leaders," says Johnson. One of those 

 fishermen was referred to most often 

 by other fishermen as someone they 

 talked to frequently. The other leader 

 is part of the Big Fleet, but he has con- 

 nections with the younger group as 

 well. These "cross-clique ties" allow 

 him to serve as a liaison between the 

 two groups, says Johnson. 



"If I want to get information to the 

 fishermen, I'd first want to know who 

 are the opinion leaders," says Johnson. 

 "Then I'd look for someone with cross- 

 clique ties to maximize the possibility 

 of getting the information to the 

 fishermen." 



For example, Johnson knew that he 



Jeff Johnson works out network models on his computer 



