Culpepper,

There are suggestions that you're right on target. In online traffic flow and posting analysis it often appears that a few percent of a group actually participate and create content whereas a larger volume of the group engages in commentary(synthesis). Finally the third group merely watches and doesn't participate other than to read passively(consumers). I'll link to the study that ZenPundit originally posted.

If you look at mafioso the family may be only 150 or so members, but the organization inclusive of the "clientèle" and such will be much larger. Similar I imagine to the dynamics of any organization.

John Robb talks about how the chosen activity of insurgents are in themselves force multipliers. After reading the book I thought about the content creation pyramid with the insurgent at the top. Each of the media outlets standing below and a pyramid of pyramids. Which creates an exponential growth in the effectiveness of the terrorist or insurgent. I may not be explaining that very well, but I'm looking at the effectiveness of the communication path.