The Study Of The Role Characteristics And Formation Mechanism About The Network Opinion Leaders

The concept of “opinion leaders”, which was put forwarded by Paul Lazarsfeld in1940s, is widely used in interpersonal communication and organizationalcommunication and is one of the classic concepts in the communication discipline.Opinion leaders refer to the active media users who usually provide others with message,opinions, and comments, and also influence others in the interpersonal communicationnetwork. They are the agent or filtering link in the forming process of masscommunication effects, through which opinion leaders information are diffused toaudience, thus, information transmission’s two steps of flow are formed. For publicopinion and audience, traditional opinion leaders show huge influence and appeal, andthey are active in all aspects of the social life.Today, the modern society has entered the Internet age. As “the forth medium”developed from the three great traditional media (newspapers, broadcasting andtelevision), network has brought the great impact and influence on people’s mode oftransmission. So in the new environment of online virtual communities (network forum,micro blog, etc.), there are special users which are called “network opinion leaders” bynetizens. Quite different from the traditional opinion leaders of interpersonalcommunication and mass communication,“network opinion leaders” are no longer thetangible persons in reality, but a number of active people who use ID number, influenceand even push the society forward by their articles, views and descriptions about eventson the Internet. These active people online, advocated by the members in virtualcommunities, have become the leader of public opinion in online communitiesgradually and also extend their impact to the real life.From the joint perspective of journalism, communication and sociology, this thesisanalyzes the unique roles played by opinion leaders in the process of constructing wordspower and influence in the public domain of contemporary China. Through the newenvironment of online virtual communities (network forum, micro blog, etc.)，combining Lazarsfeld’s “two-step flow theory”, firstly, the thesis applies “opinionleaders” theory into Internet communication, probes into the role characteristics changeand the formation mechanism of opinion leaders, and then discusses opinion leaders’agenda setting and influence on network and public opinion in reality, and finallystudies its future developing trend.