Research On Microblogging Opinion Leaders In Emergencies

“The Opinion Leader”, which is put forward by Paul Lazarsfeld in its two-leveltheory, is one of the classical concepts in the field of Communication. It exits in everyaspect of people’s real life, prevails in all social group as well as in the networkenvironment. But the “Opinion Leader” in network environment mainly exists invirtual communities, blogs and micro blogs. Because of their different environments,some new characteristics which are different from those of the traditional opinionleaders can be found.As the application of the internet grows, internet users can make their voicesheard not only through the platforms such as blog, SNS as well as BBS, but also theycan use their micro blog------their own platform which can make the concept of“SNS” and “Information Release Platform” into a maximum use. According to thestatistic of CNNIC, the number of Chinese micro bloggers has reached250,000,000by the end of December in2011.The development of micro blog in China has further broadened thecommunication channel of the Internet and changed its communication ecology. Theinterference of micro blog in public emergency events can not only develop the eventsfurther, but it can pose a strong challenge for the government at the same time. Since2010, it has not been unusual to see the public events which are closely related to themicro blog. We can see its shadow hiding behind so many famous cases, such as ademolition of houses in a blooded way in Yihuang, the grand fire of residentialapartment in Shanghai as well as QianYunhui case. Micro blog has already become asocial phenomenon which requires our close attention and needs a deep research andstudy.“The Opinion Leaders of Micro blog” have been playing an increasingly vitalrole on both people’s daily life and when the public emergency events occur.This essay has selected30“Opinion Leaders”, who have paid consistent andclose attention and have exerted profound influence on the event of “Qian Yunhui” inYueqing, Zhejiang province as its analytical cases. The essay investigates thetransformation of “Micro Blog Opinion Leaders” in public emergencies during NewMedia Technology Age by analyzing their identities, viewpoints, speeches andbehaviors.The article holds the view that the ways of which today’s “Opinion Leaders” express their views are vastly different from those opinion leaders before because ofthe interference of micro blog. Their opinions are conducive to the spread ofemergency event. Their opinions are also of great help in guiding the public todistinguish from right and wrong and can make them to think deeply and in a rationalway instead of being obedient blindly. They are also contributive to make thegovernment agencies to perform duties speedily, effectively and efficiently whenhandling urgent situations and force them to make the facts known to the public basedon the facts themselves and thus increase their credibility, which, will at the end of theday, enable us to achieve the objective of healthy and orderly development of both theinformation ecology system and the society as a whole.