Research On The Opinion Leaders Of Word-of-mouth Communication About Movies In Social Media

During the process of word-of-mouth communication,Opinion leaders in social media will influence others’ evaluation and consumption of films by publishing reviews and critics.This thesis selects Douban Movie and aims to study how opinion leaders on the platform affect the Word-of-mouth communication of films.First,the characteristics of opinion leaders were summarized and the evaluation index system used to identify opinion leaders on Douban Movie was established by literature review of related research and theories.Second,role analysis of opinion leaders in the process of word-of-mouth communication was conducted.Third,a sample of 11 hot movies in 2016 was selected,an effect variable and some explanatory variables were determined according to the box office and rating statistics of the films,personal information and the reviews of the opinion leaders in the films.After Coding,analysis of the variables were conducted by using fsQCA,a software for qualitative comparative analysis.By content analysis and qualitative comparative analysis,the thesis aims to find explanatory variables that relates to word-of-mouth communication of films.Research results shows that good Word-of-mouth is not contributed by any single factor but by complex combinations of “hot reviews distribution”,“type of opinion leaders”,“way of emotional expression in reviews ”,“emotional content of reviews” and “rating scores of opinion leaders”,explanatory variables related with opinions leaders and their reviews.The influence of the explanatory variables in the process of Word-of-mouth communication were analyzed,making reference to the role opinion leaders play in word-of mouth marketing.