Opinion Leadership and Political Extremism

Explicating Opinion Leadership: Nonpolitical Dispositions, Information Consumption, and Civic Participation

“…Most past work conceived of opinion leadership as an individual characteristic with relational implications, that is, a person's status in social interactions. Researchers have commonly agreed on definitions such as Hellevik and Bjørklund's (1991): An opinion leader is "a person who exerts influence on the opinions of others" (p. 158). They "are to be found on every level of society and presumably, therefore, are very much like the people they influence" (Katz, 1957, p. 63).…”

Attitude towards fashion advertisements with political content: impacts of opinion leadership and perception of advertisement message

“…A few dominant characteristics of political opinion leaders identified in previous studies include a high level of media exposure, strong interest in political issues and active involvement in political affairs and organizations. Hellevik and Bjorklund (1991) also discovered that political opinion leaders tended to hold more extreme views than non‐leaders. Given that political opinion leaders are strongly interested in political topics, use mass media frequently and tend to form extreme views, we hypothesized that political opinion leadership may have a measurable impact on attitude towards advertisements with political content.…”

“…Opinion leaders are those who exert ‘influence on the opinions of others within a specific field through personal communication’ (Hellevik and Bjorklund, 1991), and who are interested in that field (Weimann, 1994). Because opinion leaders in one field are not necessarily opinion leaders in another (Hellevik and Bjorklund, 1991), we included in our study two types of opinion leadership: fashion and political opinion leadership.…”

Does Opinion Leadership Increase the Followers on Twitter

“…An opinion leader has been defined as "a person who exerts influence on the opinions of others" [17], Opinion leaders are known to serve as social models, and consequently to influence the attitudes of their followers [18]- [20]. It is also acknowledged that public opinion is formed by "opinion statements" that are constructed through opinion leaders' cues and information [21].…”

“…Since the main role of an opinion leader is to propose an opinion and then influence others [17], [36], a considerable size of followers is important as a precondition of an efficient display of opinion leadership to public mass. Therefore, a Twitter user who has more followers could have more chance to widen the reach of an opinion and consequently enhance the interpersonal influence.…”