Opinion Leader (OL) is leadership by an active media user, who interprets the meaning of content for lower-end media users or general public. In other word, Opinion leaders are individuals who obtain more media coverage than others and are especially educated on a certain issue. Generally the opinion leader is held in high esteem by those who accept his or her opinions.
Opinion leadership comes from the theory of Two-step flow of communication propounded by Paul Lazarsfeld and Elihu Katz. This theory is one of several models that explain the diffusion of innovations, ideas, or commercial products.
The Multistep Flow Model says that most people form their opinions based on opinion leaders that influence the media. Opinion leaders are those initially exposed to a specific media content, and who interpret it based on their own opinion. They then begin to infiltrate these opinions through the general public who become "opinion followers". These "opinion leaders" gain their information through more elite (intellectual) media as opposed to mainstream mass media.
In this process, social influence is created and adjusted by the ideals and opinions of each specific "elite media" group, and by these media group's opposing ideals and opinions and in combination with popular mass media sources.
One way to identify opinion leaders is to look at letters to the editor for three or four months. After a while, you'll see the same names showing up on different issues. Those people are opinion leaders.
There are other people with natural stature and credibility. Elected officials are opinion leaders.
Karl Rove used to plant rumors at law schools, because he knew law students in any school came from all over the state and had connections with educated, powerful circles of friends and family. He was right about that. I think it's immoral use law students to spread evil rumors, but Rove was right to see law students as opinion leaders. They're young, highly educated and connected.
But it's not just educated elites and people holding office. Barbers, bartenders and hairdressers often know more about what's happening in a community than anyone else. One more good example of opinion leadership is beauticians. They know more about how and what to apply cosmetics item according to their customer’s skin.
The easiest way to find out who opinion leaders are in any community -- whether it's a town, an institution or a profession -- is to ask people, "If you needed to know what was happen, or wanted advice, who would you call?"
The same names will start showing up. Those are your opinion leaders.
OPINION LEADERS IN SOCIAL MEDIA
Opinion leaders. The term has been heard often enough hasn’t it? All of us tend to infer the meaning of opinion leaders in our way. For some of us they are merely our parents, teachers or mentors who tend to play a prominent role in the establishment or the formation of our views, ideologies and their subsequent manifestation into our actions.
For the others, the opinion leaders are great people such as Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa and Mahatma Gandhi, who paved the way for the revolutions altogether, completely changing the faces of the entire countries, with their opinion and succeeding actions.
But today, with the changing contemporary scenario’s, there is someone else who has taken on the role of opinion leaders, and that is Social Media. The following are the ways in which it has proved itself to be an opinion leader.
Opinion leaders and social media-bring about behavioural changes. Opinion leaders, basically communicate messages to a primary group, influencing the attitudes and behaviour change of their followers, and in the same way, the various channels of social media( especially YouTube), also tends to influence the attitudes as well as behaviours and changes their outlook towards certain concrete beliefs.
OPINION LEADER IN MARKETING
In certain marketing instances, the marketers believe it to be advantageous to direct the communications to the opinion leader, who are also famous people, alone, to speed the acceptance of an advertising message.
For example, Omega watches have proclaimed Zhang Ziyi, the award winning actress of movies like ‘Crouching Tiger’, ‘Hidden Dragon’, ‘Memoirs of a Geisha’, as their brand ambassador for their brand. All the people who are ardent fans of Zhang Ziyi, and tend to consider her as a star in cinema, and various other arenas, would believe all that she has to say about Omega watches.
In this instance, the advertiser is using the opinion leader to carry and "trickle down" its message to influence its target group. It is in the same way, the various advertisers such as Pepsi, Coke and Emirates-Airlines, also tend to choose various social media venues such as facebook or twitter, to disseminate the messages, about their brands, through these channels, believing that these venues would act as reinforcers of their messages and instill their messages in their target audiences a little better.
TYPES
According to Merton there are two types of Opinion Leader namely monomorphic and polymorphic. Monomorphic is the type, in which the person that is an opinion leader in one field is also (or may be) a follower in another field. On the other hands, Polymorphic opinion leaders are those people, who have knowledge in more than one field and able to create or influence others in a broad range of domains.
An example of monomorphic opinion leader is a computer service technician and normal computer users. In this case, the technician has more information in the field of computer technology than the normal computer users. He has the technical knowledge to understand the information. However, the same technicians might have little knowledge about Cricket or any other field. So, he ask others for advice and become a follower in the field of sports.
An example of polymorphic opinion leadership could be an Opinion Leader, who has skilled in multiple subjects.
QUALITIES OF OPINION LEADERS
In the article of theorist, Elihu Katz, he said that opinion a noteworthy leader should have or one or more of qualities 1) expression of values, 2) professional knowledge (competence), 3) and nature of their social network.
They seek the acceptance of others and are especially motivated to enhance their social status. In the jargon (language) of public relations, they are called thought leaders.
According to Elihu Katz, opinion leaders have more influence on people's opinions, actions, and behaviors than the media. Because, opinion leaders are seen as trustworthy and non-purposive and people do not feel they are being tricked by the leader who they know. In contrast, the media can be seen as forcing a concept on the public and therefore less influential. While the media can act as a reinforcing agent, opinion leaders have a more changing or determining role in an individual’s opinion or action.
To understand what the opinion leader is and who the information pass from mass media to population, it is very important to discuss the Two-step Flow of Communication propounded by Elihu Katz and Lazarsfeld.
TWO-STEP FLOW OF COMMUNICATION
The two-step flow of communication or Multistep Flow Model, said that most people from their opinions under the influence of opinion leaders, who in turn are influenced by the mass media. So according to this model, ideas flow from mass media to opinion leaders, and from them to a wider population.
It also stated that media effects are indirectly established through the personal influence of opinion leaders. The majority of people receive much of their information and are influenced by the media secondhand, through the personal influence of opinion leaders.
The two-step flow of communication model hypothesizes that ideas flow from mass media to opinion leaders, and from them to a wider population. It was first introduced by sociologist Paul Lazarsfeld et al. in 1944 and elaborated by Elihu Katz and Lazarsfeld in 1955 and subsequent publications. Lowery and DeFleur argue the book was much more than a simple research report: it was an effort to interpret the authors' research within a framework of conceptual schemes, theoretical issues, and research findings drawn broadly from the scientific study of small groups. Unlike the hypodermic needle model, which considers mass media effects to be direct, the two-step flow model stresses human agency.
According to Lazarsfeld and Katz, mass media information is channeled to the "masses" through opinion leadership. The people with most access to media, and having a more literate understanding of media content, explain and diffuse the content to others.
Based on the two-step flow hypothesis, the term “personal influence” came to illustrate the process intervening between the media’s direct message and the audience’s reaction to that message. Opinion leaders tend to be similar to those they influence-based on personality, interests, demographics, or socio-economic factors.
These leaders tend to influence others to change their attitudes and behaviors. The two-step theory refined the ability to predict how media messages influence audience behavior and explains why certain media campaigns do not alter audiences’ attitudes. This hypothesis provided a basis for the multi-step flow theory of mass communication.
In a research conducted by Paul Felix Lazarsfeld, information about the psychological and social processes that influence voting decisions. He concluded that there is a multistep flow of information from the mass media to persons who serve as opinion leaders which then is passed on to the general public. He called this communication process the "two-step flow of communication."
CHARACTERISTICS OF OPINION LEADERS
Opinion Leaders enjoys life, has common sense, utilize followers to test their ideas, motivate them to follow his or her advice. He or she belongs to the same social group as their followers do; opinion leaders have the ability to easily examine followers’ activities because of their high professional knowledge and make followers to follow rules. Generally opinion leaders don’t have ego and have more experience of life than others. Besides, they are mature and not afraid of giving opinion.
References:
- Matthew Nisbet. (2009), "A Two Step Flow of Influence: Opinion Leader Campaigns on Climate Change", Science Communication, American University, March 30, 2009.
- Valente, T. (2007). "Identifying Opinion Leaders to Promote Behavior Change". Health Education Behavior, 34(6), pp. 881–896.
- Weimann, W. (1991). "The Influentials: Back to the Concept of Opinion Leaders". Public Opinion Quarterly 55(2),pp. 267–279.
- http://www.rivermark.biz/services_opinion_leader_identification.html
- http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Two-step_flow_of_communication&action=edit§ion=13
v 2nd year Student, Dept. of Journalism and Mass Communication, Kuvempu University, Shankaraghatta-577451, Shimoga.
