This document summarizes a presentation on measuring opinion leadership on Twitter. It discusses how the concept of opinion leaders and two-step flow of communication has been applied to online networks and Twitter. It analyzes how characteristics of opinion leaders may differ online, including the roles of virtual opinion leaders like bloggers and celebrities. Finally, it evaluates methods that could be used to measure opinion leadership on Twitter, such as network analysis, content analysis and reputational approaches.

1. DÜSSELDORF WORKSHOP ON INTERDISCIPLINARY
APPROACHES TO TWITTER ANALYSIS
HOW TO MEASURE OPINION LEADERSHIP ON
TWITTER?
Katrin Jungnickel, TU Ilmenau
14.09.2011
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2. Agenda
1. Original Concept: Opinion Leadership and the Two-Step Flow of Communication
2. What is Different Online and on Twitter
3. Implications for Measuring Opinion Leadership Online and on Twitter
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3. WHAT ARE OPINION LEADERS?
Two-Step Flow of Communication: Original Concept
Influences stemming from the mass media first reach "opinion leaders" who, in turn,
pass on what they read and hear to those of their every-day associates for whom
they are influential. This hypothesis was called "the two-step flow of communication”.
Katz 1957: 61
Broadly, it appears that influence is related (1) to the personification of certain values
(who one is); (2) to competence (what one knows); and (3) to strategic social
location (whom one knows).
Katz 1957: 73
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4. WHO ARE THE OPINION LEADERS?
Characteristics of Opinion Leaders
Personality Status Communication Behaviour
• Charismatic authority • In all social classes • Frequent interpersonal Who
• Belief in self-efficacy • Tendency to higher status, communication
• Public individuation
one is
• Credibility especially for virtual opinion
• Represent Group Norms leaders • Communicative competence
• Often advice or convince others
Media use Engagement/ Involvement Knowledge
• High usage of print and • Political participation • Expert status
What
online media • Social engagement one
• Information seeking • High involvement regarding the knows
behaviour topic in question (political
interest, product involvement)
Network Position
• Central position, large Whom
social network, many
contacts one
knows
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5. THE ROLE OF OPINION LEADERS IN COMMUNICATION
Main Functions: Transmission and Persuasion
Transmission Persuasion
Diffusion Research Public Opinion Research
two-step-flow: opinion leaders as opinion leaders as influencers on public
intermediaries between professional opinion, attitudes and behaviour
communicators (media, politicians,
organisations) and the public
 Mediation  Moderation
Troldahl 1966: one-step flow of Robinson 1976: multi-step flow, opinion
information and two-step flow of sharers receive and give opinions
persuasion
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6. TRANSMISSION ONLINE
Return to the Basic Concept – Revival of the Two-Step Flow?
• Pew Internet Research 2010 (survey in the US)
o 71% of onliners receive news from other people via Mail, Twitter, Instant Messager etc.
o 30% of onliners receive news via social networking, 17% only through contact with
friends
o 6% of onliners receive news via Twitter
Development of New Gatekeepers
(Jürgens, Jungherr & Schön 2011) or
Gatewatchers (Bruns 2005)
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7. TRANSMISSION ON TWITTER
Indicators for a Two-Step-Flow on Twitter
• Two groups of Twitter users (Wu et al. 2011)
o Intermediaries receive news/information mostly directly from the media
 have more followers
 are more active
 are more likely to be elite users (celebrities, media, bloggers, organisations)
o Other users receive news/information mostly from intermediaries
• What happens to media tweets? (An et al. 2011)
o in average, every tweet from the media gets retweeted 15 times
o media can increase their audience by 28% via retweets
o 80% of users follow up to 10 media but come into contact with up to 27 media via
retweets
o 46% of media tweets reach users via intermediaries (Wu et al. 2011)
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8. PERSUASION
• Network Homogeneity (Schenk 1994)
o political talk often happens in the primary group (close family friends)
o strong congruence of opinions in the network
o opinion leaders represent group norms
• Framing in Online Social Networks (Maireder 2011)
o intermediaries provide patterns and frames for the interpretation of media content
o intermediation frames are persuasive
• Heterogeneity of opinions on Twitter?
o 18% of left wings and 57% of right wings get into contact with dissonant political
opinions via retweets (An et al. 2011)
o retweet-network is divided in two political camps, mention network isn‘t (Conover et
al. 2011)
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9. WHAT IS DIFFERENT ONLINE AND ON TWITTER?
influence of OLs
potentially increases
- as intermediaries, but
also as moderators?
Connection with
probability to receive
Increased network people outside the
different opinions/
size primary and secondary
information increases
group
information overload
→ information remains
unnoticed
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10. WHAT IS DIFFERENT ONLINE AND ON TWITTER?
Lowest common
audience not clearly denominator effect
defined (Marwick & Boyd
2011)?
Influence of opinion
leaders dependent on
Information the activity of their
spreading network
via retweets (Influence Passivity
Algorithm, Romero et
al. 2011)
original source can information obtained is
diffuse unchanged possibly more reliable
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11. WHAT IS DIFFERENT ONLINE AND ON TWITTER?
Mixture of classic &
Communicators and Mixture of
virtual opinion leaders,
intermediaries use communicators and
opinion leader media &
the same channel opinion leaders
institutions
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12. VIRTUAL OPINION LEADERS
Elite Users and Micro Celebrities as New Virtual Opinion Leaders
• Virtual Opinion Leaders (Eisenstein 1994)
o celebrities and politicians
o influence especially high on people with less social contacts
o characteristics: credibility, authority, charisma
o Similar influence of opinion leader media and institutions
• Virtual Opinion Leaders on Online Social Networks
o Elite Users on Twitter (Wu et al. 2011)
 bloggers, media, organisations, celebrities
 20.000 elite users are responsible for 50% of the attention on Twitter
 journalists often have more followers than the media they work for (An et al. 2011)
o Micro Celebrities (Pugh 2010, qualitative Facebook Study)
 become online celebrities due to their large network
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13. MIXTURE OF COMMUNICATORS ONLINE
Implications for the Opinion Leadership Concept
• Opinion leaders online and on Twitter are not (only) individuals.
COMPANIES /
MEDIA BRANDS
PARTIES
ORGANISATIONS
BLOGS
INSTITUTIONS
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14. METHODS OF MEASURING OPINION LEADERSHIP
Method Description
Positional Office holders, politicians
Reputational Nominated by others
Self-designating Opinion leadership scales (e.g. Lazarsfeld,
Berelson & Gaudet 1944, King & Summers
1970, Noelle-Neumann 1983, Childers 1986)
Sociometric By retracing communication paths in a network
Observation
Key informant Nominated by special informants
approach
List of methods by Weimann et al. 2007
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15. METHODS OF MEASURING OPINION LEADERSHIP
Methods Applied to Research on Twitter
Method Description
Positional Office holders, politicians
Reputational Nominated by others
Self-designating Opinion leadership scales (e.g. Lazarsfeld,
Berelson & Gaudet 1944, King & Summers
1970, Noelle-Neumann 1983, Childers 1986)
Followers, Re-
Sociometric By retracing communication paths in a network Tweets, Re-
Posts,
Observation Mentions
Key informant Nominated by special informants
approach
List of methods by Weimann et al. 2007
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16. METHODS OF MEASURING OPINION LEADERSHIP ON TWITTER
Concepts of Opinion Leadership on Twitter
• Criteria for Opinion Leadership on Twitter
o amount of followers
o page rank
o amount of retweets and mentions (Cha et al. 2010, Kwak et al. 2010)
o amount of reposts (Bakshy et al. 2011)
1. Problems of technical analysis (automatic re-tweets, changing
tweets, etc.)
2. Focus on transmission, negligence of persuasion
3. Which characteristics make an individual (or a brand/ media
organisation/ instititution) influential on Twitter – not only in
terms of reach, but in terms of impact?
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17. HOW TO MEASURE OPINION LEADERSHIP ON TWITTER?
Extension of Twitter Network and Content Analysis
Method Description
Positional Office holders, politicians
Reputational Nominated by others
Elements of
Self-designating Opinion leadership scales (e.g. Lazarsfeld,
discourse (@-
Berelson & Gaudet 1944, King & Summers
Replies) as
1970, Noelle-Neumann 1983, Childers 1986)
indicators
Sociometric By retracing communication paths in a
network
Detailed content
Observation analysis of
discussions, link
Key informant Nominated by special informants
destinations and
approach
their persuasive
potential
List of methods by Weimann et al. 2007
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18. HOW TO MEASURE OPINION LEADERSHIP ON TWITTER?
Self Designating Approach Difficult
Method Description
Positional Office holders, politicians
Reputational Nominated by others
Not as useful as
Self-designating Opinion leadership scales (e.g. Lazarsfeld, we deal with OL
Berelson & Gaudet 1944, King & Summers who are not
1970, Noelle-Neumann 1983, Childers 1986) necessarily
individuals →
Sociometric By retracing communication paths in a scales do not
network really fit
Observation
Key informant Nominated by special informants
approach
List of methods by Weimann et al. 2007
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19. HOW TO MEASURE OPINION LEADERSHIP ON TWITTER?
Reputational Approach More Promising
Method Description
Positional Office holders, politicians Could be a useful
approach to
Reputational Nominated by others identify broad
criteria that make
Self-designating Opinion leadership scales (e.g. Lazarsfeld, opinion leaders
Berelson & Gaudet 1944, King & Summers influential
1970, Noelle-Neumann 1983, Childers 1986)
Sociometric By retracing communication paths in a
network
Observation
Key informant Nominated by special informants
approach
List of methods by Weimann et al. 2007
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20. HOW TO MEASURE OPINION LEADERSHIP ON TWITTER?
Mixed Method Approach
• Ask Twitterers to How do we get a
o name their most important sources on Twitter good sample of
o reveal their reasons to follow certain sources and their Twitterers?
strategies to select their sources
→ track down
o name sources (=Twitter accounts) which they retweet a followers of Elite
lot Users?
o characterize their sources (credibility, network position → focus on
etc.) certain topics?
• Content Analysis of participant‘s Twitter accounts
o followees, followers, Twitter activity
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21. References
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