The Rediscovery of Opinion Leaders. An Application of the Personality Strength Scale

Abstract

Opinion leadership has been the subject of numerous studies, in areas ranging from politics to marketing. The present study examines a new measure to identify opinion leaders (the personality strength scale developed by the Aliensbach Survey Center in Germany) and combines it with modern social network analysis. An application of this scale to agenda setting and public opinion research is the main point of concern in this study. The findings of the study (a survey of a representative sample of 900 adults in Gennany) suggest, thai the Strength of Personality Scale fits a more sophisticated characterization of opinion leadership which is based on modifications of the original opinion leader concept. Moreover, the results indicate that people with high personality strength have social networks of great range and are especially active in interpersonal communication. They use print media very frequently and know very well the actual topics and issues on which the mass media report. Although people with high personality strength are able to exactly assess the true climate of opinion» they hold distinct positions which differ from public opinion. In contrary, persons with low personality strength tend to adapt their opinions to the perceived climate of opinion. The opinion leader conceptThe specific communicative role of opinion leaders was proposed as early as the 1940s by Lazarsfeld et al. (1948: 150) 2 when they demonstrated the connection between mass and interpersonal communication with the hypothesis of a two-step-flow: "Ideas often flow from radio and print to the opinion leaders and from them to the less active sections of the population." The authors focused on the particular multiplying effect emanating from opinion leaders. Today, the opinion leader concept is still used in campaigns and in other forms of persuasive communication because personal influence often proves more effective than the mass media. Direct personal contacts with opinion leaders frequently play a far greater role in individual decisions, for example, in the area of politics or in consumer behavior, than (indirect) media communication. In everyday life individuals try to obtain additional information concerning the topics and facts they first heard about from the media by mutual Communications 22 (1997) 1 Brought to you by |

Meinungsführer und der "Flow of Communication"

“…Die als persönlichkeitsstark ermittelten Befragten verfügten über einen größe-ren Bekanntenkreis, der auch Personengruppen mit anderen Merkmalen als den eigenen (z.B. anderes Alter, anderer Sozialstatus) umfasste (Schenk 1995;Schenk & Rössler 1997). Dabei waren sie selbst tendenziell in höheren sozialen Schichten zu finden -weshalb die Skala der Persönlichkeitsstärke doch auch Aussagen über den sozialen Status erlaubte (vgl.…”

“…Sie verfügten über einen größeren Interessenshorizont und hatten ein divergentes Mediennutzungsverhalten; sie konsumierten v.a informationsreiche Medien intensiver und genauer (Weimann 1992). Das überdurchschnittliche Informationsverhalten ging mit einem ausgeprägten Wissen über eine Vielzahl öffentlicher Themen einher (Schenk & Rössler 1997). Dabei konnten die Persönlichkeitsstarken die öffentliche Meinung recht gut einschätzen, vertraten aber auch eigene Positionen, die teilweise von der Mehrheitsmeinung abwichen.…”

“…Auch in der kommunikationswissenschaftlichen Meinungsführerforschung wurde die Skala sowohl im Offline-als auch im Online-Kontext gewinnbringend verwendet (vgl. Schenk 1995;Schenk & Rössler 1997;Weimann 1991Weimann , 1994Scheiko & Schenk 2013).…”

Social persuasion: targeting social identities through social influencers

“…Consumers with high personality strength achieve higher levels of satisfaction in life and are generally more integrated into their communities (Scheufele, 1999). Personality strength is positively related to a person's engagement in social activities, and it has been shown that people with high personality strength engage in larger social networks and talk to others more often (Schenk and Rö ssler, 1997). Due to their larger networks and integration into larger communities, consumers with high personality strength frequently meet new people, speak at meetings, participate actively in discussions, and take part in social events (Weimann, 1994;Noelle-Neumann, 1985).…”

Sources of facts and advice for farmer decision-making concerning soil conservation practices in Grant County, Wisconsin

“…Some of the applied contexts where opinion leadership has been studied include fashion (Baumgarten, 1975), healthcare decisions (Kravitz et al, 2003), the diffusion of prescribed drugs advice (Albertson, 2004), consumer products (Myers & Robertson, 1972;King & Summers, 1970;Chan & Misra, 1990), automobile purchase behavior (Richins & Root-Shaffer, 1988), cable television usage (Childers, 1986), political behavior (Schenk & Rossler, 1997), agricultural technologies (Marsh & Coleman, 1956;Rogers, 2003), forestry management (Haymond, 1988) and soil conservation (Korsching & Hoban, 1990). In general, these studies focused on indentifying the characteristics of opinion leaders and finding positive correlations between social activity, knowledge about, and involvement with the innovation of interest and the likelihood of influencing others' attitudes and/or behaviors concerning the innovation involved.…”