A Study on the Exploration of Opinion Leaders and Opinion Mediators on Social Media: Focused on the Nuclear Power Related Tweets

Abstract

This study explores the opinion leaders who produce important information and opinions that affects to other users, and opinion mediators who maximize information diffusion in social media, especially Twitter on the nuclear power subject. In addition, we examine their networks characteristics and influence, and compare the differences between writing patterns through analysis of their tweets. For this study, we have utilized nuclear tweets written in 2009-2013 which includes the “nuclear accident” event in Japan. To identify opinion leaders and mediators, we use centrality measures of social network analysis. This study reveals the possibility to explore and predict opinion leaders and to identify and analyze information diffusion path on social media.