Exploring Cyber Opinion Leaders Based on Social Network Analysis: Sampling College Student Employment Public Opinion

摘要

In the emerging networked paradigm, the role of cyber opinion has become fundamental for monitoring public opinion. This paper mainly explores both the application of social network analysis in the cyber opinion and the method of detecting the opinion leader. As an exmaple of public opinion of college student employment which is a hot topic in China, the paper is based on literature review, experience, and opinions statistics and struction obtained from the forum. Combining application research using social network analysis, the opinion leadership could be identified through the analysis of online public opinion structure. The case study of public opinion about college student employment is based on the measurement of the degree centrality, core-periphery and influence coefficient. The analysis revealed that the online opinion leadership which affects almost all the other members' opinion in the forum can be found through structure measurement and manual analysis. The study also suggests the online opinion leadership that explored by the combination of social network analysis and content analysis should be the focus of monitoring public opinion.