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While the concept of opinion leadership is an established theoretical approach to (public) formation of opinions, the rise of political communication in virtual social networks necessitates a further analysis of how it is exercised and perceived here. Particularly the latter, how online opinion leadership is accredited – what message features trigger the attribution of opinion leadership to otherwise unknown communicators in online surroundings – remains understudied. Based on findings suggesting a heuristic processing of opinion-leader endorsements, we applied a 2x2-experimental design (n = 497), examining how two common heuristic message features (informational vs. emotionalizing wording; inclusion vs. lack of substantiating reference) impact the users’ perception of opinion leadership. PLS-SEM analysis shows that users base their attribution of opinion leadership primarily on quality valuations, indicating a rather systematic processing of information and chatterer. This relation is however moderated by affect; an emotionalizing wording positively increases the impact of quality valuation on perceived opinion leadership.
Stephanie Geise, Westfaelische Wilhelms U Muenster
Stephan Jaroschek, U of Koblenz-Landau
Julia Troll, U of Erfurt
David Eeckhout, U of Erfurt