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Type of Document Thesis Author Sohn, Youngju Author's Email Address syjkorea@dreamwiz.com URN etd-07012005-002206 Title Opinion Leaders And Seekers in Online Brand Communities: Centered on Korean Digital Camera Brand Communities Degree Master of Arts Department Communication, Department of Advisory Committee
Advisor Name Title Felipe Korzenny Committee Chair Keywords
- online community
- opinion seeker
- opinion leader
- online brand community
Date of Defense 2005-06-20 Availability unrestricted Abstract In extending the theories of opinion leadership and seeking to the online environment,this study sought to explore whether the established theories for the offline environment would
also help us understand opinion leadership in the online world. The tests of hypotheses revealed
consistent patterns of opinion leadership and seeking behaviors across the online and offline
environments. However, these tests resulted in insignificant relationships between online opinion
seeking and offline opinion leadership levels. Furthermore, the hypothesized negative
relationship between online opinion leadership and offline seeking was not only not supported,
but was contradicted. That is, those who had a high level of opinion seeking in the offline
environment also displayed high levels of opinion leadership in the online environment.
The current study also demonstrated that some psychological characteristics such as
consumer expertise, domain-specific innovativeness and media habits, as well as attitudes toward
online brand communities, were significant predictors for opinion leadership in the online
environment. In addition to opinion leadership, the current study explored traits of opinion
seeking, suggesting that people with a high level of opinion seeking may exhibit different
characteristics and behaviors from what opinion leaders exhibit.
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