Opinion Formation in a Heterogenous Society

Opinion formation and opinion leadership has attracted a lot of research among sociologists and physicists in the last decades. The first concept of opinion leadership goes back to Lazarsfeld

et al

. [

8

] in 1944. Larzarsfeld

et al

. found out that during the presidential elections in 1940 interpersonal communication showed greater influence than direct media effects. In their theory of two-step flow communication opinion leaders, who are activemedia users, select, modify and transmit information from the media to the less active part of the community. In later models sociologists gained a different view of opinion leadership by introducing the notion of public individuation. Public individuation describes how people want to differentiate and act differently from other people, see [

9

]. This attitude is a necessary prerequisite for an opinion leader, since she or he has to stand out against the masses. Characteristic features of opinion leaders are their high self esteem and confidence as well as their ability to withstand criticism. Although new technologies like the internet, blogs or instant messaging changed the way of communication and information dissemination globally, opinion leadership still plays a critical role in opinion formation processes.