Developing Online Opinion Leaders Model in the Health Promotion Digital Era (S/O: 14598)

• Main Authors: Lynn-Sze, Joyce Cheah, Ahmad, Mohd Khairie, Yusof, Norhafezah, Kamaruddin, Azlina
• Format: Monograph
• Language: English
• Published: UUM 2021
• Subjects: T Technology (General)
• Online Access: https://repo.uum.edu.my/id/eprint/31665/1/14598.pdf; https://repo.uum.edu.my/id/eprint/31665/

In today’s media landscape, health opinion leaders are those who can make strong influence to the public, by posting and reposting health information through online platforms. However, many researchers are still uncertain if the opinion leader concept of health can be applied to the new media environment. Thus, there are four aims in this research, which are to describe the principles of communication practiced by online opinion leaders to promote health issues, to discuss the strategies of social media used by online opinion leaders in influencing the public, to explain the online opinion leaders’ influence attributes in health decision making and finally to develop a model of online opinion leader in the contemporary health promotion era. Content analysis method was conducted on Facebook postings of five selected health opinion leaders, including pictures, videos and comments. Besides, in-depth interviews with 10 followers were conducted. The findings revealed that there are three principles of communication practices of health opinion leaders, namely language, interaction and themes. There are three strategies opinion leaders used to influence the public, which are social connectivity, social support and social consultation. This study also indicated five leaders’ attributes in influencing health decision making, namely personality, authenticity, trust, professional knowledge and social position. The findings will provide a new online opinion leader model based on a more dynamic two-step flow theory of communication that can impact the digital communication era instead of conventional. These findings also hope to take the wellbeing of our social and nation to the next level, one that embraces the need for changes through connectivity and contribute new ways to promote future digital healthcare