Identification of Opinion Leaders and Followers—A Case Study of Green Energy and Low Carbons

• Published in: Applied sciences Vol. 10; no. 23; p. 8416
• Main Authors: Huang, Chun-Che, Liang, Wen-Yau, Chen, Po-An, Chan, Yi-Chin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Basel MDPI AG 01.12.2020
• Subjects: Air pollution; Algorithms; Attitudes; Biomass energy; Carbon; Clean energy; Climate change; Communication; Electricity distribution; Emissions; Energy; Energy shortages; Environmental awareness; followers; Government agencies; Green development; green energy and low carbon; Intelligent systems; Internet; Literature reviews; matrix method; Opinion leaders; Pattern recognition; Product development; Public policy; Roles; social media; Social networks; Social research; Taiwan
• ISSN: 2076-3417; 2076-3417
• DOI: 10.3390/app10238416

In recent years, with the development of Web2.0, enterprises, government agencies, and traditional news media, which have been positively influenced by opinion leaders, have been dedicated to understanding leaders’ opinions on the web in order to seek convergence. Specifically, with the increase of environmental awareness, the introduction of green energy and carbon reduction technology has become an important issue. Consequently, studies identifying opinion leaders and followers who are interested in green energy and low carbon have become important. This study aims to find a solution that can identify the characteristics of opinion leaders and followers that can be widely used, which will help certain public policies or issues to be more effectively disseminated in the future. To model the characteristics of opinion leaders and their influence on followers, this study uses a dual matrix. The interaction patterns are recognized among opinion leaders and followers, with the aim of developing public policy to promote green energy and low carbon emissions. A case is studied to validate the superiority of the proposed solution approach. With the proposed approach, a (business) organization can identify and access opinion leaders and their followers. Through communication, these organizations can absorb strain and preserve functions despite the presence of adversity. This study also clearly demonstrates its contribution and novelty through comparisons with the existing alternative method.