• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.67-81
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• 1997

The main purpose of this study was to compare the characteristics of male innovators and of male opinion leaders across product categories in terms of personality, attitudes, social participation, media usage patterns and demographic aspects. Six product categories such as clothing, cosmetics, small electronic appliances, medium-large electronic appliances, interior supplies and sports-leisure goods was used. A valid and reliable self-report scale was used to measure innovativeness and opinion leadership for 423 male adults living in social area Analyses showed that venturesomeness is the most common characteristics between innovators and opinion leaders across product categories. Innovators showed higher tendency of narcissism while opinion leadership showed higher cosmopolitainsm. Common charateristics of innovators and of opininion leaders of both clothing and cosmetics are cosmopolitanism, narcissism, exhibitionism, venturesomeness. The degrees of social participation and media usage patterns were different according to product categories for both innovators and opinion leaders. The implications of these findings for diffusion theory and merchandising were discussed.

• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.39-48
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• 1985

The purpose of this study was to analyze the characteristics of Women's clothing fashion opinion leaders. The fundamental conceptualization for this study was based on the theories of fashion and opinion leader. Data for the study was obtained through questionnaires from 385 houswives of Gang Nam Gu. The measure of fashion opinion leadership applied in this project was the modification of Rogers' six question self-designating method. Operationally, the characteristic under investigation categoried into three sets of variable ; demographic and socialogical variables, and mass media exposure. As to the data analyses for this study, two-way crosstabs analyses were applied in comparing the characteristics of fashion opinion leader with followers. X\sup 2\ test was used to examine the correlation of several variables. RESULTS : 1. Fashion opinion leaders are not differ from followers in demographic characteristics. 2. Compared with followers, fashion opinion leaders are more active in the participation in concerts, movies and plays. 3. In mass media exposure, fashion opinion leaders differ little from followers regarding T.V, radio, newspaper, literarly magazine, general magazine, culture magazine.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Costume
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• v.14
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• pp.185-198
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• 1990

The purpose of this study is to identify and profile Korean women's fashion opinion leaders on demographic, psychological and communication channels dimensions. The questionnaire was administered to 1204 students from a purposively selected. women's universities in Seoul. The data was analyzed using $X^2$-test, t-test, multiple regression analysis and discriminant analysis, The significance level was set at. 05. The major findings derived from analysis are as follows: 1. Fashion opinion leaders are generally come from families with higher income, more education and higher occupational status than followers. 2. Fashion opinion leaders are more likely to be exhibitionistic, self-confident, individualistic, risk taking and gregarious than followers. 3. Fashion opinion leaders are more exposed to impersonal communication media, especially to fashion magazines than followers. These findings imply an obvious usefulness for both manufacturers in the apparel industry as well as retailers to help them in the identification of their target market for the introduction and acceptance of fashion items.

• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.63-75
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• 1997

The purposes of this study was to identify the differences between fashion opinion leaders and followers in the characteristics oriented New Young Generation and the types of fashion advertising involvement. The data were collected via a questionnaire from 431 college students(female=218 male=213) living in Seoul, Korea and analyzed by factor analysis and t-test. The results of this study were as follows: First, eight factors of the characteristics oriented New Young Generation were identified: Fashion, individuality, preference of caffe with affective mood, expression of emotion, indivisualism, preference of tastes oriented Western Europe, activity of pan club and chatting by personal computer. The significant differences between fashion opinion leaders and followers in fashion, individuality, preferences of the caffe with affetive mood, and expression of emotion were found in the data collected from female. There were significant differences between fashion opinion leaders and followers in fashion, individuality in the data collected from male. Second, three factors of fashion involvement advertising were identified: The hedonic involvement, social involvement, utilitarian involvement. The significant differences between fashion opinion leaders and followers in the hedonic involvement, social involvement, utilitarian involvement and the levels of involvement were found in the case of female's data. There were significant differences between fashion opinion leaders and followers in the hedonic involvement, social involvement and levels of involvement except for utilitarian involvement in the case of male's data.

• International Journal of Costume and Fashion
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.1-15
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• 2014

Fashion leadership is divided into visual influence, linguistic influence, and dual leadership. We refer to people exercising such influential power as fashion innovators, fashion opinion leaders, and fashion double leaders, respectively. Scholars and marketers have raised continuous questions on this issue: who are these fashion leaders and what characteristics do they have? In this study, social network analysis is applied to grasp the existence of three types of fashion leaders in college clubs, examine their positions in fashion process networks and investigate their individual and social characteristics. For this study, three college clubs were recruited through convenience sampling and surveyed online. Peer nomination questions for structuring fashion process networks and self-evaluation questions for measuring personal characteristics are included. Two fashion networks, an opinion leadership network and an innovativeness network, embrace four to six leaders and illustrate similar structure patterns in the three groups, which indicates that dual leaders enjoyed the lion's share in college clubs. The number of fashion innovators tends to be fewer compared to that of fashion opinion leaders, and we infer that peer relationship appears to intervene with fashion opinion leadership. Other personal characteristics supporting results from previous studies are also confirmed in this study.

• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.291-306
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• 1997

The purposes of this study were 1) to identify the gender differences in the perception of sexuality in jeans fashion advertising 2) to identify the differences between fashion opinion leaders and followers in the preferences of advertisements and followers in the preferences of advertisements and intentions to buy the advertised jeans in highly and low sexual advertising. The data were collected via a questionnaire from 441 collesge students(female=225, male=216) living in Seoul. Korea, and analyzed by t-test. The results of this study were as follows: First there were significant differences between male and female in the perception of sexuality in jeans fashion advertising. Second to significant differences between fashion opinion leaders and followers in intentions to buy the advertised jeans of highly sexy advertisements were found in the data collected from male. But there were not significant differences between fashion opinion leaders and followers in preferences and intentions to buy the advertised jeans of highly sexy advertisements in female's data. Third there were significant differences between fashion opinion leaders and followers in the preference of low sexy advertisements in female's data. But there were not significant differences between fashion opinion leaders and followers in preferences and intentions to buy the advertised jeans of low sexy advertisements in male's data.

• The Research Journal of the Costume Culture
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.777-792
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• 2018

As social media has become a part of daily life, new types of online opinion leaders are emerging, and in turn, changes in traditional fashion leaders and leadership are expected. Considering such changes, this study attempted to reexamine fashion leader types and influence characteristics from the perspective of college students as fashion followers. Students were asked to write an essay identifying their fashion leader and how and why they were influenced by him or her. Sixty essays entitled "My Fashion Leader" were collected and content-analyzed. A total of 78 fashion leaders were identified and categorized into four types including celebrities, social media influencers, friends/family/acquaintances, and people seen on the street in order of frequency. Influence characteristics of the identified fashion leaders included superiority, role model, similarity, and familiarity. Similarity was observed across all types of fashion leaders, while superiority and familiarity were identified for celebrities and friends/family/acquaintances, respectively. The results imply that celebrities, mostly those from the TV, movie, and music industries, are still important as fashion leaders in society regardless of their communication style, while friends/family/acquaintances as opinion leaders within a consumer group are important to provide information, advice, and help. However, social media influencers between the two groups are expanding the influence.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Costume
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• v.50 no.7
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• pp.5-14
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• 2000

Fashion leadership of middle- and high-school male student was measured. The subjects were divided into five subgroups including, fashion dual leaders(13.3%), innovators(10.3%), opinion leaders(7.6%), followers(52.3%), and laggards(16.3%), according to their innovativeness and opinion leadership. The findings were as follows : fashion dual leaders were very confident and fashion-conscious while other subgroups were very price-conscious and quality-aware. Among the fashion information sources included in the study' my own experience and opinion' was the most Important to all 5 subgroups. Generally the higher the fashion leadership was, the more actively utilized fashion information sources. The fashion magazine and commercials as information sources was not as important to the subjects as it was to college women. Apparel shopping behavior was also significantly different among subgroups. As a whole, the general characteristics, such as. the use of fashion information and the apparel shopping behavior, of opinion leaders and innovators were similar, but those of followers and laggards were very dissimilar.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.31 no.5 s.86
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• pp.431-443
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• 2005

This study was performed to investigate the perceptions of the opinion leaders, such as government officials, researchers, NGO workers, and journalists on the risks of endocrine disrupters (EDs) and genetically modified organisms (GMOs) as well as the related policies on these two hazards or potential hazards. The opinion leaders generally considered the EDs as the most serious hazard among twenty-one environmental health hazards in Korea, and agreed that the EDs would continuously be the most serious hazard. On overall average, the GMOs were ranked the 11th among the twenty-one health hazards. Further investigation indicated that the GMOs were variously ranked by the group of respondents: they were ranked the 2nd by the NGO workers, the 7th by the journalists, the 9th by the researchers and the 11th by the government officials. In general, the respondents considered the dioxin as a hazard with the highest risk while the GMOs were considered less hazardous. The opinion leaders considered that although the risks of the GMOs and EDs were not fully verified, the risks should be controlled through the legislation. The EDs and GMOs should be separately regulated for the time being, while the EDs should put under more strengthened regulation. It is recommended that a web-site containing the information on the EDs and the GMOs be prepared for the journalists. In addition, a training program in relation to the EDs and the GMOs needs to be organized by the Korean Press Foundation and the Korea Food and Drug Administration to educate the journalists. A committee consisting of government officials, scientists, and NGO workers needs to be established, and it should provide framework of future policies and public relations programs.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Library and Information Science
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• v.53 no.1
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• pp.83-108
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• 2019

This study investigated South Korean citizens' political communication and deliberation through Twitter during the 2014 General Election, focusing on influential opinion leaders' political information behaviors. Individual semi-structured interviews were administered with 13 opinion leaders using the multiple interview modes of email interviews, Skype interview and face to face interviews. Through the analytical lens of the theory of Information Worlds, the chosen social types and social norms of opinion leaders impacted their political information behaviors, including how they assessed, shared, exchanged, or avoided information, and, in turn, created boundaries between and around their information worlds that allowed for both conflict and synergy.