The tweet goes on: Interconnection of Twitter opinion leadership, network size, and civic engagement

Opinion leaders tend to possess particular characteristics, such as high social status, wide social networks, and they are highly engaged in civic affairs. This study revisits the concept of original opinion leadership and examines the characteristics of Twitter opinion leaders and leadership by conducting an online survey of 648 college students in the United States. The results reveal that Twitter opinion leadership is rarely predicted by socio-demographics. Twitter opinion leadership is more strongly associated with online network size than offline network size. The study also finds that Twitter opinion leadership is significantly and positively associated with online civic participation. Lastly, the current study finds that Twitter opinion leaders can be categorized as two types frequent tweet posters and frequent retweeters. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.