Permalink : http://hdl.handle.net/2115/61115

Through the formation process of Chinese Internet public opinions, the influence of central government-oriented opinion leaders has been growing since 2012. These opinion leaders who are trained by the government shoulder the significant tasks of guiding the public opinions for the government. It is important for the research on Chinese Internet public opinions formation mechanism by analyzing the actions of these opinion leaders and their action mechanism, as well as the critical review of the role of the Internet in public communication. This study points out that the “Issue explanation frameworks” and “Information diffusion mechanism” are the important factors of the composition of opinion leadership. Then, taking the central party committee’s official mouthpiece “@People’s Daily” as an example, this study focuses on analyzing its opinion-leadership strategies in terms of “Issue explanation frameworks”, and analyzing its action mechanism in the formation process of Internet public opinions regarding “Information diffusion mechanism”, with content analysis and social network analysis theories.