L’identification des e-Leaders d’Opinion (e-LO) sur les réseaux sociaux internet est un enjeu important pour les managers marketing. Cette thèse s’intéresse à ces e-LO au travers de leur rôle, de leur statut et de leur identification. Chacun de ces trois piliers de la thèse fait l’objet d’une controverse dans la littérature. Les trois études menées dans cette thèse apportent des réponses complémentaires et croisées à ces controverses. Concernant le statut de l’e-LO, nous définissions l’e-LO dans les réseaux sociaux internet selon trois caractéristiques : l’expertise dans la catégorie de produit, la volonté de publier des contenus valorisables pour leurs contacts et la volonté de développer leur capital social. Concernant l’identification des e-LO, une échelle de mesure multidimensionnelle dotée d’une bonne validité externe est développée. Elle est confrontée à des mesures d’e-LO et de LO inspirées de la littérature, mais également à des mesures alternatives comme la métrique algorithmique Klout et des indicateurs sociométriques de profil Twitter. Enfin, quatre modèles et leurs variantes sont testés pour mieux comprendre l’origine et le mécanisme de l’e-influence de l’e-LO (rôle de l’e-LO). Nous montrons que l’e-LO a un impact sur l’e-influence dans la catégorie de produit. La confiance joue le rôle de médiateur entre l’e-LO et l’e-influence. Ces résultats plaident pour l’intérêt des e-LO pour le marketing viral. / E-Opinion Leaders (e-OL) identification on internet social networks is a major issue for marketing managers. This thesis deals with the role, status and identification of these e-OL. Each one of these three aspects are subject to controversial debates in the literature. Three studies are conducted within this thesis. They provide complementary and crossed answers to these debates. Regarding the e-OL status, we offer a definition for the e-OL concept in the specific context of internet social networks within three main characteristics: expertise in the product category, the will to publish valuable contents for their contacts, and the will to develop their social capital. Then, for the e-OL identification, we develop a new and multidimensional measurement scale for this concept. This scale shows good external validity. We confront it with others e-LO measures inspired by traditional OL measures, but also with alternative identification methods as the Twitter profile indicators and the Klout score algorithm. Finally, we test four models and their variants in order to better understand the origin and mechanism of the main e-LO role: the e-influence. We especially show that e-OL has an impact on e-influence. We also show that confidence mediates the link between e-LO and e-influence. These results speak to the relevance of e-OL in a viral marketing perspective.

Thesis (M.A. in Art Education) -- School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves: 78-86)

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Alberta, 2010. Thesis (M.LS.)--University of Alberta, 2010. / Title from pdf file main screen (viewed on January 12, 2010). "Spring 2010." A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Library and Information Studies, Master of Arts, School of Library and Information Studies, Humanities Computing, University of Alberta. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--City University of Hong Kong, 2009. / "Submitted to Department of Media and Communication in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 110-125)

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Ohio University, June, 2009. / Release of full electronic text on OhioLINK has been delayed until June 1, 2013. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 222-242)

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Ohio University, June, 2009. / Title from PDF t.p. Release of full electronic text on OhioLINK has been delayed until June 1, 2013. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 222-242)

Title from title page of PDF (University of Missouri--St. Louis, viewed February 23, 2010). Includes bibliographical references (p. 109-122).

published_or_final_version / Electrical and Electronic Engineering / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Computer Science / Master / Master of Philosophy

In this thesis I examine the impact of interaction and participation on Facebook between private individuals and certain hierarchical groups in society, particularly with regard to individual privacy; consider the structure of Facebook’s privacy programming; and seek to establish where the balance of power lies between private individuals and commercial, political and media organisations. I make reference to Foucault’s theory of power, Bourdieu’s theories of power in social space and habitus and Althusser’s theory of interpellation as I record my research. This thesis is a qualitative research project, and I employ Critical Discourse Analysis as the principal research methodology. I focus on four cases studies: Facebook both as the internet platform which facilitates such interaction and the company which operates it; the developers of applications, such as online games, which are mounted on the platform; the network’s use by political parties and their leaders during the UK 2010 General Election campaign; and traditional media platforms as represented by two television annual ‘events’. My findings relate the manner in which individual users are constantly prompted to upload content, principally personal information, thoughts, preferences and relationships to the network, and simultaneously are pressurised into granting access to this information as they seek to fully participate on the social platform. This pressure is applied through applications that are mounted on the platform by commercial, media and political organisations, and I find that Facebook’s affordances to applications developers are instrumental in this process. My research associates these processes with the aforementioned theories of Foucault, Althusser and Bourdieu. My conclusion is that while Facebook continually revises its privacy policy to grant private individuals control over the content, that is the personal information, they upload to the social network, access to this information is a prerequisite for their full participation in the network. Facebook’s continuous introduction of new programmes ensures that private individuals have to choose between interaction and participation on the social network, or exclusion as access to many of the activities it offers is conditional on third party access to their personal information. Further pressure to grant access to the required information is applied through the ability of organisations to feature photographs of users’ Friends who are already using the relevant application. The processes indicate that Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg is slowly progressing his aim to place the social network at the centre of a newly structured Web based on private individuals.