This article presents an example of how modern media technology may present new opportunities for opinion leadership to people that have never had it before. Derrick Ashong, a 32-year-old musician, was one of millions of people expressing their support for Barack Obama in the upcoming US elections. Ashong was not a celebrity, and therefore his opinion about politics would not ordinarily count (or have impact on society) any more than any other person on the street.
As the New York Times article states, the camera man interviewing Ashong expected an ordinary reply of a person charmed by Obama’s personality and completely ignorant to the candidate’s actual political objectives. Instead, the interviewer received a six-minute answer about the specific political commitments that Ashong favoured.
The resulting recorded interview was published on YouTube, receiving more than 850,000 views. Seeing how popular he has become, Derick Ashong posted another opinion piece on the same website, which was again viewed by hundreds of thousands of people. The fact that his second video was nearly as popular as the first is a testimony that Ashong has become an opinion leader who’s popularity went beyond the scope of a single video.
In the age when anyone can be an opinion leader, the power of an individual's agency may be as strong as ever.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/17/business/media/17carr.html?ref=technology
