A Research On The Behavior Of Rural Opinion-leaders In Health Communication In Tibetan Areas Of China

The Tibetan areas in Sichuan are facing a serious problem of health information dissemination,which is particularly obvious in rural areas..Although there have been some changes in rural health communication with the development of media technology,the role of opinion leaders in it is still irreplaceable.That’s because in rural areas,interpersonal communication is still the main channel.Thus,this study focuses on opinion leaders and hopes to address the following questions:(1)In the context of mobile internet,how many categories of rural opinion leaders can be classified in the Tibetan areas? What are their characteristics?(2)Are Tibetan rural opinion leaders willing and capable enough to participate in health communication?(3)What kind of interventions do opinion leaders make in health communication?(4)Based on the study,what is the current model of health communication in Tibetan villages?Daze Township,Seda County,was selected as the site for the research to solve the above problems.The study identified 25 local opinion leaders and 6 network key figures by questionnaire survey method and social network analysis method,and categorized and summarized them.This paper has carried out a year and a half research on the behavior of opinion leaders in Daze Township during health intervention,combined with participatory observation and in-depth interview methods,and conducted specific analysis from three aspects of interpersonal communication,rural community and rural society.All of these are based on the ecological model of health promotion.In the end,this research discovered the existence of emerging opinion leaders in Daze Township.Affected by the coronavirus pandemic,the study chose to use online ethnography to conduct additional interviews with 50 ordinary villagers to deeply explore the health communication behaviors of rural opinion leaders in the Tibetan areas under different social contexts and time periods.The study found that in addition to promoting the internal intervention behavior changes of opinion leaders,changes in media technology will also promote empowerment and health empowerment as well as promote empowerment and health empowerment,as reflected in: 1.Diversification of health communication and participation channels;2.Divergence of health discourse expression and differentiation of opinion leaders;3.Increase in the phenomenon of health message feed backs;4.Empowerment of female opinion leaders.Based on the above,the study constructed a route that reflects the health information dissemination path within the villages in Tibet-related areas : This is a communication route,with interpersonal communication as the center,opinion leaders as the key node.the study has concluded a health information dissemination model,which is suitable for the villages in the Tibetan areas in China,and is based on internal transmission routes.In the end,the main characteristics of the information dissemination model are summarized: 1.The increase of communication roles;2.The multi-directional communication route;3.The richness of communication feedbacks;4.The change of communication relationship;5.The construction of communication field.