Image of a regional governor in Russian Federation as a public opinion leader

The article discusses the concept of opinion leaders in the context of a regional governor’s activity in the Russian Federation. Current situation requires that regional governors of our country have to be regional leaders, and what’s more leaders of public opinion who are able to manage public opinion in the region. Moreover, modern informational society, most probably, sooner or later will task them to become true leaders of public opinion.The article also analyzes those benefits which a regional governor gets from such an image namely: the ability to manage public opinion independently, to constantly influence public opinion, by using less volume of resources. Besides that, a mechanism of public opinion leader’s image formation is proposed.