影响青年意见极化的社交媒体因素分析

An Empirical Study of Social Media Factors Influencing Youth Opinion Polarization

社交媒体时代,用户习惯于接受碎片化、同质化的信息并据此形成自己的意见或立场。一些学者认为这一现象将使得人们进入“信息茧房”或“回音室”并造成公众意见的极化,另一些则对此持反对意见。在回顾意见极化的文献基础上,本文对中国内地各地区的青年群体进行了问卷调查(N=1039),对青年意见极化的影响因素进行了分析。研究发现,社交媒体使用时间越长,社会网络异质化程度越低,青年群体越呈现出意见极化的状态。研究进一步发现并检验了选择性接触机制的中介效应,表明在青年群体的社交媒体使用过程中,选择性接触信息影响了其意见并导致极化现象的产生。

In the age of social media,users are accustomed to receiving fragmented and homogenized information and forming their own opinions or positions based on it.Some scholars believe that this phenomenon may lead people into an“information cocoon”or“echo chamber”and cause public opinion polarization,while others hold opposing views.Based on a review of the impact of media on opinion polarization,this paper conducted an online survey(N=1,039)on youths in various regions of the mainland of China,and analyzed the influencing factors of youth opinion polarization.It was found that social media use was positively related to opinion polarization among youths,and social network heterogeneity was negatively related to opinion polarization.Moreover,this paper further discovered and tested the mediating effect of selective exposure mechanism,indicating that the youths'selective exposure to information in the process of social media use affects their opinions and leads to the polarization.