Rights statement: This is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Decision Support Systems. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Decision Support Systems, 164, 2022 DOI: 10.1016/j.dss.2022.113845
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Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Impact of content ideology on social media opinion polarization
T2 - The moderating role of functional affordances and symbolic expressions
AU - Sun, Ruonan
AU - Zhu, Hui
AU - Guo, Feng
N1 - This is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Decision Support Systems. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Decision Support Systems, 164, 2022 DOI: 10.1016/j.dss.2022.113845
PY - 2023/1/31
Y1 - 2023/1/31
N2 - We offer theory and evidence regarding the impact of content ideology (i.e., emotionally charged beliefs expressed in sentiments) on opinion polarization (i.e., conflicting attitudes about an event) on social media. Specifically, we consider the moderating role of functional affordances and symbolic expressions to draw inferences about opinion polarization. From a sentiment analysis of 3600 posts and a survey of 468 Weibo users, we find that content ideology is positively related to social media opinion polarization. The effect of content ideology is greater when users receive stronger symbolic expressions. Further, our results show an insignificant moderating relationship between functional affordances and this effect. The findings suggest that it is critical to consider content ideology and symbolic expressions when assessing the relationship between published content and polarized opinions on social media.
AB - We offer theory and evidence regarding the impact of content ideology (i.e., emotionally charged beliefs expressed in sentiments) on opinion polarization (i.e., conflicting attitudes about an event) on social media. Specifically, we consider the moderating role of functional affordances and symbolic expressions to draw inferences about opinion polarization. From a sentiment analysis of 3600 posts and a survey of 468 Weibo users, we find that content ideology is positively related to social media opinion polarization. The effect of content ideology is greater when users receive stronger symbolic expressions. Further, our results show an insignificant moderating relationship between functional affordances and this effect. The findings suggest that it is critical to consider content ideology and symbolic expressions when assessing the relationship between published content and polarized opinions on social media.
KW - Social media
KW - Opinion polarization
KW - Sentiment analysis
KW - Ideology
KW - Functional affordance
KW - Symbolic expression
U2 - 10.1016/j.dss.2022.113845
DO - 10.1016/j.dss.2022.113845
M3 - Journal article
VL - 164
JO - Decision Support Systems
JF - Decision Support Systems
SN - 0167-9236
M1 - 113845
ER -