Abstract
Social media chat groups, such as WeChat and WhatsApp groups, are widely applied in online communication. This research has conducted two studies to examine the individual level and collective level’s opinion dynamics in those groups. The opinion dynamic is driven by two variables, people’s perceived peer support and willingness of opinion expression. The perceived peer support influences the willingness of opinion expression, and the willingness influences the dynamics of real opinion-expression. First, the quasi-experimental study recruited twenty-five participants as the observation group and found that decreasing perceived peer support would significantly increase individuals’ expression willingness to protect his/her opinion. To generalize the individual level findings to a collective level, the second study treated the social media chat groups as an undirected fully-connected social network and simulated people’s opinion expression dynamics with an agent-based model. The simulation indicated that (1) with the help of increased willingness of opinion expression, the minority opinion supporters as a collective did not fall silent but continue to express themselves and (2) increasing willingness of opinion expression would maintain the existence of minority opinion but could not help the minority reverse to the majority.
Highlights
Opinion discussions on social media have become increasingly diversified when accompanied by the progress of media technology, diversification of personal interests, and requirements of gratification [1]. is diversified feature boosts the formation of social media chat groups, such as WhatsApp groups, WeChat groups, and Interest groups in online forums [2]
Erefore, the quasi-experiment concluded as (1) the decrease of perceived peer support would increase the willingness of opinion expression in a social media group and (2) members in a minority opinion were more sensitive to the change of peer support
Would individuals’ change of opinion expression willingness influence a whole group’s opinion expression dynamics? An agent-based model was designed to answer the question in the study of the current research
Summary
Opinion discussions on social media have become increasingly diversified when accompanied by the progress of media technology, diversification of personal interests, and requirements of gratification [1]. is diversified feature boosts the formation of social media chat groups (short for social media groups), such as WhatsApp groups, WeChat groups, and Interest groups in online forums [2]. Erefore, the dynamic of opinion expression in social media groups is an essential topic and worth further study. An ideal media environment should not hinder the expression of opinions, especially minority opinions. According to Habermas’ public sphere theory [6], preserving space for the exchange of opinions helps maintain political legitimacy, social stability, and protect the welfare of citizens. It is hard for the mass media to provide an ideal environment for opinions. Some recent studies proposed different findings that social media groups could provide a space for the expression of opinion, especially minority opinions (e.g., [12, 13]). Some recent studies proposed different findings that social media groups could provide a space for the expression of opinion, especially minority opinions (e.g., [12, 13]). us, researchers design two studies with the following questions: Complexity (1) Quasi-experiment: is individuals’ willingness of opinion expression protected in social media groups?
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