Abstract
This paper investigates the influence of Social Network Service (SNS) on an individual’s political attitude toward a range of policy issues. Using an experiment, we test whether subjects’ attitudes change when they are exposed to information that contrasts their previously held attitudes. Unlike both attitudinal change theory and reinforcement theory, the empirical evidence on how SNS affects subjects’ attitudes is limited and depends on an issue dimension. Overall, the impact of SNS on attitude change or reinforcement is minimal, but for a welfare policy, SNS plays a role: Liberal and ideologically neutral subjects tend to change their previously held attitudes when exposed to a conservative argument on welfare policy. These results show that when explaining attitudinal change SNS information matters less, and the effect depends on an issue dimension.
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