The Influencing Mechanism of Social Media Users’ Group Emotion on the Evolution of Public Opinion: An Analysis of the Moderating Effect of Social Presence

Abstract

Online social speech contains rich emotional expressions, which promote the evolution of public opinion. To explore this influencing mechanism, this paper constructs a research model of users’ group emotions affecting the evolution of public opinion based on emotional event theory and social telepresence theory. Firstly, we calculate group emotional value based on text analysis and users’ social presence value through principal component analysis. Then, we construct a regression model to test the research hypothesis. Finally, the explanatory variables and regulatory variables are lag processed to test the robustness of the model. The results show that users’ group emotional intensity and extreme emotion significantly positively impact public opinion evolution. The stronger the group emotion and the more extreme emotion, the higher the popularity of public opinion network and the richer the text information. The stronger the social presence of group users, the more significant the impact of emotional intensity on the evolution of public opinion. Social presence inhibits the promotion of extreme emotion in the evolution of public opinion. This study reveals the influencing mechanism of the effects of user emotion on public opinion evolution, expands the theories related to public opinion evolution, and provides new ideas and theoretical references for the in-depth study of “user emotion-online public opinion”. In addition, it provides a corresponding theoretical basis, decision support, and management countermeasures for social media and public opinion supervision departments.