An Empirical Study of Social Media Factors Influencing Youth Opinion Polarization
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.
social mediaselective exposureopinion polarizationsocial networkyouth