The social side of news: Attitude formation and expression in social networking sites under conditions of impression motivation

Facebook等社交媒体越来越多地被用作信息来源，并被用于讨论政治和社会话题。虽然这些网站最初被视为社交和私人交流的工具，但最近的研究认识到，它们是收件人接触新闻和当前辩论的主要平台，特别是人口中的年轻群体。社交媒体的上下文的特征是大众和人际通信的融合(例如，与新闻媒体组织发布的文章和外行人撰写的评论并列)，以及关于个人用户的动作的高度可见性(例如，当状态更新和点赞对于整个联系人列表可见时)。在此背景下，本项目研究了社交网站(SNS)中态度形成和表达的机制，并与以前的网站形式进行了比较。基于信息处理的启发式系统模型(Chaiken，Giner-Sorolla，&Chen，1996)和印象管理在社交网络环境中的重要性，我们可以假设，由于社交网络读者比传统新闻来源的读者更多地期待与他人进行(公开)讨论，对输入信息的评价已经受到了多数人意见和自我呈现的更大影响。四个实验室实验解决了社交网络环境引发这种印象动机信息加工的条件，以及随后的意见表达(例如，通过状态更新)和网络中的交流如何巩固给定的态度的问题。作为自变量，媒体环境(SNS与Web 1.0“)和所呈现信息的类型被操纵。前两个研究基于新闻文章(研究1)和读者评论(研究2)考察态度形成的过程。研究3A和研究3B讨论了公众态度表达对私人态度的影响，以及其他社交网络用户给出的反馈的影响。在理论层面上，该项目旨在为在线和社交媒体环境指定启发式系统模型，并整合态度表达过程。此外，结果将扩展以前的SNS研究，到目前为止，这些研究主要集中在私人接触上，并增加了我们对关于舆论动态的当前媒体现象的了解(这可能导致对流行话题和观点的关注，而不是对论点质量的彻底考虑)。

Social media such as Facebook are increasingly used as sources of information and for discussions on political and societal topics. While these sites were originally seen as a tool for social contacts and private communication, recent studies recognized their role as primary platforms in which recipients are exposed to news and current debates, especially the younger parts of the population. The context of social media is characterized by a convergence of mass and interpersonal communication (e.g., with a juxtaposition of an article published by a news media organization and comments written by laypersons) as well as by a high level of visibility with regard to the actions of the individual user (e.g., when status updates and likes are visible for the entire contact list). Against this background, the proposed project investigates the mechanisms of attitude formation and expression in social networking sites (SNS) in comparison to previous forms of websites. Based on the heuristic-systematic model of information processing (Chaiken, Giner-Sorolla, & Chen, 1996) and the high importance of impression management in the context of SNS, it can be assumed that the evaluation of incoming information is already influenced more strongly by considerations of majority opinion and self-presentation, since SNS readers more frequently anticipate (public) discussions with others than readers of traditional news sources. Four laboratory experiments address the conditions under which SNS settings elicit this form of impression-motivated information processing and the question of how subsequent opinion expressions (e.g., via status update) and communication in the network consolidate the given attitude. As independent variables, the media context (SNS vs. "Web 1.0") and the type of presented information are manipulated. The first two studies investigate the process of attitude formation based on news articles (Study 1) and reader comments (Study 2). Study 3A and Study 3B deal with the consequences of public attitude expression for the private attitude and the effects of feedback that is given by other SNS users. On a theoretical level, the project aims at specifying the heuristic-systematic model for online and social media settings and at integrating the process of attitude expression. Furthermore, results will extend prior SNS research, which mainly focused on private contacts so far, and add to our knowledge on current media phenomena with regard to the dynamics of public opinion (which may lead to a focus on popular topics and opinions instead of a thorough consideration of the quality of arguments).