Can ❤️s change minds? How social media influences public opinion and news circulation.
Source: Nieman Lab
- Does seeing that a social post has a lot of Likes make you more likely to agree with it? No, except for the most regular users of social networks.
By Juan S. Morales
The use of social networks has been shown to decrease mental health and well-being and increase levels of political polarization.
But social networks also offer many benefits, including facilitating access to information, enabling connections with friends, serving as a medium for expressing opinions, and allowing news to be shared freely.
To maximize the benefits of social networks while minimizing their harms, we need to better understand the different ways in which they affect us. Social science can contribute to this understanding. I recently conducted two studies with colleagues to investigate and unravel some of the complex effects of social networks.
Social network likes and public policy.
In a recently published paper, my co-researchers (Pierluigi Conzo, Laura K. Taylor, Margaret Samahita, and Andrea Gallice) and I examined how social network endorsements, such as likes and retweets, can influence people's opinions on policy issues.
We conducted an experimental survey in 2020 with respondents from the United States, Italy, and Ireland. In the study, we showed participants, social media posts about COVID-19 and the tension between economic activity and public health. Pro-economy posts prioritized economic activities over COVID-19 elimination. For example, they advocated reopening businesses despite potential health risks.
Pro-public health posts, on the other hand, prioritized COVID-19 elimination over economic activities. For example, they supported the extension of the blocking measures despite the associated economic costs.
We then manipulated the perceived level of support within these social media posts. One group of participants saw pro-economic posts with a high number of "likes" and pro-public health posts with a low number of "likes," while another group saw the opposite.
