Abstract
The public’s attitude toward an object (e.g., a law) can be referred to as community sentiment. Sentiment is not static, however; it could change for many reasons, including if the public receives more information about that object. The functions the attitude serves (i.e., to express one’s values), beliefs about the attitude object, and demographics also could relate to sentiment. This chapter assessed sentiment toward regulation of social networks (i.e., a law forbidding teachers to contact minors on sites like Facebook). Participants were initially uninformed about and unsupportive of the regulation of online social networks, but receiving information increased support (sentiment). This indicates that one’s well-thought-out sentiment might differ from one’s initial reactionary sentiment. Additionally, when individuals held a stronger social-expressive attitude function (i.e., participants who were more concerned with how others perceived them) or had a weak belief that such laws would negatively impact teachers, they were more supportive of the regulation. Other individual variables did not affect support. Results have implications for attitude theories, community sentiment, and laws regulating social networks.
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Notes
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Participants received one of three types of information: in support of, opposing, or a combination of information. Each message was 369–374 words. The positive message indicated how the law would protect children from predators while using online social networks. The negative message indicated how the law would impinge upon teacher’s rights and ability to educate students using new technology. The combination message contained information from both supportive and opposing messages. ANOVA revealed no statistical differences between groups in regard to post-information support for the law (F (2, 98) = .35, p < .71, η 2 = .007). Further, a manipulation check revealed that participants could not accurately identify whether they had read information that was “supportive of,” “neutral,” or “opposing” the law. In all, 70 out of 108 participants got the manipulation check question wrong. Responses to this question did not differ by condition, X 2 (108) = 10.25, p < .12. Essentially, manipulation of the supportive/opposing message failed. Twenty-three participants thought the information was in support of the law, 27 thought the information was in opposition to the law, 42 thought the information was neutral, and 16 were unsure. Thus, the message was not seen as clearly positive or negative. All participants were combined into one group because there seemed to be no perceived differences among information groups.
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Kwiatkowski, M.J., Miller, M.K. (2015). How Attitude Functions, Attitude Change, and Beliefs Affect Community Sentiment Toward the Facebook Law. In: Miller, M., Blumenthal, J., Chamberlain, J. (eds) Handbook of Community Sentiment. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-1899-7_11
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