The Influence Of Network Anonymity On Group Polarization

With the development of network changing with each passing day, it has become an important place in People’s daily life, and it has also become the birthplace and incubation of many events, deriving a lot of phenomenon, one of which is group polarization. If not controlled, the network group polarization can cause a lot of negative effects, and it is in need of attention and exploration. However, previous domestic studies lack something empirical about the network group polarization,most of which make mistakes on the concept of group polarization.Based on the review of previous studies, we find that the existing studies on network group polarization have focused on the influence of network anonymity on group polarization. On the basis of Sia’s(2002) and Lee’s(2007) study, the anonymity is divided into identity anonymity and vision anonymity, and the identity anonymity is divided into name anonymity, social attribute anonymity and complete identity anonymity, the vision anonymity is divided into photos, video and complete vision anonymity. The present study, which contains three studies and five experiments, systematically examines the influence of the network anonymity on group polarization, and the mutual influence of identity anonymity and vision identity on group polarization is also examined. In addition, in order to make the study be more ecological, we also examine the differences of group polarization for the Microblog and the Wechat. The aim of this study is to explore the influence of network anonymity on group polarization, enrich and expand domestic empirical studies of anonymity and network group polarization, meanwhile provide the government and any other related institutions with evidence to manage and promote the development of network.The main conclusions are as follows:(1) The group polarization in the network is significantly higher than the real situation.(2) The group polarization in the complete identity anonymity situation is significantly higher than the name anonymity situation and the social attribute anonymity situation. The group polarization in the name anonymity situation and the social attribute anonymity situation has no significant differences.(3) The group polarization in the complete vision anonymity situation is significantly higher than the video situation, but has no significant differences with the photo situation. And the group polarization in the photo situation and the video situation does not exist significant differences.(4) The group polarization in the Microblog is significantly higher than the Wechat.(5) The identity anonymity and the vision anonymity both have main effects, but there is no significant interaction effect between them. The group polarization in the identity and vision anonymity situation is significantly higher than the identity anonymity situation and the visual anonymity situation.