Indirect Intergroup Contact On Sina Weibo Leads To Change In Chinese People’s Attitudes Toward Sexual Minorities

Sexual minorities,who differ significantly from social majorities in terms of livelihood,lifestyle,and social network,shall be given due attention to achieve sustainable social development.However,social majorities are often prejudiced against sexual minorities due to a lack of knowledge of the latter.Positive intergroup contact is one of the effective ways to enhance intergroup relations.In the Internet era,intergroup contact in virtual spaces is common,but the way of contact is different from that of real contact in that the former is a type of short-term or non-real-time interaction.The use of the Internet platform to improve Chinese people’s attitudes towards sexual minorities seems to have great potential,but so far little research has explored the effects and mechanisms of virtual intergroup contact in the context of China’s Internet and national conditions.This study,taking Sina Weibo as an example,intends to explore whether intergroup contact on Sina Weibo improves people’s attitudes towards sexual minorities.The study adopted the survey experiment method,a combination of questionnaire survey and simulation experiment,and used questionnaires including Weibo’s news and comments about minorities as experimental materials.The experiment restored short-term or non-real-time contact on social media while minimizing intergroup contact anxiety,making research results more aligned with the reality.A total of 216 Chinese citizens over 18 years of age,who held neutral or negative attitudes towards minorities,voluntarily participated in the research.They were randomly assigned into an experimental group and a control group.Results show that intergroup contact on Sina Weibo improved the public’s attitudes towards sexual minorities,but the contact mechanism was different from that of real contact in terms of mediation and moderation.Discussion is centered on the virtual intergroup contact mechanism,in light of contact features on the Internet and the role that broader social and cultural contexts play in intergroup prejudice reduction.