How Do Personal Opinions Relate to Online Expressions? An Experimental Study Among Muslim Minority Groups in The Netherlands

Nick Wuestenenk; Frank van Tubergen; Tobias Stark; Naomi Ellemers

doi:10.1177/00936502241259919

How Do Personal Opinions Relate to Online Expressions? An Experimental Study Among Muslim Minority Groups in The Netherlands

Nick Wuestenenk^*, Frank van Tubergen, Tobias Stark, Naomi Ellemers

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

Abstract

There has been much debate about how cultural differences between ethnic groups may affect the cohesion of multicultural societies. Still, we know little about the extent to which cultural differences between groups also materialize into behavioral differences, especially in online settings. To study this, we conducted an experiment in which second-generation Moroccan and Turkish Dutch participants first indicated their personal opinion on sexual liberalism, and then participated in discussions on this topic on an online platform. On the discussion platform, participants were randomly assigned to either a progressive, conservative or mixed online discussion. Overall, we found that the convergence between personal opinions and online expressions was stronger for progressive than for conservative participants. Additionally, conservatives (but not progressives) were less likely to express their personal opinions, and more likely to deviate from their personal opinions, when they were exposed to an incongruent versus congruent online environment.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	3-31
Number of pages	29
Journal	Communication Research
Volume	52
Issue number	1
Early online date	25 Jun 2024
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1177/00936502241259919
Publication status	Published - Feb 2025

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2024.

Funding

The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This study is part of the research program Sustainable Cooperation\u2014Roadmaps to Resilient Societies (SCOOP). The authors are grateful to the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) and the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (OCW) for generously funding this research in the context of its 2017 Gravitation Program (Grant Number 024.003.025).

Funders	Funder number
Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek
Ministerie van onderwijs, cultuur en wetenschap	024.003.025

Keywords

Spiral of Silence
social influence
social media
social norms

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10.1177/00936502241259919Licence: CC BY

wuestenenk-et-al-2024-how-do-personal-opinions-relate-to-online-expressions-an-experimental-study-among-muslim-minorityFinal published version, 607 KBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

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abstract = "There has been much debate about how cultural differences between ethnic groups may affect the cohesion of multicultural societies. Still, we know little about the extent to which cultural differences between groups also materialize into behavioral differences, especially in online settings. To study this, we conducted an experiment in which second-generation Moroccan and Turkish Dutch participants first indicated their personal opinion on sexual liberalism, and then participated in discussions on this topic on an online platform. On the discussion platform, participants were randomly assigned to either a progressive, conservative or mixed online discussion. Overall, we found that the convergence between personal opinions and online expressions was stronger for progressive than for conservative participants. Additionally, conservatives (but not progressives) were less likely to express their personal opinions, and more likely to deviate from their personal opinions, when they were exposed to an incongruent versus congruent online environment.",

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How Do Personal Opinions Relate to Online Expressions? An Experimental Study Among Muslim Minority Groups in The Netherlands

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Funding

Keywords

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