Psychological Mechanism Of Netizen' Selective Exposure And Perception Of News Feed: Evidence From An Eye Movement Experiment

Whether Information Cocoon exists,or to say whether it exists in China's cultural environment,has remained a controversy.By introducing Two Steps of Selective Exposure and the method of eye-movement tracking,this study analyzes from three variables(Selective Exposure,Selective Perception and Attitude Change)on a virtual news pages as to collect data of Attitude consistency degree(consistency between overall attitude in given information environment and the previous attitudes held by respondents).The measurement will be presented in 5 level of Attitude Consistency(all approves,majority-approves,half-approves,majority-disapproves,all-disapproves),winthin-subject design.In light of that,the study aims to explore how individuals behaves in the process of information acquisition and solve the problems above.The findings are as follow:(1)In terms of selective exposure,respondents have shown no difference in browsing probability and browsing time in reading the briefs only when exposed to content featured by different attitudes;however,they are more likely to click in content that differs from the information environment ‘general recognition,and spend the same time reading the details whether it consistent with their attitudes;when seeking information,they are more likely to click in content written in neutrality but spend the same time reading content whether it consistent with their attitudes.(2)In terms of selective perception,respondents have higher approval of information environment with consistent attitudes,but no lower approval of information environment with inconsistent attitudes.(3)In terms of attitude change,as the proportion of content with inconsistent attitudes lowers,respondents are more likely to maintain their own attitudes;but such trend will be less obvious as time passes by.The results show that:(1)In terms of selective exposure,the audience is more inclined for diversified information during information selection.(2)In terms of selective perception,although audiences prefer information consistent with their attitudes,they do not reject information inconsistent with their attitudes,indicating that audiences will not “hear and trust only one side”;(3)In terms of attitude change,if the audience is exposed to a lot of information consistent with their attitude in the short term,most of them will maintain and strengthen their attitudes,but if they are not expose to this kind of information for a period of time,their attitude will be less firm.In conclusion,this study shows that individuals,who are exposed to more information consistent with their own attitudes in the short term,will strengthen their attitudes,but their attitudes will moderate after they are separated from a homogeneous information environment.That is to say,although this study fails to prove that individuals are willing to expose themselves in a homogenous environment for a long time in terms of selective exposure,individuals may be affected by an information cocoon if they expose to consistent information for a long time.