A Study On The Interaction Between Age, Online Media And Political Attitude

Under the background of new media dominated by the Internet,political communication has undergone profound changes.Due to its characteristics of instant dissemination and identity anonymity,the Internet has gradually become a way for netizen to obtain information from the outside world,and has become an important platform for them to express their views,attitudes,and participate in the political process.How to evaluate the political consequences of this great change has become a hot topic in academic discussions.In the existing literature,there is a major controversy about the political impact of the Internet.Some studies believe that,compared with traditional media,the parallel communication mode of online new media can promote more convenient and deeper communication between different groups,and is conducive to the formation of a public sphere.Attitude differences arising from other reasons lead to mutual understanding and consensus.But some studies show that the network does not promote mutual understanding and attitude change among groups of people.The anonymity and decentralization of online media will strengthen people’s existing political attitudes and behaviors,thereby widening the gap and estrangement between them.In the context of this debate,this study uses China as an example to analyze whether and how the Internet can change people’s differences in political attitudes due to age gaps.The influence of age on political attitudes is one of the key topics analyzed in traditional political communication literature,but its importance has not received enough attention in a rapidly developing society like China.Compared with Western countries,China’s development is a compressed development.It took only about 40 years for China to develop from a backward agricultural country to a modern country with great material abundance,and some of them have even lived a postmodern life that focuses on immaterial feelings.This kind of development makes people of different eras live in the same time and space.Age not only has the meaning of distinguishing people’s biological age,but also the characteristics of different eras.There are huge differences in general ideas and specific political attitudes among people of different ages.So,can the use of online media eliminate differences in people’s political attitudes(political support and democratic awareness)due to age?In order to answer this question,this paper will conduct research from the following three specific aspects: First,to explore the relationship between age and political attitude,and to explain the relationship between them from the perspectives of life cycle theory and generation effect;Secondly,it focuses on the interaction between Internet use and age on political attitudes.This includes whether Internet use reduces the difference of political attitudes among different ages or further intensifies group polarization,and whether age difference strengthens or weakens the influence of Internet use on political attitudes.Finally,the influence of Internet use on the differences in political attitudes among groups born before and after different generations is studied.This study answers the above questions through empirical analysis of the fourth wave data of The Asian Barometer.The results show that different purposes of Internet use have different effects on the relationship between age and political attitudes,and different ages are also affected differently by the Internet on their political attitudes.The specific findings are as follows:Firstly,general use of the Internet will narrow differences in political attitudes(political support,democratic value)among different age groups.Secondly,political use of the Internet(actively searching for and reading political information)can widen the gap in democratic value among different age groups.Thirdly,older people are more affected by the Internet’s political attitudes than younger people.In a word,individual’s political attitude is not only influenced by internal age,but also by political communication,and the interweaving of the two has an interactive effect on political attitude.The overall judgment of this paper is that,with the development and progress of the Internet,the political gap caused by age difference has been filled up to a certain extent by Internet technology under the effect of the high frequency of daily Internet use by the public.In future studies,whether age or the Internet is used as the main explanatory variable to explore the influence of political attitudes,the influence of another variable on individual political attitudes should be considered to draw conclusions from a relatively comprehensive perspective.