Experimental social psychological study on political learning in a highly information-oriented society

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25871051
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Library and information science/Humanistic social informatics; Social psychology
• Research Institution: National Institute of Informatics
• Principal Investigator: KOBAYASHI Tetsuro 国立情報学研究所, 情報社会相関研究系, 准教授 (60455194)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: 政治的知識 / オンラインニュース / ソーシャルメディア / フィールド実験 / 閲覧ログ解析 / 社会調査

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The influence of Internet use on political learning was investigated using surveys, mining of browsing history, and field experiments. Results indicated that online news consumption in Japan that is concentrated on Yahoo! JAPAN facilitates by-productive political learning and thus reduces the political knowledge gap among citizens. On the other hand, this knowledge leveling effect was not observed in the election campaign via social media which was first put into practice in the 2013 House of Councilors election.

Free Research Field

政治コミュニケーション