Miyata, K.（宮田加久子）, Yamamoto, H.（山本仁志）, & Ogawa, Y.（小川祐樹） (2015) What Affects the Spiral of Silence and the Hard Core on Twitter? An Analysis of the Nuclear Power Issue in Japan. ツイッターにおける「沈黙の螺旋」と「ハードコア」：日本の原発問題の分析 American Behavioral Scientist, 1-13. doi: 10.1177/0002764215580618
We test the Spiral of Silence theory about Internet use in Japanese Internet society. We looked at Twitter and analyzed whether the Spiral of Silence theory would hold for it. Twitter’s speed and scope of information dissemination is fast and extremely wide ranging. For these reasons, Twitter is an appropriate field for analyzing the influences of the Internet on the formation of public opinion. By integrating social investigation and behavioral log analysis, we test a model that incorporates an individual’s attitudes (measured via a questionnaire) and an individual’s communication network structure and actual communication behavior (measured via behavior log analysis). The results from our analysis show a positive correlation between individuals’ perception that their opinion represents the majority view and the number of times they have spoken out. Moreover, while homogeneity of opinions of a personal network on Twitter influenced speaking out by a majority group, homogeneity of opinions does not influence speaking out by a minority group.