• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.455-465
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• 2016

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of twitter influenctials on users' willingness on express opinions. Based on the spiral of silence and corrective action hypothesis, the contradictory hypotheses were drawn. The online expeiment was conducted to verify which hypothesis is valid. Participant were assigned to the four experimenatal conditons: a famous influential's twit which agrees with the issue; a famous influential's twit which disagrees with the issue; an ordinary influential's twit to agree with the issue; an ordinary influential's twit to disagree with the issue. Results showed that opinion congruency with a twitter influential did not influence participants' willingness to express opinion online and offline, but the interaction effect with the type of influentials was found. Opinion dissonance with an ordinary tiwtterian increased willingness to express opinion. The findings suggest that twitter influentials, particulary an ordinary influentials with differnet opinions, can motivate users to express their own opinion.