User Ethnicity and Gender as Predictors of Attitudes to Ethnic Groups in Social Media Texts

摘要

Out-group bias in the context of race and ethnicity has been widely studied. However, little research has been done to study this phenomenon online. In this paper we explore how ethnicity and gender of Russian social media users affects their attitude toward other ethnic groups. Out results show that ethnicity of social media users plays a significant role in their attitude towards ethnic groups. On the average social media users tend to experience more positive attitude to the ethnic groups they belong to, but there are some exceptions—Russians and Tatars. Gender also influence the attitude insofar as men expressed stronger negative emotions toward foreign peoples.