Relationship between Algorithm Awareness and Individuals’ Attitudes towards Different Viewpoints

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-609-3_74How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Algorithmic Awareness; Information Acquisition; Selective Exposure; Youth Group; Opinion Polarization

Abstract

Personalized recommendation algorithms have been deeply embedded in the daily information acquisition link, but users’ cognition of algorithm operation logic - that is, algorithm awareness - is significantly differentiated. This difference affects the diversity of individual access to information and its tendency to accept different views. This article summarizes the three core mechanisms recommended by algorithms to reshape information acquisition, analyzes the cognitive basis and behavioral consequences of algorithmic consciousness, and examines how information contact participates in the shaping of individual views and attitudes. The study found that the algorithm promoted users to form path dependence to a considerable extent through content customization, sorting criteria and interest prediction. Users with high algorithm awareness are more inclined to actively expand information channels to obtain diverse content, while those with low algorithm awareness are more immersed in a highly similar information environment. As a high-frequency user of the algorithm platform, young users generally show the characteristics of high dependence and low understanding, superimposed on a strong sense of belonging, and are more easily guided by algorithms. Based on this, this paper proposes that algorithm literacy education should be strengthened and the transparency of the platform should be improved to cope with the information bias and opinion polarization in the digital ecology.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Yexin Jia
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/09/04
TI  - Relationship between Algorithm Awareness and Individuals’ Attitudes towards Different Viewpoints
BT  - Proceedings of the 2026 3rd International Conference on Public Relations and Media Communication (PRMC 2026)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 686
EP  - 693
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-609-3_74
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-609-3_74
ID  - Jia2026
ER  -