Effects of Socially Stigmatized Crowdfunding Campaigns in Shaping Opinions

ABSTRACTDonation-based crowdfunding platforms have an increasing number of campaigns on socially stigmatized topics. These platforms' widespread online reachability and the large flow of monetary donations have the potential to shape individuals' opinions by influencing their perceptions. However, little research has been done to investigate whether these campaigns impact individuals' opinions and how. We conducted an experiment to explore how an attitude-inconsistent campaign on fairness and equality for LGBTIQ people influenced participants' opinion on this topic. Although all the participants changed their perceived opinions after reading the support for the campaigns, participants opposing equality were less inclined to change their attitude than participants supporting equality. To examine this difference further, we conducted another experiment where participants were exposed to both attitude-consistent and attitude-inconsistent campaigns with varying levels of social support. Participants opposing equality showed less sensitivity to the level of social support, and wanted to donate significantly more money to anti-equality campaigns compared to those who supported equality. Results demonstrate the complex role of crowdfunding campaigns in shaping individuals' opinions on stigmatized topics.