Social and Demographic Factors in Emotional Perception of Digital Communication Text: An Experimental Study

Aleksandr Gertsen

doi:10.21603/vcsn-2026-5-2-198-206

VAK Russia

5.9.8

SOCIAL AND DEMOGRAPHIC FACTORS IN EMOTIONAL PERCEPTION OF DIGITAL COMMUNICATION TEXT: AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY Social and Demographic Factors in Emotional Perception of Digital Communication Text: An Experimental Study

АА Аа

Published in Virtual Communication and Social Networks · Pages 198–206 · Rubric: PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIOLOGY OF VIRTUAL COMMUNICATION AND SOCIAL NETWORKS

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21603/vcsn-2026-5-2-198-206 · EDN: UIGBUC

Received: 17.01.2026 Accepted: 11.02.2026 Published: 10.04.2026

Authors

Aleksandr Gertsen

ORCID SPIN

Aleksandr Gertsen

Perm State University (Russia, Perm) Russian Federation

ORCID SPIN

ABSTRACT

Emotional interpretation of digital texts requires the reconstruction of the author’s intent. According to Activity Theory, emotions are shaped by historical and cultural factors rather than human biology. Using the Geneva Emotion Wheel model, the authors studied responses to a digital communication text in order to measure the convergence between attributed emotions (those the reader ascribes to the author) and the reader’s own emotional response. The survey involved 106 participants with diverse social and demographic profiles. The questionnaire was based on the premise that the semantic perception of a text involves both the author and the reader. It aimed to analyze the effect of gender and age on emotional distance, attribution, and response. A metric based on the number of distinct tokens made it possible to formalize the distance between attributed and experienced emotions. The number of responses showing emotion convergence (50%) equaled the number of responses without matches (50%). Partial convergence (28.4%) proved to be more frequent than full convergence (21.6%). Female and younger respondents demonstrated a larger emotional distance between the image of the author and the reader’s response. However, response varied significantly within each social group. The impact of gender and age on the convergence between the attributed and felt emotions proved highly variable, depending on the respondent’s own cultural experience.

KEYWORDS

activity theory, digital communication, emotionality, Geneva Emotion Wheel, text generation, text perception, social-demographic factors

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GOST

Gertsen A. S. Social and Demographic Factors in Emotional Perception of Digital Communication Text: An Experimental Study // . 2026. pp. 198-206. DOI: https://doi.org/10.21603/vcsn-2026-5-2-198-206. EDN: UIGBUC. (Date of access 19.08.2026).

MLA

Aleksandr Gertsen. "Social and Demographic Factors in Emotional Perception of Digital Communication Text: An Experimental Study." (2026): 198-206. DOI: https://doi.org/10.21603/vcsn-2026-5-2-198-206. EDN: UIGBUC.

APA

Gertsen A. S. (2026). Social and Demographic Factors in Emotional Perception of Digital Communication Text: An Experimental Study. , 198-206. https://doi.org/10.21603/vcsn-2026-5-2-198-206 EDN: UIGBUC.

Chicago

Aleksandr Gertsen. "Social and Demographic Factors in Emotional Perception of Digital Communication Text: An Experimental Study." , no. (2026): 198-206. https://doi.org/10.21603/vcsn-2026-5-2-198-206. EDN: UIGBUC.

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{{cite journal | author = Gertsen A. S. | title = Social and Demographic Factors in Emotional Perception of Digital Communication Text: An Experimental Study | journal = | year = 2026 | pages = 198-206 | doi = 10.21603/vcsn-2026-5-2-198-206 }} EDN: UIGBUC

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SOCIAL AND DEMOGRAPHIC FACTORS IN EMOTIONAL PERCEPTION OF DIGITAL COMMUNICATION TEXT: AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY Social and Demographic Factors in Emotional Perception of Digital Communication Text: An Experimental Study

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