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Abstract
This paper examines public attitudes toward Big Tech and their relationship to policy preferences in six OECD countries. Drawing on original survey data collected in 2022 from 19,800 respondents in Germany, Japan, Poland, Spain, Sweden, and the United States, we analyze how education and political ideology shape evaluations of large technology firms such as Google, Apple, Meta, Amazon, and Microsoft. Using six survey items on the perceived economic, social, and democratic effects of Big Tech, we identify two weakly correlated attitudinal dimensions: positive and negative evaluations. A cluster analysis reveals five groups of respondents—supporters, skeptics, ambivalent, dismissive, and neutral—highlighting that public opinion on Big Tech is not organized along a single continuum. Bayesian multinomial regression models show that higher education is associated less with outright support than with greater ambivalence, while ideology structures attitudes in distinct ways: skepticism is more pronounced on the left, whereas ambivalence rises especially among highly educated respondents on the right. These attitudinal clusters are closely linked to preferences for regulation and government support. The findings suggest that public opinion toward Big Tech is complex, politically structured, and consequential for policy debates.
Citation
Tobias Tober, Marius R. Busemeyer and Sebastian Koos. 2026. “Big Tech, Big Risk? How Education and Ideology Shape Public Attitudes toward Big Tech Companies.” Research & Politics 13(4). https://doi.org/10.1177/20531680261493642