Key success factors for the launch of government social media platform: Identifying the formation mechanism of continuance intention

Social media has flourished recently, and government agencies across different levels are experimenting with launching government social media (GSM) to socialize government services, processes, and data. Both researchers and practitioners are focusing on understanding the key success factors related to the launch of GSM. This study aims to identify the key success factors by exploring the formation mechanism of individuals' continuous usage intention. Through the theoretical lens of the uses and gratifications theory (UGT), we identify the gratification factors (i.e., information seeking, social activity, content consumption, collective intelligence, and network externality) that stimulate users' continuance intention toward GSM. Furthermore, we draw upon the stimulus–organism–response (SOR) framework to develop a model for exploring the effects of gratification factors (as stimulus in the SOR framework) on individuals' online experiential states (i.e., flow experience and sense of belonging) and, subsequently, their continuance intention. The results of our survey of 336 government microblogging residents indicate that usage continuance intention is in part determined by gratification factors. Furthermore, the associations among gratification factors and users’ continuance intention can be mediated by the sense of belonging and flow experience.     

The effects of gratifications on intention to read citizen journalism news: The mediating effect of attitude

This paper investigates gratifications of reading citizen journalism news by applying the research model drawn from the uses and gratifications approach, and the cognitive–affective–conative framework. Based on the uses and gratifications literature and the cognitive–affective–conative framework, the effects of gratifications on attitude (i.e., affective) and intention (i.e., conative) are examined. The indirect effects of gratifications on intention to read news (i.e., conation) through the interpretation of affection that users experienced are also examined. Using a survey conducted across nearly 300 users, the results show that all gratifications, except for escape, have direct effects on attitude. However, none of the gratifications has a direct effect on intention. The proposed model shows that attitude mediates the path between the effects of all gratifications and intention. The model explains a high percentage of variance with gratifications explaining about 46% of the variance in attitude. However, their effects on intention are limited when attitude is controlled.     

Gratifications and social network service usage: The mediating role of online experience

This paper incorporates dual theories from communication research (uses and gratifications) and psychology research (online flow) to examine consumer behavior in the use of social network services. In particular, the study proposes that consumers’ online experience of interaction and arousal serves as the mediator of the relationship between social motivations and use behaviors. The empirical results indicate that arousal fully mediates the relationship between social gratifications and problematic social network service use. Furthermore, both interaction and arousal are partial mediators of the relationship between social gratifications and the intention to revisit social networking websites.     

Profiling good Samaritans in online knowledge forums: Effects of affiliative tendency,self-esteem,and public individuation on knowledge sharing

Two studies investigated what motivates knowledge sharing in online knowledge forums. Based on the uses and gratifications model, we hypothesized that individuals would respond to information requests broadcast by unknown others to fulfill their needs for social interaction (affiliative tendency), to maintain a positive self-image (self-esteem), or to proclaim one’s uniqueness (public individuation). Consistent with the hypotheses, a web-based survey with current users of a public knowledge sharing site found that those with stronger affiliative tendency, higher self-esteem, or stronger public individuation were more likely to contribute to the open information repository (Study 1). However, a 2 (social presence: low vs. high) × 2 (recognition rewards: absent vs. present) between-subjects design experiment also showed that these psychological traits significantly enhanced individuals’ intention to share knowledge on a public web site, only when other users’ presence was rendered salient and individual contributions were visibly acknowledged (Study 2).     

Understanding user experience of news applications by Taxonomy of Experience (ToE)

Mobile phone is a necessary gadget for modern people nowadays. More and more users consume news and media content from smartphones via news applications or social media platform. It is important for news portals to understand young generation deeply to provide suitable service. This study introduces the method of taxonomy of experience (ToE) and its analytic approach of SEEing to understand college students’ user experience of Taiwanese news applications on smartphones. Users were encouraged to express their feelings, opinions, and operation processes during the testing via the approach of ‘think aloud’. The analytic approach of SEEing includes nine steps to categorise and analyse users’ verbal commentary. More importantly, user experience is analysed via clear missions of each steps. A total of 80 participants were invited to evaluate four news applications that were developed by media in Taiwan. Each news application was evaluated by 20 participants. The outcomes show that the users’ experience of news applications include the expectation of quick understanding, sharing, consistency, fun, importance, diversity, interests, and a wide range of topics. The outcome of this study provides an alternative way for news providers in Taiwan to re-evaluate what the users’ real desires of news applications are.     

Sharing of Sponsored Advertisements on Social Media: A Uses and Gratifications Perspective

Organisations are increasingly utilising social media to advertise to, and interact with, consumers. Sponsored advertisements embedded into targeted users’ social media feeds appear less invasive than standalone advertisements but, unlike organic postings, incur financial cost. Given that friends’ posts attract most attention, this research employs Uses and Gratifications theory to determine salient motivations for users’ intentions to share sponsored advertisements, framed in the tourism context. Survey data was collected (n?=?487) and analysis revealed altruism, entertainment, socialising, and information seeking to be significant positive drivers of intention to share tourism-related sponsored advertisements on Facebook. Notably, information sharing was found to have a negative effect, while self-expression had no significant effect. In addition, the motivations were not found to significantly differ between males and females. This study contributes to theoretical understanding of users’ intentions to share sponsored advertisements within the social media environment and provides practical recommendations to help tourism marketers maximise reach.     

Gratifications for using CMC technologies: A comparison among SNS,IM, and e-mail

Why and how people choose to use a particular computer-mediated communication (CMC) technology is a major concern. This study seeks to address the issues by applying the uses and gratifications theory, and attempts to explore the general and specific gratifications sought from the use of three CMC technologies. Three separate empirical surveys were conducted to investigate the gratifications sought from social networking sites, instant messaging, and e-mail. Then factor analysis was undertaken to extract the gratifications sought from each CMC technology. The extracted gratifications sought were then compared among the three technologies for concluding the general and specific gratifications. Four general gratifications were extracted among the three CMC technologies, including relationship maintenance, information seeking, amusement, and style. Two gratifications were specific: the sociability gratification sought from using instant messaging and social networking sites; and the gratification of kill time sought from using instant messaging. Moreover, the important levels of gratifications sought from the three CMC technologies were found to be different. Our findings provide evidence to explain why not all traditional CMC technologies are replaced by innovative and advanced ones. The results of this study may be applied to CMC technology design and provide implications for future research.     

Real-time Internet news browsing: Information vs. experience-related gratifications and behaviors

This study utilized lab observations with 49 subjects to observe what users encounter and how users behave in real-time Internet news browsing. We analyzed users’ selection of news platform, exposure to different topics of news content, and usage of different presentation elements by coding the screen videos. In addition, survey data with the subjects allow us to explore the links between gratifications and Internet news browsing behaviors. Our analyses suggest that users exert their control through actively and selectively interacting with the news services at the platform, content and presentation level to fulfill their different gratifications. In specific, gratifications based on information utility and those based on usage experience show different relations with different kinds of news browsing behaviors. Both the theoretical and methodological contributions are discussed at the end of this paper.     

SocialRobot: a big data-driven humanoid intelligent system in social media services

The blooming of social media services makes them the attractive resources for publishing and seeking information (posting, reposting and searching tweets) as well as socializing and interacting with other users (following and messaging other users) in social media services. With the increasing number of users and the interacting frequency between users, tremendous user-generated contents are bursting out every day. Hence, users may face a overload of information. To address the above problem, in this paper, we present SocialRobot, a humanoid intelligent system that has been deployed in Sina Weibo. For its socialization characteristic, we naturally implement it as a virtual user in Sina Weibo. By following and interacting with SocialRobot, high-quality and user-interested content can be recommended to the users from the big social media data. And the need for searching specific information can be satisfied by chatting with the SocialRobot. A crowdsourcing evaluation shows the effective performance of the SocialRobot on resolving the information overload.     

Clicking vs. sharing: The relationship between online news behaviors and political knowledge

Online news and social media are transforming the process of news production and reading. While research has shown that news media play an important role in providing information to the public in democratic societies, research investigating the impact of sharing news online on the process of public opinion formation is in a nascent stage. This study examines the impact of viewing and sharing online news on two dimensions of political knowledge: factual knowledge and structural knowledge. Results from survey data collected over 3-waves during the 2012 US Presidential Election from an online panel of 403 US adult Internet users show that reading online news is positively related to factual political knowledge. Sharing online news, in contrast, is related to structural knowledge. We discuss these findings and their implications for future research investigating the role of online news.     

A dynamic longitudinal examination of social media use,needs, and gratifications among college students

This study extends the U&G theoretical perspective to account for the situated, adaptive, and dynamic nature of mediated cognition and behavior. It specifies dynamic uses and gratifications of social media (compared to other media) in the everyday lives of college students using experience sampling data across 4 weeks. The study tests and quantifies reciprocal causal relationships between needs, social media use, and gratifications, as well as their self-sustaining endogenous (i.e., feedback) effects. Social media use is significantly driven by all four categories of needs examined (emotional, cognitive, social, and habitual), but only gratifies some of them. Ungratified needs accumulate over time and drive subsequent social media use. Interpersonal social environments also affect social media use. In particular, solitude and interpersonal support increase social media use, and moderate the effects of needs on social media use.     

Online maintenance of life domains: Uses of social network sites during graduate education among the US and international students

Students who pursue graduate degrees often do so under the burden of great geographic displacement. This study takes a uses and gratifications approach to examining the usage of Social Networking Sites (SNS) by both American and international graduate students studying at an American university. Specifically, it examines how SNS are used in relationship maintenance with friends and family, news consumption from one’s home state or country, political expression, and social and political transition to one’s new home. Our findings suggest that geographic and physical displacements do not always influence students in maintaining relationships via social media.     

News Recommendations from Social Media Opinion Leaders: Effects on Media Trust and Information Seeking

Polls show a strong decline in public trust of traditional news outlets; however, social media offers new avenues for receiving news content. This experiment used the Facebook API to manipulate whether a news story appeared to have been posted on Facebook by one of the respondent's real‐life Facebook friends. Results show that social media recommendations improve levels of media trust, and also make people want to follow more news from that particular media outlet in the future. Moreover, these effects are amplified when the real‐life friend sharing the story on social media is perceived as an opinion leader. Implications for democracy and the news business are discussed.     

Understanding motivated publics during disasters: Examining message functions,frames, and styles of social media influentials and followers

There has been a growing body of research regarding how organizations and general publics communicate on social media during crises. Integrating the uses and gratifications perspective, the social‐mediated crisis communication model, and the framing approach, our study offers a consolidated framework explaining how and why motivated social media publics communicate during crises. Namely, we examined whether and how influentials and followers employed different message functions through communicative devices including frames and styles. A content analysis was conducted on 800 tweets sampled from influentials and followers discussing the 2017 Ariana Grande concert bombing disaster. Our results (N = 800) suggested that influentials and followers adopted distinct communicative functions on social media during the disaster. Influentials engaged in information sharing and support exchange, whereas followers engaged in opinion expression and emotional coping. Influentials and followers also adopted specific frames and styles to achieve these communicative functions. Our findings can help crisis communicators understand the needs, concerns, and communication features of different publics and construct effective messages to reach them.     

Incidental Exposure,Selective Exposure,and Political Information Sharing: Integrating Online Exposure Patterns and Expression on Social Media

Political information sharing in social media offers citizens opportunities to engage with news and express their political views, but how do different patterns of online political information exposure, including both incidental and selective exposure, affect sharing? Using two‐wave panel survey data collected in the United States, we examine the relationship between incidental and selective exposure and their consequent links to political information sharing, across different levels of strength of political party affiliation. Our results demonstrate that incidental exposure to counter‐attitudinal information drives stronger partisans to more actively seek out like‐minded political content, which subsequently encourages political information sharing on social media. The results highlight the need to consider both types of political information exposure when modeling citizens' political behavior online.     

Content structure is king: An empirical study on gratifications,game genres and content type on Twitch

While video games have been widely investigated from the perspective of play, an emerging online media phenomenon is the spectating of video game play, captivating millions of users daily. This study investigates the relationship of video game genres, content type and viewer gratification in the context of live gaming. To study this phenomenon, we employ an online questionnaire study (N = 1097) to investigate six categories of gratifications: affective, information seeking, learning to play, personal integrative, social integrative & tension release motivations and their relationship with game genres and stream types. The results of this study demonstrate that “the medium is the message”, highlight the importance of archetypal structure (i.e. the type of streamed content) over content topic (i.e. the genre of games being streamed), and help to build a better understanding of user generated content and the democratization of media.     

Queer identity online: Informal learning and teaching experiences of LGBTQ individuals on social media

In this study, we explored how social media, particularly social networking sites, serve as informal learning environments for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, and otherwise-identified (LGBTQ) individuals during formative stages of their evolving LGBTQ identity. We conducted semi-structured interviews (N = 33) probing LGBTQ individuals’ use of social media and identified three educational uses tied to online information seeking: traditional learning (e.g., information seeking about LGBTQ-related issues), social learning (e.g., observing role models or other LGBTQ individuals’ behavior and experiences), and experiential learning (e.g., experimenting with online dating sites and dating apps). These experiences were especially common during the coming out process. Participants also reported a fourth educational function, teaching (e.g., sharing information with others about their experiences as an LGBTQ individual). Teaching was more common among individuals who were out and those with less common identities (e.g., asexual and transgender). Several affordances of social media, including visibility, association, persistence, anonymity, and interactivity enabled these learning experiences.     

Online socializing: How does it affect the information seeking behavior and the educational preferences in Saudi Arabia?

There are three major issues, among others, associated with the rapid adoption of information technology in Saudi Arabia. These are the changes in online socializing (through Social Media), the information seeking behavior, and the eLearning developments in the local academic institutions. In this causal exploratory research study the main idea was to find the effect of the changes of the former on the latter two. Saudi Arabia is the geographic scope of the study as the most important and influential country in the region. A pre-tested and moderated questionnaire, administered both on- and offline, was used to gather the relevant data. Findings indicate a shift from the conventional to the online information seeking behaviors and a preference of a blended educational system, both traditional (classroom) and eLearning or similar, despite the deep and dramatic penetration of social media in the country that could lead to the false assumption that the local population, especially young people, would turn their back on the conventional education processes.     

Attention to news and its dissemination on Twitter: A survey

In recent years, news media have been hugely disrupted by news promotion, commentary and sharing in online, social media (e.g., Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit). This disruption has been the subject of a significant literature that has largely used AI techniques – machine learning, text analytics and network models – to both (i) understand the factors underlying audience attention and news dissemination on social media (e.g., effects of popularity, type of day) and (ii) provide new tools/guidelines for journalists to better disseminate their news via these social media. This paper provides an integrative review of the literature on the professional reporting of news on Twitter; focusing on how journalists and news outlets use Twitter as a platform to disseminate news, and on the factors that impact readers’ attention and engagement with that news on Twitter. Using the precise definition of a news-tweet (i.e., divided into user, content and context features), the survey structures the literature to reveal the main findings on features affecting audience attention to news and its dissemination on Twitter. From this analysis, it then considers the most effective guidelines for digital journalists to better disseminate news in the future.     

User comments for news recommendation in forum-based social media

News recommendation and user interaction are important features in many Web-based news services. The former helps users identify the most relevant news for further information. The latter enables collaborated information sharing among users with their comments following news postings. This research is intended to marry these two features together for an adaptive recommender system that utilizes reader comments to refine the recommendation of news in accordance with the evolving topic. This then turns the traditional “push-data” type of news recommendation to “discussion” moderator that can intelligently assist online forums. In addition, to alleviate the problem of recommending essentially identical articles, the relationship (duplicate, generalization, or specialization) between recommended news articles and the original posting is investigated. Our experiments indicate that our proposed solutions provide an improved news recommendation service in forum-based social media.