News sharing in social media: The effect of gratifications and prior experience

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2011.10.002Get rights and content

Abstract

Recent events indicate that sharing news in social media has become a phenomenon of increasing social, economic and political importance because individuals can now participate in news production and diffusion in large global virtual communities. Yet, knowledge about factors influencing news sharing in social media remains limited. Drawing from the uses and gratifications (U&G) and social cognitive theories (SCT), this study explored the influences of information seeking, socializing, entertainment, status seeking and prior social media sharing experience on news sharing intention. A survey was designed and administered to 203 students in a large local university. Results from structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis revealed that respondents who were driven by gratifications of information seeking, socializing, and status seeking were more likely to share news in social media platforms. Prior experience with social media was also a significant determinant of news sharing intention. Implications and directions for future work are discussed.

Highlights

► We draw from the uses and gratifications (U&G) and social cognitive theories (SCT). ► To examine the influence of gratification factors and experience on news sharing. ► A survey was designed and administered to 203 students. ► Gratifications of information seeking, socializing and status seeking were influential. ► Prior experience with social media was also a significant determinant.

Introduction

Recent events from the crisis in the Middle East to the earthquake and tsunami disaster in Japan have demonstrated that social media (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube) are changing the way individuals consume and share news. Specifically, a news item can be distributed across societies and discussed by people around the world within minutes via social media platforms. For instance, news of the protests in the Middle East was spread through social media networks Twitter and Facebook. Similarly, in the earthquake and tsunami disaster, instant updates were available and shared in many social media platforms. In both situations, thousands of stories, photos and videos were posted which immediately attracted world-wide attention, demonstrating that social media platforms play pivotal roles in supporting news production and diffusion. Hence, it is not surprising that 37% of Internet users have experience in sharing new stories through social media sites and collectively, social media are emerging as a powerful news referring source (Purcell, Rainie, Mitchell, Rosenstiel, & Olmstead, 2010). Indeed, sharing news in social media has become a phenomenon of growing social, economic and political importance. Yet, knowledge about factors influencing news sharing in social media is not well documented in the literature.

Here, a promising line of inquiry is the uses and gratifications (U&G) theory which attempts to explain what social and psychological needs motivate audiences to select particular media channels and content choices (Diddi and LaRose, 2006, Lin, 2002, Rubin and Perse, 1987, Ruggiero, 2000). Studies on content contribution and information sharing using social media have identified some motivational factors that predict information sharing behavior. For example, both status attainment (e.g., getting attention) and information seeking (e.g., future retrieval) were found to be the main motivations driving users to contribute annotations in mobile and online media (Ames and Naaman, 2007, Goh et al., 2009). Hsu and Lin (2008) also suggested that the motivations for sharing content in the blog space include establishing social relationships and reputations. Recent studies on social networking sites also highlight that gratifications such as entertainment, information searching and seeking, socializing, and establishing status and reputation are important in the usage of social media to facilitate social interaction and group discussion (Dunne et al., 2010, Park et al., 2009). Collectively, past research suggest that motivational factors driving users to share information include information seeking, socializing, entertainment and status seeking.

We contend that some gratifications identified in prior social media studies on content contribution and information sharing may still be relevant in the current context of news sharing in social media due to the inherently participatory nature of these platforms. Specifically, the advent of social media has made accessing and sharing news a social experience where users can harness their social networks and social media platforms to filter, assess and react to news. Such distinctive features of social media are likely to elicit comparable expectations and gratifications from users as these platforms enable users to access more diverse and personally relevant sources of news as well as to learn through interaction with others.

However, we recognize that some of these factors may not be entirely applicable to explain people’s news sharing intention in social media platforms because news topics are distinguished from other informational content (e.g., professional knowledge, personal information, photos) for the following reasons. Essentially, a news story is regarded as the report of recent (especially important or interesting) events or occurrences, published or broadcasted through media or interpersonal channels as new information (Simpson & Weiner, 1981). Compared to other informational content shared online, news is valued much more in terms of timeliness, accuracy, objectivity, and social responsibility (Sundar, 1999). Moreover, news content has much more impact on civic agenda, public opinion as well as individual perceptions of social reality than other forms of content in social media (McCombs and Reynolds, 2009, McCombs and Shaw, 1972). Put differently, news topics are different from other informational content in social media in terms of public opinion, agenda-setting, and social influences (McQuail, 2005).

Besides gratification factors, prior social media experience may play a role in influencing news sharing intention. According to social cognitive theory (SCT), users’ behaviors may be influenced by prior experience, in addition to self-reflection which is a prerequisite of U&G theory (Bandura, 1997, LaRose, 2009). Because familiarity of social media increases with experience, users tend to form habitual use as a daily routine (Diddi & LaRose, 2006). Evidence from past studies suggests that prior Internet experience can help users master complex tasks and enhance the perception of self-efficacy (Eastin and LaRose, 2000, Hsu et al., 2007). Put differently, U&G theory itself may not be enough to explain users’ motivations because it assumes that users are constantly actively participating in media selection and use whereas in reality, such participation may simply be borne out of prior experience. Hence, in this study, we integrate the theoretical perspectives from SCT with perspectives from U&G to also examine the role of prior experience.

In sum, the objective of this study is to investigate the gratifications and experiential factors in influencing news sharing intention in the context of social media. However, to our knowledge, there is little prior research in this area. Instead work has focused on news reading primarily in traditional media (Lichtenstein and Rosenfeld, 1983, Rubin and Perse, 1987). Further, research in social media has examined information sharing in general (Lee et al., 2010, Nov et al., 2010), and not specifically in news. Hence, we extend prior work by drawing from the U&G theory to explain users’ motivations, as well as from the SCT to incorporate experiential factors to understand news sharing intention in social media. Thus, the present study aims to investigate the following research question: How do gratification and experiential factors influence users’ intention to share news in social media?

Section snippets

News sharing in social media

Social media refer to Internet-based services that allow individuals to create, share and seek content, as well as to communicate and collaborate with each other (Kim et al., 2010, Lerman, 2007). Arguably, one of the more attractive characteristics of social media is its support for user-generated content, transforming individuals from passive consumers of content to active producers (Nov et al., 2010). As these individuals share their opinions, insights, knowledge, and other content, they also

Sample

A survey instrument was developed and administered to undergraduate and graduate students at a large local university. Participation was voluntary and anonymous. A total of 210 questionnaires were collected, of which seven respondents reported that they had no experience in using social media to access news. These were omitted from the sample, resulting in a final sample size of 203 respondents. This means that all the respondents had prior experience with using social media to access news

Results

Prior to CFA, the measurement model was assessed for construct reliability and validity. To test measurement reliability, Cronbach’s alpha was employed and this yielded acceptable values for all constructs for the given sample size (see Table 2). Additionally, before testing the hypothesized model, we conducted a principal component analysis with Varimax rotation on all 18 the perceived gratification items. Four factors emerged with eigenvalues greater than 1.00 explaining a total of 81.8% of

Discussion

Drawing from both the U&G theory and SCT, this study investigated the influences of information seeking, socializing, entertainment, status seeking and prior social media sharing experience on news sharing intention in social media. As discussed, the U&G theory by itself may not be sufficient to explain news sharing intention in social media as the theory does not take into consideration prior media experience and assumes that users are always actively evaluating their gratifications from media

Conclusion

The present study contributes to research in several ways. First, to our knowledge, this is one of the first studies that draw from diverse literature (e.g., communication, information science) to investigate antecedents of news sharing intention in the social media context. Specifically, this study shows that the U&G framework and the SCT are theoretically complementary in explaining users’ intention for news sharing. Hence, our conceptualization and research model provides a theoretical

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by Nanyang Technological University Academic Research Fund (Tier 1), under research Grant No. 59/09. The authors are also extremely grateful to Associate Professor Dion Goh for his valuable comments on earlier drafts.

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