Exploring information security education on social media use: Perspective of uses and gratifications theory

Abstract

Purpose

Based on the literature on information security (InfoSec) education and uses and gratifications theory, the purpose of this paper is to propose and test a research model to examine the impact of InfoSec education on social media usage.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors employed structural equation modeling to test the research model, with a survey data set of 293 valid subjects from a WeChat subscription about InfoSec education named secrecy view.

Findings

The results reveal the significant impacts of perceived content quality, perceived social influence and perceived entertainment on user satisfaction in the context of security education and social media. User satisfaction is significantly associated with user stickiness and security knowledge improvement. Additionally, the authors found that user’s security awareness moderated the effect of perceived entertainment on user satisfaction.

Research limitations/implications

Using a single sample might constrain the contributions of this study.

Practical implications

The authors suggest practical guidelines for InfoSec education on social media by enhancing perceived content quality. Moreover, due to diverse user attributes, the social media operators should recommend targeted content to different users.

Originality/value

This study contributes to studies on InfoSec education of social media usage and identifies factors that affect user satisfaction with social media. Furthermore, the study enriches the security education practices by uncovering differences in security awareness with regard to user satisfaction.

Citation

Ma, S., Zhang, S., Li, G. and Wu, Y. (2019), "Exploring information security education on social media use: Perspective of uses and gratifications theory", Aslib Journal of Information Management, Vol. 71 No. 5, pp. 618-636. https://doi.org/10.1108/AJIM-09-2018-0213