Search results

A comprehensive operational framework is proposed to explain young consumers’ (i.e. generations Y and Z) engagement with brands on social media sites (SMSs). This paper aims to synthesize two motivational theories: uses and gratifications (U&G) theory and the technology acceptance model (TAM).

A selective literature review was conducted to examine recent publications related to young consumers’ brand-driven engagement behavior on SMSs in which either TAM or U&G theory was applied. A three-stage method was used: an initial search was followed by vertical and horizontal searches and then a targeted search of scholarly publications. At each stage, the university’s library databases and Google Scholar were searched for relevant, mainly peer-reviewed articles, using appropriate filters and keywords. The articles’ references and the studies that cited those articles were added to the initially identified research pool (vertical search), coupled with publications of a similar nature based on keywords (horizontal search). The final stage, the targeted search, involved identifying and adding specific articles (e.g. literature reviews and integrated models).

After a review of a significant number of U&G and TAM studies, similarities and differences of the two theories were identified, and an integrated operational framework was developed. Based on empirical findings of existing U&G and TAM studies, testable propositions were presented.

The proposed hybrid model and the associated propositions provide a research opportunity to empirically examine how young consumers’ motivational (i.e. motivating and demotivating) drivers, normative influence, perceived value and attitudes (toward brand content and engagement) predict intention or actual brand-related behavior on SMSs.

Much of current research indicates that generations Y and Z (“digital natives”) spend considerably more time on SMSs than any of the older generations (“digital immigrants”). Thus, brands that aim to target this cohort need to develop successful engagement strategies (e.g. gamification and influencer marketing) on current and emerging SMSs. The suggested conceptualization provides guidelines for companies to effectively use such communication strategies to motivate young people to engage with their brands on sites such as Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

A review of TAM research indicates that it lacks rich motivating/demotivating constructs, and thus borrows from other theories to complement this weakness. An examination of U&G frameworks, particularity Ducoffe (1996)-based models, indicates that these frameworks mainly test engagement with social media advertising but seldom other types of brand-driven engagement on SMSs. In addition, many U&G studies focus less than TAM studies do on outcome variables such as behavioral intentions and behavior. Thus, the authors propose a synthesized U&G and TAM framework that mitigates both theories’ weaknesses and builds on their strengths, enriching the growing research on brand-driven engagement behavior via SMSs.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the intention to purchase products through clothing brands’ social network sites (SNS) based on the theory of planned behavior and uses and gratifications theory (U&G), and the moderating effects of self-image congruity (SIC).

Data were collected from 1,003 followers of their favorite clothing brands’ SNS. Data analysis was performed using structural equation modeling (SEM) and multi-group SEM analysis. The models were estimated from the matrices of variances and covariances by the maximum likelihood procedure using EQS 6.1.

The results highlight the positive impact of U&G on attitude, SNS intentions and SNS use, and U&G, SNS intentions and SNS use were seen to be the main antecedents predicting purchase intentions. Furthermore, SIC was found to have moderating effects between SNS attitude and SNS intentions and between SNS intentions and SNS use.

This research can help clothing brands understand the need to generate brand beliefs, and to develop contents or events to help accomplish the transition from use to purchase.

This research contributes to the literature by providing a better understanding of intention to use and purchase intention through clothing brands’ SNS pages.

Considering the popularity and addictive attributes of microblogging, the purpose of this paper is to explore the key drivers of the microblogging addiction tendency, and to investigate the causal relationship between microblogging usage and addiction tendency through the lens of the uses and gratifications (U&G) theory.

By extending the U&G theory to accommodate the negative consequences of gratification, a research model that explains the relationships among microblogging use, gratification and addiction tendency was developed and empirically examined based on the data collected from 520 microblogging users in China.

The results showed that different types of microblogging use lead to different categories of gratification to different extents, while different categories of gratification play different roles in determining the level of addiction tendency. Specifically, the effect of content gratification on addiction is marginal, while social gratification has significant effects on all dimensions of addiction tendency.

The present study has both theoretical and practical implications. From a theoretical perspective, unlike many previous studies applied the U&G theory to explore the positive outcomes of media uses, this paper extends the U&G by including addiction tendency as a negative psychological outcome of U&G., resulting a research framework (use-gratification-addiction framework). Meanwhile, this paper contributes to the extending literature by examining the constructs of U&G at a granular level and investigated the causal relationship between “uses” and “gratifications.”

The purpose of this paper is to adopt the uses and gratifications theory to tourism.

The purpose of this paper is to explore why young people use and participate in social networking sites (SNSs) with specific reference to Bebo.

A qualitative approach is employed in this paper with a view to exploring the uses and gratifications (U and G) that girls aged 12‐14 years, both seek and obtain from the Bebo SNS. The research is conducted in a school setting in Ireland.

The findings indicate that the participants are actively using Bebo for their own personal motives and gratifications in terms of presenting and managing a certain identity and persona in a social context. Furthermore, the relatively impersonal nature of the online environment is seen to especially facilitate the young participants in negotiating the practicalities and difficulties that can arise offline, in terms of forging identities and managing relationships.

U and G theory has attracted criticism in terms of a perceived limitation that it only serves to offer lists of reasons as to why audiences attend to the media, and furthermore, a perception that much of the extant U and G research has desisted from discerning between gratifications sought (GS) and gratifications obtained (GO). This paper affirms the appropriateness of the U and G theoretical approach in the context of online research. The authors conclude that SNS such as Bebo facilitate the participants in this paper in executing personal aims (for example, identity creation and management) with a view to obtaining certain gratifications (for example, peer acceptance). Therefore, a clear distinction but inextricable link is demonstrated between the GS and GO from participating in SNS.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the uses and gratifications (U&G) theory for evaluating social media usage in higher education. The paper reports on a social media awareness campaign which was designed and implemented in a higher education context as extra-curricular content.

A case study research approach was used and the theoretical model was adopted in a South African higher education institution where a social media campaign was conducted to improve environmental awareness. The activities of the environmental awareness campaign were conducted using popular social media such as Facebook and YouTube. The U&G theory was used to evaluate social media usage before and after the campaign. Three gratifications (or factors) of the U&G were used, namely coordination, immediate access and social presence.

The findings revealed an increase in environmental knowledge during the campaign and a positive correlation was found between activity on the social media campaign and environmental knowledge. However, the ratings for the U&G gratifications were lower in the post-test evaluation than in the pre-test evaluation for all three factors. This low rating could indicate that the use of social media for these gratifications and the acceptance of social media used for extra-curricular educational purposes are low. Through qualitative feedback three other factors that influenced the usage and acceptance of the campaign social media were identified, namely: time, attitude and a fast internet connection.

One limitation of the study was the relatively small sample size of 72 students in one higher education institution.

The findings of the study still provide deeper insight into students’ usage of social media for extra-curricular education and the theoretical model can be used in other studies on social media usage.

Whilst several studies have investigated social media use for learning, there is limited research which explores the usage and acceptance of social media for extra-curricular knowledge.

The purpose of this study is to examine factors affecting mobile phone users' attitude toward watching TV content on a mobile device. Under the uses and gratifications theory, the current study examined attitude toward watching TV content on a mobile phone, with antecedents of affinities for both watching TV content and a mobile phone use.

The current study adopted a construct of relative advantage as a mediator between affinities and attitude, and four moderators that affect the relationship between relative advantage and attitude. The study then analyzed 430 survey responses from public mobile phone users with a generalized linear model.

Research findings reveal that both affinities are significantly associated with the relative advantage of watching TV content on a mobile phone. Relative advantage plays a salient role in explaining attitudes toward watching TV content on a mobile phone. The relationship between attitude and relative advantage was significantly affected by relaxation, fashion status and accessibility.

This study contributes to media literature, especially where new, applied technology is considered. Particularly, the current research theoretically explains rationale behind a mobile phone user's positive attitude toward watching TV content on a mobile phone, and potential implication of the current and increasing trend of broadcasting individual content through social media outlets.

The purpose of this paper is to deepen the understanding of why text messages are superseded by using stickers, thus driving instant messaging software (IMS) users’ visual communication process.

Drawing on Uses & Gratifications (U&G) theory and using a semantic technique, this research begins by identifying design indices of stickers and user’s perceived gratifications that they describe and evaluate at their first impression of using stickers in Study 1. Study 2 introduces media richness theory and the expectancy model into the framework of U&G theory and further explains several causal linkages from the LINE stickers’ design quality indices to proximal users’ perception of gratifications and distal sticker use intention.

Study 1 explores four variables, playfulness, variety, delicacy and uniqueness, as stickers’ design quality indices and discloses two user perceptions of gratifications, i.e., the needs of self-expression and of flaunting to someone, as main intrinsic motives for users sending stickers. The results of Study 2 further support the finding that self-expression and a mentality that seeks conspicuousness are two important psychological variables mediating the effects of three design quality indices – playfulness, variety and uniqueness – on visual image use intention.

The main contribution of this research is to verify the psychological mechanism of visualized communication between IMS users. Moreover, the finding extends the digital marketing literature by highlighting conspicuous consumption that occurs not only in consuming luxury goods, but also in costless or cheaper digital product such as IMS stickers.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how various gratifications obtained in the social media context affect customer participation, and its sequential effect on brand trust, brand commitment and word of mouth (WOM) in social media brand communities.

The data were collected from 352 respondents who used social media using a survey method. The data were assessed using AMOS with structural equation modeling.

The findings depicted that among all gratifications obtained in the social media context, information seeking, incentive and brand likeability strongly affect customer participation, which sequentially affect brand trust, commitment and WOM in social media brand communities. In the context of social media brand communities, brand trust partially mediates the relationship between customer participation and its two outcome variables (brand commitment and WOM).

The present paper contributes that theory of uses and gratifications has particular significance and supposed to be provided further importance in the field of social media. It also presents a vivid and rich understanding of why customers use social media and participate in social media brand communities.

The purpose of this paper is to tackle the problem of technology addiction by investigating the differences between the antecedences of addictive (problematic technology usage) and high-engagement behavior (non-problematic technology usage). The case of social networking site usage (SNS, e.g. Facebook, Instagram or Twitter) is taken as the case out of the reason of prevalent user population.

It is revealed that people tend to use SNS not only for building a relationship, but also for communicating. In other words, there are inner needs of adopting the SNS technology. However, no clear definitions can be followed for determining the problematic SNS usage, addictive behavior and the high-engagement behavior. Therefore, this study adopts the notion of uses and gratification theory (U&G theory) for investigating the SNS usage behavior. Also, the social anxiety is also first introduced to integrate into the research for an empirical study.

Results reveal that gratification sought and relationship maintenance are associated with the addictive behavior, whereas the relationship maintenance is significantly related to high-engagement behavior.

First, the selected data represents a sample of SNW users in the Asian Pacific region and mainly from the group of young college users. Therefore, caution must be taken when generalizing the findings to other SNW users or groups. Second, the time aspect related to social media dependence may need to be considered in future studies. Third, the authors found marginal support for the influence of intentions of high engagement¸ and future studies may consider applying other theories that could better explain these types of behavior.

The results of this study provide strong evidence that inner anxiety perceived by users should not be neglected while tackling the problematic internet use due to SNW addiction because it can strengthen the force for depending on SNW for seeking social support. Apart from the value of perceived enjoyment as asserted in previous studies, this study opens up a new opportunity to tackle SNW dependence.

The key implication of this research is that the impact of the mental health of users on SNW problematic should not be overlooked . The higher the level of anxiety perceived, the more likely is the SNW dependence. Therefore, the online behavior depending on psychological health should be addressed because it may be a critical point for assisting users to adopt SNW wisely.

This study confirms that social anxiety people experience in real (offline) life has impacts on online behavior of SNS usage (online). It suggests that the difference between users as the perceived level of social anxiety can trigger different levels of SNS usage. Second, U&G theory is proven valid in understanding SNS addiction. Third, relationship maintenance through the use of SNS reveals its dissimilar effects on SNS addiction and high engagement.