THESIS
2012
x, 115 p. : ill. ; 30 cm
Abstract
Social media has become ubiquitous in just a few years. Their success depends on users’ intention to adopt and willingness to continue investing their time and attention in this media in the absence of formal contract. This thesis attempts to examine human’s behaviors in social media with three essays. Specifically, this thesis investigates why people adopt social media, what their privacy concerns are when using social media, and how users develop affective commitment to the community built-up in the social media....[
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Social media has become ubiquitous in just a few years. Their success depends on users’ intention to adopt and willingness to continue investing their time and attention in this media in the absence of formal contract. This thesis attempts to examine human’s behaviors in social media with three essays. Specifically, this thesis investigates why people adopt social media, what their privacy concerns are when using social media, and how users develop affective commitment to the community built-up in the social media.
The first essay investigates why people want to use personal blogs from psychological needs perspective. First, on the basis of Psychological Ownership Theory, I have identified three specific behavioral attitudes that individuals have toward using personal blogs. Second, drawing upon Self-Determination Theory and Self-Concept Theory, I have identified two psychological characteristics as antecedents of the three behavioral attitudes. Empirical results support my model and shed new light on personal blog adoption as a means of fulfilling psychological ownership needs.
The second essay investigates people’s privacy concerns in social media. I propose and empirically validate a new multi-dimensional privacy construct which fits the complex features of online social interactions. Further, I propose that role-related constructs are the critical source of privacy concern in online social networks. Empirical results support the validity of the proposed scale of the multi-dimensional privacy concern construct.
The third essay investigates the formation of people’s affective commitment towards their online communities. Drawing on commitment theory and social network theory, I argue that the users’ social network structure, specifically, online/offline network overlapping, can influence the formation of their affective commitment toward the online community. Researchers seeking to understand users’ behaviors on social networking sites can benefit from this study by considering the effect of network structure in their studies. Sites managers may also use our results to develop better functions for their users.
Overall, these three studies contribute to research on human’s behaviors in social media in general and research on adoption, privacy and affective commitment in particular.
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