An integrated framework of online generative capability: interview from digital immigrants

Abstract

Purpose– In the Web 2.0 era, more and more digital immigrants actively participate in blogging, video sharing, online rating, and micro blogging, etc. However, some may be more skilled in producing and generating online content while others still meet some barriers in doing so. Thus, it is interesting to investigate the online generative capability of digital immigrants in Web 2.0 context. This paper seeks to address this issue.Design/methodology/approach– The authors selected Shanghai as their target province in this study for its large scale of internet users. An in-depth semi-structured interview was used as their research method. They selected several community clubs as the interview settings. In addition, age was adopted as a threshold to define the Chinese digital immigrants for its convenience in sampling.Findings– Chinese digital immigrants are playing an important role in content generating, and have a great potential in the future contribution, and a number of digital immigrants regard the content generating as a pretty easy work while some others felt difficulties, even frustrated and exhausted when generating content. About the content type, digital immigrants prefer to generate that content with low granularity. About the motivation, the intrinsic motivation and the extrinsic motivation with an internalized focus play a dominant role. About the generating mode, digital immigrants prefer to generate content individually or collectively.Originality/value– This paper develops the concept of online generative capability by adapting the notion of generativity from other disciplines to the characteristics of Web 2.0. Then an integrated conceptual framework is built and evaluated. Practically, the paper puts forward some implications for the designers, managers, and information service staff from different perspectives to facilitate the digital immigrant's online generative capability.