Abstract
Young people show very high and intensive levels of social networks use. However, users have different levels of involvement as regards their degree of interactivity in these platforms. Supported by uses and gratifications theory and applying a factor analysis, the motivations that explain their participation in several profiles of social networks and differences between those who do and those who do not comment are analysed. Based on a self-administered survey of 461 young university students, the main conclusions include the diversity of nuances in the combinations of reasons that explain participation in different types of profiles on social networks; particularly worth highlighting are the similarities between profiles of NGOs and those of celebrities. Also of note is the tendency of users who comment on commercial, political, social and leisure profiles to display motivations linked to searching for information, being useful, influencing others, interacting and showing adhesion, depending on the sphere.
Highlights
The exponential growth in use of social media has transformed the communicative ecosystem and it allows audiences to take on a more active role, in the selection of the messages to which they are exposed and as content creators and disseminators
By enabling direct contact by users with organizations, social networks facilitate active participation by individuals in different aspects of public life, empowering them as citizens who influence the reality surrounding them. Such public participation in social networks focuses on expressing personal opinions and needs, defending interests and values with the purpose of achieving objectives, and influencing decision-making by agents and institutions, or helping others (Kim, Jeong & Lee, 2010; Jenkins, 2008)
In order to obtain a typology of reasons for collegue student participating in each types of profiles, the thirty-three items referring to this issue in our survey underwent principal components analysis
Summary
The exponential growth in use of social media has transformed the communicative ecosystem and it allows audiences to take on a more active role, in the selection of the messages to which they are exposed and as content creators and disseminators. By enabling direct contact by users with organizations, social networks facilitate active participation by individuals in different aspects of public life, empowering them as citizens who influence the reality surrounding them Such public participation in social networks focuses on expressing personal opinions and needs, defending interests and values with the purpose of achieving objectives, and influencing decision-making by agents and institutions, or helping others (Kim, Jeong & Lee, 2010; Jenkins, 2008). Against this backdrop, a growing body of research is analysing how social networks contribute to social, civic and political participation, through the interaction by users with different political organizations, NGOs, media outlets and other social agents. Based on a wider approach, a plethora of studies highlight the relational and entertainment-based uses of young people (GarcíaJiménez, López de Ayala & Gaona, 2012), as well as the limitation of more complex uses of Internet and social networks
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