SOCIAL MEDIA AND INTERACTIVITY FROM USERS’ PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

In view of the change in communication circumstances caused by the explosive development of technology, new spheres of expression of attitudes, ideas, opinions and emotions have been opened. In a new communication reality, the dominant place belongs to social media, which is also related to interactive media and digital media that depend on user participation. The degree and ways of participation differ between various social media, but what they have in common is that they offer users the opportunity to create content, react to the existing ones, as well as further distribute and comment. The aim of the paper is to examine the frequency of different types of interactivity on social media, the motives for interactivity, as well as the perception of its importance from the user’s viewpoint. The research was conducted on a sample of 350 students at the University of Niš. A questionnaire was used as a method of data collection. Also, the research showed that in spite of the intensive checking of social media, the respondents do not often resort to interactivity, neither with their friends’ posts nor with media content and they do not find the possibility of interactivity particularly important. Along with checking and reading, the most common type of interactivity is liking, while leaving a comment is minimally applied. The respondents mostly resort to liking media content on social media only if they are related to the social issues they consider important (23.14%) or to support somebody’s position (21.71%).