Consumption Of User Generated Content Research Articles

EXPRESS: Mixing User- and Publisher-Generated Content: Quantifying UGC Spillover Effect in a Hybrid Content Environment

Publishers are increasingly turning to user-generated content (UGC) to supplement the content they produce. However, what is the relationship between the consumption of UGC and publisher-generated content (PGC)? Consumption of different types of UGC may have different effects, one creating a positive synergy with PGC consumption that nets more ad revenue, while another stymies PGC consumption and has adverse financial consequences. In this research, we empirically investigate content consumption in a hybrid content environment when publishers’ main revenue resource relies on traffic on PGC pages. Using data from a major online portal, we examine the spillover effect generated by different types of UGC, including how soon users are likely to return to the website and the type of content they are likely to consume. Although higher forum consumption promotes revisits and increased PGC consumption, blog and album consumption do not contribute positively to revisits and PGC consumption. We illustrate via simulations that one type of UGC may increase PGC consumption by 18% more than other types and that ignoring the UGC spillover effect can significantly affect the publisher’s monetization strategy. We quantify these spillover effects by UGC type and compare strategies for optimizing the mix of PGC and different types of UGC for monetization.

Immediate and enduring effects of digital badges on online content consumption and generation

Awarding users digital badges for their contributions such as generating valuable content and participating in community activities has become an increasingly popular practice on user-generated content (UGC) platforms to incentivize user engagement. Beyond their immediate effects, digital badges can have enduring effects on UGC consumption and generation by affecting users’ underlying engagement states. To account for both effects, the authors develop a bivariate negative binomial hidden Markov model of content consumption and generation and estimate the model using a panel data set obtained from a large UGC platform. They find that users increase their content generation but decrease their content consumption immediately after being awarded a digital badge. Furthermore, being awarded a digital badge has a positive enduring effect on both content consumption and content generation behaviors of a user. This positive enduring effect mainly applies to users in relatively engaged states but not to users in the least engaged state. Finally, the authors demonstrate the value of the proposed model with respect to assessing consumer responses to the design of digital badges.

Consumption and Production of User-Generated Content, Credibility, and Political Participation

ABSTRACT This study examines how journalistic credibility and consumption of user-generated content (UGC) are related to political participation. Data from a national online survey shows two main pathways. One concerns traditional communicative pathways involving professional journalism credibility, traditional news use, and interpersonal political discussion. The other concerns citizen journalism credibility and UGC consumption and production on citizen news websites. Thus, while traditional political communication continues to play a role in political participation, citizen journalism practice presents unique opportunities for citizens to engage in politics.

Developing UGC social brand engagement model: Insights from diverse consumers

AbstractUnderstanding the social influence of user‐generated content (UGC) to create social brand engagement (SBE) through social media has become a topic of major interest for both academics and marketers since the birth of online social networking. This study explores the social interaction of social media users (SMUs) involving brand‐related UGC, and the outcomes of this study show how SMUs' social interaction through UGC generates SBE in a fashion retail context. There is inadequate understanding regarding what the social motivational contexts of social actors are; these social motivational contexts can play a role in the social generation, exchange, and consumption of fashion brand‐related UGC. The present study intends to develop a UGC SBE model using the diverse insights of the customers of fashion brands. The present study opted for a social constructionist epistemological position using a qualitative research method. Semi‐structured interviews were conducted in the UK with 32 customers of fashion brands. Findings highlighted that social responsibility, sharing experience, staying connected and updated, and reward sharing are the major motivational factors that lead to the generation, exchange, and consumption of UGC that would create SBE. Also, the findings revealed the SMUs, as social actors, who played a significant role in generating SBE through their social interaction with UGC in everyday life: frequent SMUs, celebrities, opinion leaders, and product users. Most importantly, it was found that expert opinion influence as identification and crowd opinion were recognised as internalisation social influencing factors that generate SBE. This study proposes a holistic conceptualisation in a “UGC SBE model” by considering: (a) the identification and (b) the internalisation types of social influence of UGC with respect to fashion brand engagement. NOMENCLATURE/ACRONYMS SMUs social media users UGC user‐generated content UK United Kingdom NVivo navigating viewpoints, images, and value observed SBE social brand engagement

A Behavioral Function Approach in Predicting Contribution of User-Generated Content

This study theoretically develops a three-stage model in which certain types of health behavior functions (i.e., health-affirming vs. health-detection/treatment) prime individuals to process information with either a defensive or accuracy motivation. Such information-processing motivations, in turn, are expected to influence the contribution and consumption of user-generated health content. The three-stage model was tested with data from an online sample of American adults ( N = 767). A well-fitting structural equation model provided evidence for each of the hypothesized paths except for that from health-detection/treatment behavior to accuracy motivation. Individuals’ information search for health-affirming behaviors instigated a defensive motivation. Moreover, while both information-processing motivations influenced user-generated content consumption, only defensive motivation had a significant effect on user-generated content contribution. Finally, there was also one significant cross-stage path in which health-affirming behavior had a direct effect on content contribution, thus, overstepping defensive and accuracy motivations.

Exploring neuroticism and extraversion in flow and user generated content consumption

Using flow theory as our foundation, we empirically tested the impact of personality traits on the flow state experience and three user-generated content (UGC) usage types. The findings indicate that extraversion is positively related to UGC usage for entertainment and negatively related to communication and information, whereas neuroticism is positively related to UGC usage for entertainment and communication. Only extraversion has an influence on flow, which is positive, and flow, in turn, has a positive influence on UGC usage for entertainment and communication. This study extends flow theory by exploring antecedents and outcomes of the flow state experience.