Media Usage Patterns Research Articles

But not all social media are the same: Analyzing organizations’ social media usage patterns

The present study explores how organizations use diverse social media applications for consumer relationship management. Based on a cluster analysis, the social media usage patterns of 317 organizations were analyzed. Six groups of organizations were identified in accordance with the social media applications predominantly used by each organization. The first three groups primarily used a single social media application (blogs, social networking sites, or widgets) to communicate with customers, whereas the second three groups employed multiple social media applications, often with an emphasis on visualization, virtualization, or interactive collaboration. In addition, this study found that organizations tend to use social media applications with two-way communication capabilities. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed in this paper.

Student media usage patterns and non-traditional learning in higher education

A total of 2,338 students at German universities participated in a survey, which investigated media usage patterns of so-called traditional and non-traditional students (Schuetze & Wolter, 2003). The students provided information on the digital devices that they own or have access to, and on their usage of media and e-learning tools and services for their learning. A distinction was made between external, formal and internal, informal tools and services. <br /><br />Based on the students’ responses, a typology of media usage patterns was established by means of a latent class analysis (LCA). Four types or profiles of media usage patterns were identified. These types were labeled entertainment users, peripheral users, advanced users and instrumental users. Among non-traditional students, the proportion of instrumental users was rather high. Based on the usage patterns of traditional and non-traditional students, implications for media selection in the instructional design process are outlined in the paper.

To Implement or Not to Implement? Participatory Online Communication in Swiss Cities

Social media platforms and other digital interactive media hold great potential for political communication. This study explores perceptions about this potential and the motivations to adopt participatory tools and assesses both motivations and challenges that local administrations face in the process of technology adoption for political communication. Switzerland is a critical case for local communication, because, on the one hand, media structures, media usage patterns, political culture, and legal regulations make it likely to find high levels of participatory online communication. On the other hand, the formalized participation opportunities of direct democracy may undermine the potential of online participation. Our analysis, based on interviews and document analysis, addresses the implementation of participatory online communication from the theoretical perspectives of rational choice and neoinstitutionalism. We found diffuse rather than specific motivations, role conflicts, frictions between informal online participation and formal decision-making processes, and low demand and resonance from citizens to be important challenges to the implementation of online participation.

Applying channel complementarity theory to new and traditional economic media usage patterns of U.S. investors

The role communication processes within the realm of economic and financial activity is an important, yet relatively unexplored phenomenon. We define economic communication as the purposeful exchange of financial and economic ideas and messages by citizens, media, lawmakers and economic professionals intended to shape national, local, or personal finances. We use channel complementarity theory to examine the choices and combinations of communication outlets utilized by individuals seeking economic information, especially the differences between online and offline economic communication. Results indicate a high degree of complementarity across several modes of economic communication, including traditional and new media, interpersonal discussion, and professional communication.

Modelling News Media Use

The contemporary mediascape offers a plethora of news media and social media, which people can turn to in everyday life and during a crisis. Generations develop routinized media usage patterns in the formative phases of their lives, which they often maintain in their daily habits in everyday life (generation-centric (GC) approach). The characteristics of media vary, providing different logics and affordances, and occupying different niches in time and space (medium-centric (MC) approach). Crisis events in the vicinity, such as gas emissions, terrorist attacks, pandemics and earthquakes, presumably ignite an augmented interest for information and news on the events that may cause a destabilization of established media usage routines. This article aims to conceptualize, describe and explain how four generations envision their media use during such crises. The article posits the GC/MC-model, a 2 × 2 matrix encompassing a generation-centric vis-á-vis a medium-centric approach, from which two hypotheses are derived. Statistical analysis of nationally representative survey data provides evidence that all generations, and both daily and less frequent users of different media, envision themselves turning to these during a crisis. Their envisioned broadening of media use, predominantly involving commanding attention to immediate news media reporting, results in a cross-generational homogenization of media use.

Digital Media Usage Patterns of Elementary Children and Maternal Writing

Digital Media Usage Patterns of Elementary Children and Maternal Writing

User Perceptions of Social Media: A Comparative Study of Perceived Characteristics and User Profiles by Social Media

Despite the proliferation of social media and the widespread adoption of these diverse communication tools, there is a lack of studies that conceptualize the characteristics of social media as perceived by users and compare the perceived characteristics or benefits of different social media types. This study examines the user perceptions of six main groups of social media—blogs, micro-blogs, social networks, wikis, forums, and content communities—on five dimensions: participation, commonality, connectedness, conversationality, and openness. User profiles are also investigated to assess the role of demographics and usage in such perceptions. The results of a national consumer panel survey show that different social media applications are perceived differently and social media usage patterns, gender, and age affect these perceptions.

Predictors of Problematic Video Game Usage in Childhood and Adolescence

Aim: The aim of this article is to work out the differential significance of risk factors of media usage, personality and social environment in order to explain problematic video game usage in childhood and adolescence. Method: Data are drawn from the Berlin Longitudinal Study Media, a four-year longitudinal control group study with 1 207 school children. Data from 739 school children who participated at 5th and 6th grade were available for analysis. Result: To explain the development of problematic video game usage, all three areas, i. e. specific media usage patterns, certain aspects of personality and certain factors pertaining to social environment, must be taken into consideration. Video game genre, video gaming in reaction to failure in the real world (media usage), the children’s/adolescents’ academic self-concept (personality), peer problems and parental care (social environment) are of particular significance. Conclusion: The results of the study emphasize that in future – and above all also longitudinal – studies different factors regarding social environment must also be taken into account with the recorded variables of media usage and personality in order to be able to explain the construct of problematic video game usage. Furthermore, this will open up possibilities for prevention.

Global Social Media Usage: Insights Into Reaching Consumers Worldwide

AbstractThis study documents global social media usage patterns based on a large‐scale survey of 4,630 social media users around the world. The study provides insights into how users in the European Union, United States, and BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) regions use social media for business and personal use. It analyzes variability in global social media platforms being used in these different world regions. The study also presents insights into usage of multilingual content for global social media consumption and the global user propensity to translate social media. Finally, the paper showcases an innovative technology solution to help companies leverage machine and human translation to enable users to translate social media content. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Internet News

The Internet has changed the political world, but its effect on media usage patterns is not well understood. In particular, previous research suggests no clear answer to the question of whether the Internet is a substitute for or a complement to traditional media outlets. We contribute to this literature by applying theories from ecology—namely, the theory of the niche—to examine competition between new and older media. Our study is the first to test hypotheses derived from this theory on a large, national sample. The analysis indicates that people are replacing traditional outlets, especially newspapers, with the Internet. At the same time, however, replacement is not a widespread phenomenon as yet. We find important replacement differences across newspapers and radio on the one hand and television on the other. We also report some of the first evidence regarding the attitudinal consequences of replacement behavior.

개인의 정치성향이 뉴스 댓글에 대한 신뢰성과 사회적 영향력의 인식에 미치는 영향

As newspapers which have been major news media are being replaced by on-line news media in recent years, many researchers are paying attention to “comments(news users’ short remarks on an article)”, a newly emerged way of forming public opinion. This study is examining how the similarity between political disposition of on-line news visitors and that of news media impacts upon their evaluation on quality of comments from the viewpoint of ‘social identity theory.’ This study may have academic significance because it inspected the pattern of media usage and the cognition of comments in relation to political disposition for the first time and showed ‘comments reading’ and the function of comments to form public opinion(comments journalism).

A Study on the Effect of Media Usage Patterns on the Determinants of Candidates in a Re- and By-Election

A Study on the Effect of Media Usage Patterns on the Determinants of Candidates in a Re- and By-Election

Communication, community, crisis: Mapping uses and gratifications in the contemporary media environment

The article analyzes how community members who were evacuated from their homes use various media, and especially the internet, to keep in touch, receive and disseminate information and express their opinions. Of particular interest are the differences between members of various groups, who differ in their decision whether to relocate in Israel with the rest of the original community or not, in media usage patterns and sense of community. The findings demonstrate that evacuees use diversity and multiplicity of media, where various media are used for different purposes according to need. Small media, with a rather limited and local reach (such as pamphlets, SMS, niche websites and small-scale meetings) are predominantly used for most of the needs, overshadowing mass media usage. Correlations were found amongst various media usages, and between the usage of various media and users’ sense of community. The study demonstrates how contemporary media users use a variety of media depending on their circumstances and needs, and how media usage assists in establishing and maintaining a sense of community after the forced transition from the communities of origin.

Media use and school achievement – boys at risk?

In work done at the German Criminological Research Institute of Lower Saxony (KFN) various methods have been used to investigate how specific inappropriate media usage patterns affect academic performance in children and adolescents. The findings are paralleled by current international research indicating a negative relationship between these two variables. Based on a cross-sectional survey of 5,529 fourth grade students and a longitudinal panel study with 1,157 primary schoolchildren, a key finding can be demonstrated: the more time students spend on consuming media and the more violent its contents are, the worse are their marks at school, even when controlling for vital factors such as family, educational, or immigrant background. In particular, boys who gender-specifically are better equipped with electronic media devices, who partially have extensive media usage times and who strongly prefer violent media content, are at the risk of showing poor school performance. In fact, a decrease in academic performance of boys can be observed in German school statistics. By presenting first results of a school-based intervention programme, a promising approach to the reduction of detrimental effects of electronic media use on school performance is introduced.

Towards a unified Media-User Typology (MUT): A meta-analysis and review of the research literature on media-user typologies

Considering the increasingly complex media landscape and diversity of use, it is important to establish a common ground for identifying and describing the variety of ways in which people use new media technologies. Characterising the nature of media-user behaviour and distinctive user types is challenging and the literature offers little guidance in this regard. Hence, the present research aims to classify diverse user behaviours into meaningful categories of user types, according to the frequency of use, variety of use and content preferences. To reach a common framework, a review of the relevant research was conducted. An overview and meta-analysis of the literature (22 studies) regarding user typology was established and analysed with reference to (1) method, (2) theory, (3) media platform, (4) context and year, and (5) user types. Based on this examination, a unified Media-User Typology (MUT) is suggested. This initial MUT goes beyond the current research literature, by unifying all the existing and various user type models. A common MUT model can help the Human–Computer Interaction community to better understand both the typical users and the diversification of media-usage patterns more qualitatively. Developers of media systems can match the users’ preferences more precisely based on an MUT, in addition to identifying the target groups in the developing process. Finally, an MUT will allow a more nuanced approach when investigating the association between media usage and social implications such as the digital divide.

Cross-Linguistic Media Usage and Attitude in the United Arab Emirates

This study, examining the relationship between different language user groups and media behavior, breaks new ground in the UAE. Emanating from a public-private consortium comprising Zayed University, the International Advertising Association, Dubai, and Dubai-based Pan Arab Research Center (PARC), partner of the Gallup organization, this research considers media usage and attitudes of individuals from different language user groups living in the UAE.The survey differentiated different language user groups in the UAE contextualizing national varieties according to the ‘Three Circles Model’ instituted by Kachru (1982 & ff.). Uncharacteristically, the tables shown in this study first take cognizance of Language User Groups relating to Arabic(s), followed by the Outer, then the Expanding and finally the Inner Circle Users of Englishes. In addition, bearing in mind the existence of different varieties similar to ‘Englishes’ might pertain to more than English language varieties, the terms “Arabics”, “Hindis”, “Urdus” and “Malayalams” are introduced. Analysis shows that media usage patterns and media penetration are tied to language background. People from particular language backgrounds use different media for the same information – ‘Al Jazeera’ is the primary source for breaking news among Users of Arabics, whereas it is ‘BBC World’ for Users of Englishes. Language facility and the perceived value of various languages vary across different linguistic groups. For example, in this Arabic speaking country, 20–32% of the Inner-Circle English Users and Outer-Circle Indian English Users agree with the statement that understanding Arabic was “not important at all.”

Incidental health information use and media complementarity: A comparison of senior and non-senior cancer patients

Objective This study compares the health information and media usage patterns of older adults diagnosed with cancer with their younger adult counterparts and is based theoretically in media complementarity theory [Dutta-Bergman MJ. Complementarity in consumption of news types across traditional and new media. J Broadcast Electron 2004;48:41–60; Dutta-Bergman MJ. Interpersonal communication after 9/11 via telephone and Internet: a theory of channel complementarity. New Media Soc 2004;6:659–73] and health information seeking and scanning research [Shim M, Kelly B, Hornik R. Cancer information scanning and seeking behavior is associated with knowledge, lifestyle choices, and screening. J Health Commun 2006;11:157–72]. Methods A secondary analysis of the Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS) II data collected by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) is performed to investigate differences in the health information behavior of younger and older adult cancer patients. The sample size was 401, with 260 non-senior cancer patients and 141 senior cancer patients. Results Younger adults diagnosed with cancer were more likely to gain information about health incidentally through their use of the Internet and to seek health information for others on the Internet than senior cancer patients. Complementarity of active health information seeking and incidental health information use online was supported with senior cancer patients, while complementarity of incidental health information use between traditional media channels and the Internet was partially confirmed with younger adults. Conclusion This study reveals similarities and differences in the health information and media usage behavior of younger and older adults diagnosed with cancer. It also provides partial support for media complementarity theory. Practice implications The Internet is not a panacea for health information. Health professionals need to provide written instructions to older adult cancer patients because they do not rely on the Internet for information about their illness and/or treatment.

Telework vs. central work: A comparative view of knowledge accessibility

With increasing popularity of telework arrangements especially among knowledge workers, effective knowledge access in the virtual setup is becoming vital to their performance. Despite the imperative, there has been a lack of theoretical and empirical efforts to investigate knowledge accessibility by distributed workers. Our study examines the gap between telework and central work in accessing knowledge with varying levels of tacitness (or implicitness), and in the use of communication media for knowledge exchange. Media theories offered a conceptual foundation for deriving relevant hypotheses. Necessary data were gathered from teleworkers working at companies with a large telework program in Japan. Both survey questionnaire and interviews were mobilized for balanced information gathering. Data analysis shows that, although information richness perception of a medium is largely rational, it is also partially re-structured by non-rationality factors. It also revealed significant discrepancies between telework and central-work in knowledge accessibility and in the patterns of media usage for knowledge access. Implications of the findings are discussed in terms of telework design and telework productivity.

A comparative study of media cultures among Taiwanese and Japanese youth

This study used nation-wide surveys to explore how different media usage patterns were shaped in Taiwan and Japan. Taiwanese youth use the Internet to a much greater extent than Japanese youth, even though broadband services are cheaper and faster in Japan. Japanese youth use text-messaging services featured on mobile phones more than their Taiwanese counterparts. Since the 1980s, Taiwan has witnessed the development of a unique BBS (bulletin board system) culture, and this culture has led the Taiwanese to have a comparatively stronger degree of trust in the Internet than the Japanese. The Internet culture in Japan is more individualized. Japanese adolescents and young adults tend to avoid direct communication, resulting in the promotion of a unique mobile media culture among the Japanese youth. The findings discussed here suggest that, despite the worldwide standardization of communication technologies, the culturally different personal relationship patterns in the two countries studied have created different media trends for their youth.

Korean Immigrants’ Media Uses and Gratifications in Los Angeles’ Koreatown

abstractThis study investigates Korean immigrants’ media usage patterns based on the uses and gratifications perspective. MANOVA and a hierarchical regression were used and the results from the two different methods are consistent with each other. The uses and gratifications perspective was applicable in explaining Korean immigrants’ American media usage patterns but not in explaining their Korean media usage patterns. We surmised that the difference in these results occurred due to the hybrid character of the Korean media content, which reflects Korean and American cultures.