Essays on microblog and online community

Abstract

The rapid development of the Internet and information technology makes social media increasingly popular in the recent years. Social media platforms allow users to create and exchange information with each other. Microblogs and online discussion communities are two typical social media examples which are influencing various aspects of users’ life, as well as social and political agenda. The three studies in this thesis examine users’ behaviors on these two social media platforms. In the first study, I investigate how microblogging technology influences citizen participation in social affairs. To the best of my knowledge, this is one of the earliest IS studies examining microblog usage for the purpose of social change. Specifically, I focus on citizen voicing behaviors on microblogs. Voicing involves challenging the status quo with the intent of improving the situation. I adopt an empowerment framework to explain citizen voicing. I highlight microblogging technology’s roles in transforming social news dissemination pattern and facilitating users’ network building, and explain how the changes in social news quality and users’ connections may bolster users’ empowerment perceptions. Adopting a large scale survey, I empirically test the arguments. The findings support my model, and shed light on microblog adoption as a new means of citizen participation. In the second study, I examine what behaviors contribute to online discussion community sustainability, which I name as Online Community Citizenship Behaviors (OCCB). Drawing upon small group interaction analysis, I identify contribution behaviors which satisfy users’ information needs and social emotional needs as beneficial to the community, in terms of attracting members as well as attracting posts seeking knowledge and social emotional support. In addition, I recognize the importance of contribution appreciation behaviors for sustaining contributions, as gratitude expressions influence contributors’ social worth perceptions. I collect archived posts data and server side membership data to test my arguments. The panel data analysis results show that OCCB indeed contribute to community sustainability. In the third study, I explain knowledge contribution and social emotional support behaviors in online discussion communities by adopting the empowerment framework. The empowerment concept emphasizes human beings’ proactive nature and is applicable to a voluntary context such as online discussion communities. I also examine community technology features’ influence on users’ behaviors. The results suggest members’ internal value systems and their desires to make positive influences on others motivate them to contribute. Community technology features which help members construct meanings and perceive impacts will facilitate their contributions.

Date of Award	2013
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology