That's News to Me: The Influence of Perceived Gratifications and Personal Experience on News Sharing in Social Media

摘要

Sharing news is a popular activity in social media and influence both individuals and society. However, little empirical research has been conducted to explore the motivations underlying users' news sharing behavior. Adopting the uses and gratifications perspective, this study examined the role of gratification factors and user experience in explaining users' news sharing intention on social media. Hierarchical regression was employed to analyze the data collected from 144 undergraduate and graduate students. The results show that status seeking was the strongest motivation in predicting news sharing intention, followed by sociality and informativeness. However, entertainment/escapism was not a significant predictor in contrast to prior work. Further, we examined user experience in predicting news sharing intention and identified it as a significant factor.