No abstract

Available research indicates that consumers are more likely to accept social media advertising when such content appeals to their motivations for joining the site. However, this research generally assumes that the forces driving a user’s initial motivations for social media acceptance and usage remain constant through time. Given the fact this assumption may, indeed, be a faulty one, this chapter is specifically concerned with exploring the idea that user motivations may exist as evolving factors with the potential to impact the efficacy of e-business initiatives on social media sites. In support of this goal, in this chapter we: (1) define and contextually discuss social media; (2) review extant literature as it relates to motivations for media use; (3) discuss the idea of temporal motivations; (4) present the results of a pilot study that provides empirical evidence for the evolving nature of motivations; and (5) discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our results.

Need for orientation (NFO) has long been accepted as an antecedent to agenda-setting effects. This study assessed whether NFO can go further to explain a specific behavior, why individuals share political news on Facebook. A new method is introduced that combines survey data with users’ Facebook accounts and their actual Facebook posts to reveal the historical news sharing behaviors of 741 U.S. citizens. Computer-assisted content analysis is employed to analyze nearly a million messages for the presence of political news content. Results suggest that a key component found in need for orientation – attention to relevant issues and facts – predicts observed political news sharing on Facebook. Other demographics such as age and gender also predict news sharing behavior. In all, the model employed here significantly predicts news sharing while commonly regarded antecedents to political sharing, including news consumption and political interest, fail to do so.