Understanding Civic Engagement on Social Media Based on Users’ Motivation to Contribute

Abstract

Social media offer various opportunities for civic engagement by, e.g., liking, sharing, or posting relevant content. Users' motivation to contribute to relevant topics is quite divers and can stem from an intrinsic motivation to do good or external incentives such as being recognised and rewarded by other users. In our study, we adopt self-determination theory, which defines motivation as broad continuum ranging from intrinsic motivation to external regulation. We conducted a quantitative survey with 667 Facebook users to identify how the different kinds of motivation impact the users' behaviour in terms of reading, liking, sharing, commenting, and posting topics relevant to civic engagement. Our results suggest that social media users are mainly driven by intrinsic motivation while different forms of extrinsic motivation play a less important role.