Why do people use news differently on SNSs? An investigation of the role of motivations, media repertoires, and technology cluster on citizens’ news-related activities

The present study sheds light on the nature of the multi-dimensional aspects of news consumption by focusing on three different news-related activities on online social networking services (SNSs): news reading, news posting, and news endorsing. Borrowing from the literature on uses and gratifications theory, as well as media attendance theory and the concept of a technology cluster, the study investigated why people consume news differently on SNSs. The results show that each type of news activity may derive from different kinds of motivations, media habits and technology clusters. For example, the motivation of “getting recognition” was found to be an important driving force for news posting, while it was not a significant predictor of news reading and news endorsing. On the other hand, the “entertainment” motivation was revealed to be positively associated with news reading and news endorsing, while it was not with news posting. In addition, those who have an internet-based news repertoire were more likely to participate in news activities on SNSs and those who have many mobile devices were found to participate in news reading more frequently. The study was conducted using a national online survey.