• Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.40-62
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• 2021

Are intentions important in deciding the outcome of an action such as sharing misinformation among social media users during the pandemic? What is their role and how far they are important for the very act of fake sharing news? The social media users' actions on the social platform are determined by what they plan to do themselves; however, their motivation has an immense role to play in the dissemination of fake news on social media. The study proposes a conceptual model for understanding how select factors affect fake news sharing motivation and intentions of social media users. The study scrutinizes the relationship between content and context, fear of missing out (FoMO), news verification and news sharing gratification on the motivation and intention of social media users of networked Asian society. Empirical Data were drawn from social media users (N = 243) from India, using an online questionnaire based on prior studies and structural equation modeling (SEM) approach was used to analyze the data collected. Results indicate that news content, news verification, and news sharing gratification have a direct and positive relationship with sharing motivation. On the other hand, news context and content, FoMO and news sharing gratification have a positive significant relationship with sharing intention. Likewise, it was discovered that news verification will decrease sharing intention of the social media users. However, news context, that is the pandemic in the case of the present study and FoMO were not identified as determinant variables for sharing motivation among social media users. The research limitations and further scope were discussed.

• International Journal of Knowledge Content Development & Technology
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.65-82
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• 2020

This study examined information sharing and evaluation as determinants of the spread of fake news among Nigerian youths on social media using experience from COVID-19 pandemic. A descriptive survey design was adopted for the study and a Web-based questionnaire (Google Forms) was used to collect data for the study. The total responses of 278 were collected from the participants, which represents the unit of analysis. The finding of the study revealed that most Nigerian youths used Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp and Instagram to share information on COVID-19. However, only a few Nigerians used Linkedln and other types of social media to share information on COVID-19. It was also found that building a relationship with social media communities, enjoyment and risk taking, and political inclination influence the sharing behavior of Nigerian youths during the COVID-19 pandemic. Results show that social media handle/page found sharing of fake news on COVID-19 especially on the treatment, vaccines numbers of cases and symptoms. The study concludes that there is a positive relationship between information evaluation and the spreading of fake news on COVID-19 among Nigerians. Information sharing and evaluation should be done with the utmost level of objectivity and sincerity.

• Journal of Internet Computing and Services
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.105-112
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• 2020

The present study aims to explore news sharers' characteristic. Specifically, it aims to look at news sharers' demographic characteristics, old media news usage and new media news usage. Besides, it also explores factors affecting news sharing behavior. The study used the second data of Korea Press Foundation. Findings from surveys suggest that first, news sharers are younger and have higher education than not news sharers. Second, news sharers use less news through old media while more news through new media. Third, political orientation, portal, SNS and online video platform new usage, messenger news reliability have positive effects on news sharing, while age and portal news reliability have negative effects on it. Based on these findings, implication, limitations, and topics for future research are discussed.

• Knowledge Management Research
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.87-103
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• 2019

The purpose of this study was to explore the factors influencing acceptance (e.g., comprehension,) and diffusion of information recipients' by depending on the authenticity of news. Specifically, this study has examined the effects of the news contents(political vs. general), need for cognition(high vs. low) and authenticity of the News(real news vs. fake news) on both acceptance and diffusion of news. Based on previous work, this study has developed a conceptual model to present each research hypothesis and tested it by conducting experiments as the follows. As a result, according to the authenticity of the news and the contents of the news (political and general), the acceptance of political contents was high regardless of the authenticity of the news, and the acceptance of real news was higher than that of fake news. However, in the proliferation (comment), both the political contents and the general contents showed the characteristic of spreading (commenting) fake news rather than real news. contrary to this, the cognitive level did not show any significant difference in acceptance (understanding) and proliferation (comment, sharing, recommendation). This study provides academic implications in that it examines the influences of accepting (comprehension) and diffusion (comment, sharing, recommendation) of real news and fake news. It also provides practical implications for responding to fake news and new marketing strategies in an environment where contents are delivered through diverse social media.

• International Journal of Contents
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.48-64
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• 2021

This study examines mobile news engagement-conceptualized as news exposure and participation-in the context of South Asia which has experienced tremendous growth in mobile-Internet users without receiving much attention from communication scholars. Along with demographic characteristics, this research incorporates motivational factors (grounded on uses and gratifications-U&G-approach) and news type preferences to explore their roles in mobile news engagement among urban citizens in Bangladesh. Results of a self-administered survey (N = 504) revealed that participants' mobile news engagement partially varied depending on their demographic differences, particularly gender, age, and education. Our study also unveiled that individuals' motivation for sharing information seemed to be a strong predictor of mobile news exposure and participation. In addition, Bangladeshi respondents were more likely to be interested in the hard news in terms of expressing views on news comments and sharing news via mobile platform. Conversely, preference for soft type news had a significant influence on news exposure through mobile browsing. This study provides insights into the understanding of global phenomena of mobile news engagement by unpacking the case of Bangladesh where mobile news usage seems to be an evolving state.

• Knowledge Management Research
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.1-17
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• 2013

As online communities proliferate, online news sites have received great attention in news media research. Although most of the online news sites provide contents for free, some have adopted the Pay-What-You-Want (PWYW) model by offering a voluntary payment option to the readers. In this study, we investigate the factors which influence subscribers' voluntary payment behavior on an online news site. Drawing upon both the Stimulus-Organism-Response (SOR) framework and the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM), we hypothesize that appreciation has a direct effect on the subscribers' voluntary payment behavior, whereas central factors (positive emotional content, cognitive content) and peripheral factors (news sharing, news article length) of the news articles have indirect impacts on voluntary payment behavior through the enhanced appreciation. Based on an empirical analysis of 172 news articles from the Korean online news site that adopted the PWYW pricing model (i.e., Ohmynews.com), we find that appreciation plays a critical role in voluntary payment behavior and that peripheral factors have significant impacts on appreciation. However, the impacts of central factors on appreciation are not found. By identifying influencing factors of subscribers' voluntary payment behavior on online news sites for the first time, this paper suggests a prospective alternative profit model for online news providers faced with fierce competition.

• Journal of Internet Computing and Services
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.87-93
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• 2020

The popularity of social media has led to a variety of communicative behaviors among users. This study targeted Facebook as a representative social medial platform because it has the most subscribers in order to investigate factors that influence Facebook usage. In particular, because a person's behavior is based on how they are perceived by others, self-conscious behavior was examined in the study. Facebook usage and news consumption were examined to ascertain the effects of self-consciousness. An online survey was conducted to examine how private SC and public SC (SCs), affects Facebook usage (profiles and writing posts) and news consumption (clicking "like" and sharing news). 616 participants completed the survey, and results indicated that public SC was positively related to the degree of profile updating and post writing. On the other hand, private SC was positively related to the degree of news sharing. These results suggest that psychological elements significantly predict a user's behavior on Facebook.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.13 no.8
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• pp.180-190
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• 2013

This study is designed to introduce 'news literacy' as a theoretical framework to evaluate news education in digital age. Specifically, this study conceptually defined news literacy as news literacy self-efficacy and empirically tested how this variable is associated with other related determinants including users' news media consumption pattern, news knowledge structure on news content production, and involvement with news. The findings showed that users' 'searching/understanding' news literacy self-efficacy was positively affected by their knowledge structure and involvement with news, whereas users' 'sharing/expressing' news literacy self-efficacy was positively affected by their knowledge structure. The findings also demonstrated that users' 'searching/understanding' news literacy self-efficacy positively influenced their consumption of new types of news media, whereas users' 'sharing/expressing' news literacy self-efficacy positively influenced their consumption of traditional news media. As a result, this study practically suggests how news literacy is associated with the important factors affecting news consumption and news education.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.21 no.7
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• pp.1-9
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• 2023

Purpose: This study aims to understand if heterogeneous news is evenly consumed and distributed on portals as it examines people's news use and engagement behaviors and news credibility. Focusing on the four behaviors of news use, i.e., viewing news by keyword search, viewing news from subscribed sources, viewing news from the list of most-viewed news, and reading comments, and the three behaviors of news engagement, i.e., sharing news, 'liking' or 'recommending' news, and posting comments, this study investigates the relation between each of the behaviors and portal news credibility. Research design, data and methodology: From 2022 News Audience Survey in Korea, this study conducts a regression analysis to investigate the relations between each behavior and news credibility. Results: The results show a positive relation for the former two news use behaviors and the latter two news engagement behaviors, and a negative relation for the latter two news use behaviors. Conclusions: The positive relations between active news use and engagement behaviors and portal news credibility indicate that news consumers are more likely to use and engage in attitude-consistent news rather than attitude-challenging news, implying that heterogeneous news is less likely to be consumed and distributed evenly on portals across all news users.

• Journal of Information Technology Applications and Management
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.19-33
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• 2015

SNS is perceived as an effective tool for sharing news and enabling news content to reach many more users than before. And some users think that SNS is an important source to get news. This study's purpose is to understand the key factors contributing to behavior of news consumption on social network sites in Cambodia and its influence. We identified three key factors including convenience, recency, and variety; however, recency showed less significant effect on news consumption on SNS. Besides the key factors, it also seeks to understand the impact of news consumption on social engagement and government's transparency in Cambodia. The analytical results achieved through the Partial Least Squares (PLS) approach.