Research Project: College students' attitude towards media on Facebook

Publics and Audiences December 20, 2013, Covilhã, Portugal

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Gratifying the need of an online identity: College students’ attitude towards mass media on Facebook

ANCA-IOANA TOMA | LUCIAN ROTARU | ADRIANNA KRUSZONA | ILZE RAUDZĒNA | MARTYNA DANILEWICZ

COMMUNICATION SCIENCES

UNIVERSIDADE DA BEIRA INTERIOR, COVILHÃ

Abstract Facebook has taken the spotlight in the constantly developing social media. And its impact on students all

over the globe is even better articulated, as they are part of a generation that understands, better than any

other, how valuable the Internet and its social capital are for their own development. Yet even the

Millennials are still learning how powerful these tools are and how they can include old, passive, offline

habits like reading printed press, watching television or listening to music into this social environment

that also offers them the freedom to respond, to provoke and be provoked by the media. And while doing

this, they have to be aware of what their reactions mean to their network, to their selected connections.

This paper studies college students’ consumption of mass media as it is reflected on their Facebook

timeline and in their own judgment. It draws conclusions upon the observation of 50 profiles and the

questioning of their corresponding owners. Through an analysis that is specific to the modern take on the

Uses and Gratifications Theory, linking the gratification (creating a particular social persona) with the

reasons why Facebook is generally used, the study points out that even when they refuse to react to what

the Facebook newsfeed offers them, students are very much aware of their online portrait.

Introduction

I. Social Media

Social media is defined as “a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and

technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated

content”1. Social media refers to online accessible platforms and sites where people share and exchange

their ideas and thoughts. Globally used social networks as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google + and

others are used by users to connect with each other and establish wide range of types of relationships.

Media like what we knew it before has transformed from one-way process where information is only

received into two-way process. On social media websites people have the possibility of giving their

opinion on particular material, thus the transformation of the audience into an active one. The Internet

was favored a place where people can actively participate in the creation and promotion of media

materials and social websites have become a key part not just in sharing, but in discovering news too.

1 Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of social media, Kaplan Andreas, Haenlein Michael,

Business Horizons, 2010, p. 61.


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More than this, because of the fast circulation and accessibly of information on social media, more and

more “breaking news” stories are published and distributed on these platforms.

Regarding online trends for news discovery, in the past years social media gathered an advantage and

growth in comparison with search engines. In a study published in July 2012 by Reuters Institute Digital

Report it is mentioned that 43% of the people from Great Britain between the ages of 16 and 24 are most

likely to discover news stories through social networks2.

II. Facebook as a mass media aggregator

Facebook, Inc., a company founded by Mark Zuckerberg in 2004, has then released a product that is still

dominating the online social network services market. facebook.com is a social media website that has

passed one billion users3 in the summer of 2013. The services offered to its users include messaging,

voice and video calling, following of individuals and/or groups, companies and, most importantly for our

study, media institutions and products. They are all available in more than 70 languages and on many

mobile devices and operational systems. Its mission statement says that the network exists “to make the

world more open and connected” and seeing the strong impact it has had on people’s social identity all

over the globe, it is argued that this mission had been over-completed.

In the context of the emergence of “millennials” or Generation “Y”, Facebook’s assets have an even more

powerful effect. Given that they (the people born between 1981 and early 2000’s) are supposedly as

liberal as the previous Generation X was conservative, as attached to our music and pop culture as Gen X

was to the concept of work ethic, as smart as Gen X but with a doubled use of technology4, Gen Y is so

much more exposed to what social media networks have changed in society. For example, a study

undertaken by Millennial Branding in 2012 on 4 million Gen Y profiles has shown that this demographic

segment use their profiles not only for social interactions, but also as an extension of their professional

personality, adding “an average of 16 co-workers to their friends groups” 5

. This means that they use

technology not only for entertainment and leisure, but also to build productive relationships, a social

frame that defines and might aid them.

Social networks have been proved to serve a series of online and offline functions to their users. In 2013,

the ten most pronounced of these functions were found to be social interaction, information seeking, pass

time, entertainment, relaxation, communicatory utility, convenience utility, expression of opinion,

information sharing, and surveillance/knowledge about others6. Facebook being the tool that most people

turn to in order to achieve all of these social fulfillments, its creators have been developing new ways of

engaging people and information altogether. Half of the users in the United States, for example, get their

news from the Facebook newsfeed (Figure 1). This has become a huge media aggregator in the past few

years, with more and more media institutions, products and personalities creating pages that users can

follow and receive updates from. Moreover, Facebook is now trying to build a high-quality newsfeed by

2 http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2013/12/06/social-networks-people-using-get-breaking-news

3 Facebook Reports: http://investor.fb.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=761090

4 MILLENNIALS:A Portrait of Generation next - http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/files/2010/10/millennials-

confident-connected-open-to-change.pdf 5 http://millennialbranding.com/2012/01/millennial-branding-gen-y-facebook-study/

6 Why people use social media: a uses and gratifications approach, Anita Whiting and David Williams, Qualitative

Market Research: An International Journal, Vol. 16 Iss: 4, pp.362 – 369, 2013

http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2013/12/06/social-networks-people-using-get-breaking-

http://investor.fb.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=761090

http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/files/2010/10/millennials-confident-connected-open-to-change.pdf


http://millennialbranding.com/2012/01/millennial-branding-gen-y-facebook-study/


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choosing what content the user should receive based not

only on his preferences but also on the quality of the

materials and the endorsement that those materials

receive from the user’s connections. They are “adjusting

the algorithm which controls what content makes it to

users’ News Feeds, serving more «high-quality» news

articles than it has in a long time” thus aiming at

becoming “the best personalized newspaper in the

world”7. Also, in the process of easing media into the

user’s life, Facebook is currently testing a read-it-later

feature for the mobile application that allows you to save

links that appear in the newsfeed and access them later,

in offline mode.

Knowing that Facebook was initially an academic

platform, that only users with an “.edu” e-mail address

has access to, it is not surprising that even today this

social network is most popular among students. “By

order of preference, Facebook was ranked #1 among the

four social networking sites followed by Twitter at #2”8

in a study published in May 2013.

Our study aims at analyzing if and how Facebook users

and more particularly students tend to act on this social

network platform as far as mass media goes. We wanted

to have an insight on what is their attitude towards the content that pages belonging to mass media

institutions, personalities and products like television series, shows, movies, radio segments and so on.

The theoretical frame is built based on the Uses and Gratifications theory, often chosen in new media

researches for its pragmatic qualities. When trying to explain to what end users try to consume or not

consume media presented to them on Facebook, we also relied on the concept of personal branding, a

marketing and advertisement technique that has become popular not only among celebrities but also

among common individuals and, of course, we wanted to see how this applies to our public – the students.

Theoretical concepts

I. Uses and Gratifications

Jay G. Blumer and Elihu Katz’s Uses and Gratifications theory (UGT) as it is known today suggests,

through a very humanistic approach, that the media themselves play an active role in choosing and using

the media. “Users”, say the two theorists, “take an active part in the communication process and are goal

oriented in their media use”9. They also state that people seek out a specific media source in order to

7 http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/12/facebook-is-the-news-in-2-charts/282301/

8 College Students’ Use of Social Media: Site Preferences, Uses and Gratifications Theory Revisited, Bellarmine A.

Ezumah, International Journal of Business and Social Science, Vol. 4, No. 5; May 2013 9 The uses of mass communications: Current perspectives on gratifications research, Blumler J.G. & Katz, E.,

Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1974

Figure 1.

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/12/facebook-is-the-news-in-2-charts/282301/


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fulfill their needs most suitably and are constantly aware or in search for new, alternative choices that can

satisfy their mediatic needs and preferences. It is an optimistic take on media, as it takes out the

possibility of an unconscious effect of media consume.

This theory has gone through three stages of creation and perfection. UGT arose in the 1940s and was

revived in the 1970’s and 1980’s by authors like Katz, Blumler and D. McQuail. It is a theory that falls

under functionalist social analysis and appeared conceptually when social scientist Herta Herzog

classified the reasons that made women consume and become fans of radio soap operas. She identified

emotional liberation, wishful thinking and learning through advice as the strongest motivations. The idea

that people could choose the medium and the content that they want to consume in order to get some

specific things out of them was, at some point in 1970, subsumed to Abraham Maslow’s Needs and

Motivation Theory, which was related to the author’s Hierarchy of Needs, suggesting that the media

actually satisfied needs from one or more of five categories: Biological/Physical, Security/Safety,

Social/Belonging, Ego/Self-Respect and Self-actualization10

. In its second stage of development, UGT

acquired four categories of uses of media, which were emphasized by Denis McQuail’s studies. Therefore

there were four motivations for people to turn to certain media products and channels: diversion, personal

relationships, personal identity and surveillance. Finally, now, in the third stage, studies are focusing on

discovering the connections between the reasons of mediatic use and the gratifications, thus aiming at

linking the result with the need in a reserved manner.

In today’s age of Internet, UGT is particularly appropriate for studying audiences, as it provides a special

sort of control over them. Under the premises of this theory, the field of online audiences can be

investigated in a tridimensional way, in terms of content, process and social gratification. When it comes

to social media, hence to Facebook, UGT explains that users’ motivations to engage in a social network

are some of the following: social and affection, need to vent negative feelings, recognition, entertainment

or cognitive needs11

. Now, actions on Facebook determined by each of these categories of needs can

speak loudly about the personality of the individual. They create an aura that the user can or can not be

aware of and brand the user, especially as a long-term consequence. Especially since Facebook is a

medium where people not only construct and maintain connections but is also one that hosts networks

that are articulated online, which means that there are connections who only get their information about

you from your Facebook timeline and daily activity.

To give an idea about what actions like sharing on Facebook means to its users, The New York Times has

undertaken a study in 2011 on 2,500 subjects that shared media products on their profile and it resulted in

a list of five emotional, psychological grounds – gratifications – on which the subjects base their online

behaviour:

Altruism. We share to bring valuable and entertaining content to others. We think about what our

friends want to know, and try to help them out.

10

Uses and Gratifications Theory. Introducing Communication Theory: Analysis and Application. West, Richard L., and Lynn H. Turner, Boston: McGraw-Hill, 392-409, 2010 11

Generational Differences in Content Generation in Social Media: The Roles of the Gratifications Sought and of Narcissism, Leung, Louis, 2013


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Self-definition. We share to define ourselves to others. Perhaps this notion is better phrased as,

“you are what you share.” People consciously shape their online persona by the types of things

they share.

Empathy. We share to strengthen and nourish our relationships. Sharing shows someone else

we’re thinking about them and we care.

Connectedness. We share to get credit and feedback for being a good sharer, to feel valuable in

the eyes of others.

Evangelism. We share to spread the word about a cause or brand we believe in.12

II. Personal branding

Self-definition can be considered either a goal or a gratification. For the sake of our study, it represents

the gratification, the satisfaction of the need to be seen in a certain way. It is very obvious in the case of

young people, students in our case, as they are more concerned about creating an image of themselves in

society and they understand, better than any other generation, that their online presence determines how

they are viewed and that they are constantly being put under a “digital microscope”, as Colin Hunter,

specialist in commercial behavioral change, calls it.13

Facebook has become a double-edged sword for its users in terms of personal branding. In a climate of

voluntary transparency, personal branding is the subtext of all kinds of Facebook activity and, of course,

other social networking. The New York Times study in 2011 also outlined six consequences of the main

motives for sharing, in the form of six Facebook personas, not all mutually exclusive. The researchers

discovered that individuals tried to build a brand through their shares, and the most common ones were

the Altruists, Careerists, Hipsters, Boomerangs, Connectors or Selectives14

.

Methodology: study I and study II Our objective was to analyze how students behave on Facebook and how they use media materials on

their profiles. To fulfill our objectives we divided our research in two parts, for each of them using two

different instruments: monitoring (study I) and questionnaire (study II).

The participants for both parts of our research were 50 students from Romania, Poland, Portugal, Estonia,

Latvia, Brazil, Germany, Slovakia and Malta with ages between 20 and 26 years old. The process of

selection was layered and proportional; we selected 10 students for every 5 categories in which we folded

up the main field of studies. We created the following categories that included similar field of study or

related in some way: Social Sciences & Languages (Philosophy, Psychology, Political Studies, History,

Languages, Journalism), Engineering & Exact sciences (Architecture, Construction, Engineering,

Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry), Management & Law (Marketing, Economics, Management, Law),

Natural Sciences & Sports ( Biology, Geography, Geology, Sports), Computer Science & Health

(Informatics, Biotechnology, Medicine).

12

http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/media-lab/social-media/139716/5-reasons-people-share-news-how-you-can-get-them-to-share-yours/ 14

Ibid.

http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/media-lab/social-media/139716/5-reasons-people-share-news-how-you-can-get-them-to-share-yours/



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Study I

In the first part of the research we monitored the activity of our users’ Facebook profiles for one month.

The purpose was to observe what kind of media they share and associate with their profiles. For this, we

created and applied a table (annex I) with the following sections: personal posts (status updates, personal

pictures, check-ins, event attendance etc.), Internet Entertainment (funny videos, gifs, pictures, memes,

music and lyrics), media related to field of study (every post, link, photo, article, video connected with

what they are studying) and media not related to field of study (News; Economy; Technology; Lifestyle –

art, photography, fashion; Health and Sports; Culture and Education; Tabloid News – celebrity gossip,

lower Entertainment). The first two sections, personal posts and Internet Entertainment, were created to

help us understand in what way our subjects use this social media website. Also, by having all the data

from their profiles we can calculate the percent of media materials they share.

Study II

In the second part of the research we used an online questionnaire (annex II) with the purpose of finding

how our subjects select the media they share and how they interact with content on Facebook. Therefore,

we composed questions regarding the content that make them react on Facebook (comment, like, share),

aiming to find out the nature of the media, the field and the reasons behind these actions. The questions

were produced in a way that reflects the premises of Uses and Gratifications theory (UGT). Because our

subjects filled in the enquiry without any payment, we created a form that takes little time to complete,

with only nine questions (not counting the fields for name, age and gender). The manner in which the

questionnaire was built relied on the idea that the user’s behavior on Facebook in general (not only on his

timeline) is relevant to the profile that he builds. Thus, we chose to ask some questions that were related

to the user’s habits of commenting, liking and sharing, which are partly invisible on his actual timeline.

We also used a 4-point Frequency Likert Scale (1 - never; 4 - all the time) to receive ratings for four

statements that focus on revealing the subjects’ attitude towards Facebook habits.

Results and interpretation Study I

According to the aggregated results, students from the field Social sciences and Languages showed

increased activity of sharing information on Facebook. Overall they have posted 251 items of various

types. However, people engaged with Management and Law are lagging behind only for twenty posts.

Students from Engineering and Exact sciences also showed relatively high activity of the exchange of

information posting 149 times per month while fifty observed people from Natural sciences and Sports

have shared only 115 times, leaving behind only Computer sciences and Health with 106 shares.

Regarding what information has been exchanged the most, personal post predominance is indisputable.

They constitute 46 per cent of the total posted information. Media not related to studies together with

Internet entertainment make only 41 per cent of published information with one per cent difference

between these fields. Withal, materials not related to field of study make only nine per cent of overall

shares.


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Although Personal posts have been most popular

field, least preferred information differ. For stu-

dents from Social Sciences and Languages it has

been economy with only 2 shares per month. For

Engineering and Exact sciences three fields have

acquired only one share per month: Economy,

Technology and Tabloid news. Management and

Law students have not shared any information re-

lated to economy and tabloid news. At the same time, Computer sciences and Health area shows no inte-

rest in economy, technology and tabloid news. Also, seeing gathered data about Natural Sciences and

Sports students, no interest can be indicated regarding economy and technology. To sum up, while Perso-

nal posts have been shared by everyone and most widely, economical news and articles have been shared

only three times by all analysed profiles of students, making it an area in which individuals show the least

interest.

Looking specifically at Information not related with studies, culture and education takes the first place,

leaving news as second with slight difference. Lifestyle, Health and sports also do not leave observed

46%

22%

9%

23%

Personal posts *

InternetEntertainment **

Media related tofield of study

Media not relatedto field of studyNews

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Personal posts InternetEntertainment

Media related tofos

Media notrelated to fos (allof them together

Social Science and Languages

Engeneering

Management

Natural Sciences

Computer Sciences

0

10

20

30

40

50

60News

Economy

Technology

Lifestyle ***

Health& Sports

Culture & Education

Tabloid news ****


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students indifferent in contrary to technology, tabloid news and economy where we can see relatively no

activity of exchanging related information between other users of Facebook.

Study II

Our sample consisted of 44% male and 56% female subjects and their average age was 22.5 years. As far

as Facebook consumption goes, most respondents reckoned that they spend around 1 – 2 hours (36%) or 3

– 4 hours (34%). But there was a striking 27% that admitted to spending more than 4 hours on this

platform every day. This fraction of the sample would, thus, end up spending more than a full day on

Facebook per week. These findings stand as a strong proof of how much social media consumption and

people’s views on them have changed in the past 5 years, if we compare them with Adam N. Joinson’s

results in his research on the motives and uses of Facebook. His sample’s (granted, not only students)

most common responses for the “time spend on the site each week were between 1 and 2 hours (33%) and

2 and 5 hours (32.5%)[…] The proportion of users claiming more than 10 hours of Facebook use per

week was small (5.4%)”15

.

Students have shown most fidelity to blogs that have Facebook pages, given that 29 subjects are

subscribed to such content. Therefore they enjoy more media that is niched on a subject, a general theme,

which may relate to the fact that 54% of them also admitted to use Facebook for keeping up and

interacting (comment, like share) with materials related to their hobbies and personal interests. As for

traditional media adapted to online (newspapers, magazines, T.V. shows, talk-shows, series etc.) and

promoted on Facebook, their content gains almost equal attention from the students in our research, with

around 25 subscribers out of the total 50.

15

‘Looking at’, ‘Looking up’ or ‘Keeping up with’ People? Motives and Uses of Facebook, Adam N. Joinson, 2008


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Another indicator towards the idea that students tend to use Facebook pages to receive media that suits

their personal interests and hobbies is the fact that there were 8% who added other types of pages to their

list, like the ones related to games, online shops, photography, “cat entertainment”, IT, architecture

studios, art, do-it-yourself projects, companies, sports, movies and celebrities. Of course, some of these

choices might overlap with content related to their field of study, which was chosen by 35% of them as

the type of content that is most likely to make them react on Facebook through comments, likes and

shares.

We also found that the content that is getting the most reactions on Facebook are news from our subjects’

area or region (68%), social matters (54%), technology (48%), arts (46%) and culture (54%). They are

also mostly keen on sharing materials that reflect optimism and positivity and they turn to controversy for

a change, with a 20% rate of subjects that choose to put out materials with some controversial potential

and only around 10% going for utilitarian, sad, shocking or even viral content. There is, therefore, certain

reluctance in associating themselves with products that deliver an extremely negative vibe. This is also

visible in the attitude towards low entertainment forms like tabloid/ gossip news, which may reduce a

user’s credit among his connections.


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Probably the most highlighted evidence of the students’ seek for gratifications in their interaction with the

media on Facebook is the statement that they mostly like, share, comment or post media in order to either

spread the information around or recommend and endorse it, with around 60% each. We also noticed that

they don’t focus on creating social groups related to a topic but rather care for the content that they

associate themselves with by giving it to others. Only one subject stated that it is the “magnitude of the

topic and its relationship with him” that makes him react and not the gratification itself.

The part of the questionnaire that we based on the Likert Scale makes it clear that the majority of subjects

reckon that they stay away from “extreme” behavior on the social network. When it comes to how much

each of the students’ shares, posts, likes or comments matter to people from their network, 43 of them

battle between rarely and frequently. Therefore, they believe that the impact that they can make through

the way they engage media and how they appear on others’ newsfeed is important half of the time at

most. There are, nonetheless, 6% of them who, in fact, think their behavior means a lot to their

connections. 56% of the total are always careful with what they post on their profile and none of them

admitted to being totally careless about their activity. This means that even the few 8% who said that their

posts don’t have an impact on their friends still think their actions through before they do them.

On the other hand, no one considers themselves constantly active on Facebook through comments, shares,

likes and posts and 68% actually think that they rarely use these instruments while spending time on the

platform. So out of the 1 to 4 hours of daily Facebook use, only 26% of the students are frequently

engaging media into their routine, which results in a generally more consumerist, passive, even careful

attitude, we could say. Moreover, 56% of the subjects said they rarely use the interactive buttons that have

been implemented on almost every website, especially on the online versions of traditional media. Only

6% use them all the time and 36% say it is a frequent action in their media consuming routine.


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Students have shown a great deal of interest in making a point through the articles, journalistic

photography and videos that they share on a quite large scale. Most of them, 58%, leave their posts open

for their friends’ access and 34% make them public, while 8% take advantage of the option to customize

each post’s audience in order to target it specifically.


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The students from our sample mostly agreed that their personal image is affected by their activity related

to mass media on Facebook. In other words, 74% of them believe that what they choose to post creates an

image of their online persona, which eventually leads to the creation of a personal brand that is or isn’t

what they wanted people to see them as. There are, nonetheless, 10% that don’t consider their behavior

relevant to their image, but these subjects still act careful when they choose their postings and, as we have

previously noted, the posts that they interact with still fall under certain categories like sad, controversial,

positive etc.

Conclusions There is always a purpose in students’ behavior on Facebook. Whether it is a reckless or a prudent one,

whether he is an over-sharer or the type that silently scrolls through information on the newsfeed without

reacting, they manage to make their profiles speak for them. Building a personal social media brand is not

always something they can voluntarily start or stop doing, but they are relating their actions to the

external image that they want to create. Even in the case of a network dominated by personal posts, as the

one our sample constitutes, mass media still outgrows the amount of entertaining memes, funny cats,

hilarious skating injuries and other similar content on the Internet. And as Facebook is perfecting its

instruments in order to personalize and promote a more and more intuitive and clean newsfeed, students’

timelines and their overall behavior might also take a turn towards maintaining and constructing a profile

that is more neat and more accurately related to their personalities.

References

Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of social media, Kaplan Andreas,

Haenlein Michael, 2010

College Students’ Use of Social Media: Site Preferences, Uses and Gratifications Theory

Revisited, Bellarmine A. Ezumah, International Journal of Business and Social Science, Vol. 4,

No. 5; May 2013

The uses of mass communications: Current perspectives on gratifications research, Blumler J.G.

& Katz, E., 1974

Uses and Gratifications Theory. Introducing Communication Theory: Analysis and Application.

West, Richard L., and Lynn H. Turner, Boston, 2010


13

Why people use social media: a uses and gratifications approach, Anita Whiting and David

Williams, Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, Vol. 16

Generational Differences in Content Generation in Social Media: The Roles of the Gratifications

Sought and of Narcissism, Leung and Louis, 2013

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/12/facebook-is-the-news-in-2-

charts/282301/

http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2013/12/06/social-networks-people-using-get-breaking-news


http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/files/2010/10/millennials-confident-connected-open-to-

change.pdf



Annexes Questionnaire



http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2013/12/06/social-networks-people-using-get-breaking-








14


15

Monitoring table template

* Status updates, personal pictures, check-ins, event attendance.

** Funny videos/pictures/gifs, memes, music & lyrics.

*** Arts, Photography, Fashion.

**** Celebrity gossip – Lower Entertainment.

Research Project: College students' attitude towards media on Facebook

Documents

social media social

opportunities of social

social media websites

social websites

past years social media

social capital

social networks

social environment