People’s Motivation to Participate in Social Network Sites, Subsequent Behaviours, and Situation Self-Awareness following a Crisis: Evidence from the MH370 Flight Incident

Abstract

As people increasingly integrate social network sites (SNSs) into their daily lives, they also turn to these sites for timely information following crises. To date, few studies have examined the effects of different types of motivation on participatory behaviours within SNSs following crises. In this study, self-determination theory (SDT) is applied to examine how individuals are motivated to participate in SNSs following a crisis and how individuals' participatory behaviours can better assist them understand a crisis. The Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 (MH370) incident is selected as the context for this study, and data is collected following the incident. The results show that different types of motivation result in different participatory behaviours. Controlled motivation is positively related to browsing content, commenting and sharing content. Conversely, autonomous motivation is positively associated with browsing and sharing content. Besides, browsing content and commenting are positively related to people's situational self-awareness. The theoretical and practical implications of this study are discussed.

Social Networking Sites in the Aftermath of a Crisis - the Enabling Role for Self-organization

“…If an activity requires too much effort, people are less likely to participate in it [80]. Therefore, in line with the findings of Wang [80,81], this paper includes three participatory behaviors, namely information seeking, information sharing, and commenting in SNS.…”

“…The literature has identified that the public participates in SNS during crisis circumstances to stay informed (e.g., [8,46,54]) and to exchange information (e.g., [40,72,81]). These actions can be categorized into three distinctive participatory behaviors [80].…”

“…Second, users comment on crisis-related content, which includes posting responses to content, liking content, linking to other content, and sharing content from others in SNS. Third, users share new information, such as uploading photos or posting new crisis-related information in SNS [80,81]. According to Wang [80], these participation behaviors in SNS require different levels of cognitive effort.…”

“…Although the topics of self-organization via SNS [40,72] and different participatory behavior in SNS during crises [80,81] are gaining increased attention in the academic literature, a conceptual model explaining the underlying relationships is missing [19]. This paper attempts to fill this gap by 1) investigating the conceptual underpinnings of self-organization via SNS along with its antecedents, 2) using the theoretical lens of uses and gratifications theory (U&G) to examine the role of SNS for self-organization during crisis events, and 3) providing propositions and guidance for future research.…”

When Do Motivational Factors Lead to Negative User Experience on Social Networking Applications?

“…One of the critical challenges for user interface (UI) designers has been the question of how to create a desirable UI that can both attract and retain users (Chou, Lai, & Liu, 2013;Kim, Kim, & Han, 2013;Mouakket, 2015;Park, Roman, Lee, & Chung, 2009;Wang, 2016). A new, innovative UI for social networking apps may have a better opportunity of attracting user attention and subsequently increase the rate of revisiting.…”