Communication Technology 2007 Abstracts
Communication Technology Division (CTEC)
The Role of Animation in Targeted E-Mail Messaging at the Worksite • Betsy Aumiller, Susan B. Byrnes Health Education Center • Learning about healthy behavior is critical in an era when chronic diseases are strongly linked with personal lifestyle choices. Employers have a vested interest in pursuing educational strategies that work to improve employee health and decrease health care utilization. The use of e-mail for health promotion efforts at the worksite presents educators with the freedom to deliver messages outside the boundaries of time and location.
Effects of secondary internet use on people’s time-efficiency: Two time-diary studies on Korea and the United States • Young Min Baek, University of Pennsylvania • Previous studies on effects of internet use produced two contrasting findings – time-displacement and time-efficiency hypotheses. Some scholars supporting the time-displacement hypothesis argue that internet use drives individuals to be isolated and socially disconnected, while others holding time-efficiency hypothesis counter-argue that the internet can create more free time for interpersonal contacts because of its efficiency.
Gatekeeping: From Inception to the Internet • Michael Beam, Ohio State University • Gatekeeping theory has been actively used in communication research since its creation in the middle of the 20th century. While gatekeeping has been expanded to describe the traditional flow of news, it has been completely reconceptualized to describe the new channels through which information flows on the Internet. This paper will provide an overview of gatekeeping research on Internet technology and posit new directions for future research.
Identity and intimacy in online social networking: Qualitative study of young women’s experiences on MySpace • Denise Bortree, University of Florida • Online social networking has become a popular way for young people to maintain connections with friends both local and long distance. This paper explores the use of social networking websites by young women ages 18-21. Specifically, it asks women about activity displacement, the impact of social networking on new and existing relationships, and privacy concerns online. What emerges is the use of this communication forum for both identity and intimacy work.
Internet-Television, Peer-to-Peer Technology and Free Speech: Lessons from Web 1.0 • Mark Caramanica, University of Florida • Internet-protocol television (“IPTV”) services which stream data through a peer-to-peer (“P2P”) network architecture potentially provide for what may one day amount to limitless bandwidth for video content delivery. Such unlimited capacity is achieved through the “positive network effects” inherent in P2P file-sharing architectures. One such platform which has been the subject of recent media coverage is a platform known as “Joost.”
Predictors of the adoption of entertainment, information, communication, and transaction services on mobile phones • Jiyoung Cha and Sylvia-Chan Olmsted, University of Florida • The emergence of 3G networks introduced diverse value-added services on mobile phone. Consumers’ degree of adoption is not homogeneous depending on the service category. Using a survey method, this paper explored the factors that affect the adoption of four types of advanced services on mobile phone. Entertainment, social interaction, and instrumentality motivations predicted the intention to use entertainment, communication, and transaction services, respectively.
Factors behind frequency and duration of using social networking websites: motivations, perceptions, and privacy concerns • Jiyoung Cha, University of Florida • Social networking websites receive substantial attention from media and college students. Nevertheless, little research has been conducted with respect to the driving forces behind college students’ frequent use and time spent on social networks. Integrating uses and gratifications and the technology acceptance model, the current study found that interpersonal utility motive, perceived usefulness, ease of use, Internet experience, and age predict frequency of use of social networking sites.
Factors Affecting the Adoption Intent of VoIP Services: Focusing on Weighted Expected Improvement and SEM • Byeng-Hee Chang, Sungkyunkwan University • This study aimed to find the factors affecting the adoption intent of VoIP services. This study introduced a new concept, weighted expected improvement (WEI), and used structural equation modeling (SEM) as well as regression analysis. The regression results showed that perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, perceived social image, and weighted expected improvement affected VoIP adoption intent. The SEM results found the indirect effects of perceived ease of use and WEI on VoIP adoption intent.
Exploring the Next Frontier of Television: A Global Analysis of Issues Affecting the Development of Mobile Television • Sylvia Chan-Olmsted, University of Florida • This paper presents a comprehensive examination of the emerging mobile television from the perspectives of its converged telephone-television characteristics, diverse technological delivery mechanisms, new consumption patterns, and major industry issues such as business models, marketing, and regulatory concerns. It was found that mobility, immediacy, personalization, and interactivity make mobile television a unique and complementary medium to fixed-line television for a complete audience viewing experience.
Sharing, Connection, and Creation in the Web 2.0 Era: Profiling the Adopters of Video-Sharing and Social-Networking Sites • Hsuan-Ting Chen, University of Texas-Austin • The objective of this study was to understand users’ behavior and motivations for adopting video-sharing and social-networking Web 2.0 applications. Results from a random-sample Web-based survey of 1,055 students revealed differences between adopters and non-adopters of theses two applications when analyzed according to demographic profile, use of other Internet activities, news consumption.
Gatekeeping Journalists’ Weblogs: The Influence of Media Organizations and Individual Factors Over U.S. Journalists’ Perceived Autonomy • Hyeri Choi, University of Texas-Austin • This study explored if j-bloggers are influenced by four factors: complexity, blog ownership, size, ad-dependency. It starts from the question that even if, in general, weblogs are considered a symbol of freedom, j-bloggers might not have autonomy. Four hypotheses were delivered. Four influencing factors in this study were guided by gatekeeping theory, following the assumption that gatekeeping theory can also be applied to certain types of new media, including weblogs.
Internet Use and Political Empowerment • Jae Eun Chung, University of Southern California • Unequal access to the Internet has become a critical issue from the concern that people with low degree of access to the Internet could be left behind in enjoying greater personal empowerment from using Internet-based services. In particular, political empowerment is important to democratic processes. This study explores the predictive effect of differing degrees of Internet access and demographic characteristics of internet users on political empowerment and political information gathering.
Risk judgments of online privacy • Siyoung Chung, Hichang Cho, and Jaeshin Lee, National University of Singapore • This study examined how individuals’ judgments on risks related to online privacy (online privacy risks) were influenced by communication processes, prior experience, and self-efficacy beliefs.
Marshaling McLuhans’ “Laws” to Explicate New Media • Mike Dorsher, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire • All media follow four laws during their evolution and devolution, the Canadian father-son research team of Marshall and Eric McLuhan said in their 1988 book “Laws of Media: The New Science.” All media, they said, extend some faculty or organ of the user; close, or obsolesce, another faculty; retrieve some facets of previous media; and reverse into some unintended form when pushed to their capacity.
From Expression to Influence: Understanding the Change in Blogger Motivations over the Blogspan • Brian Eckdale, Kang Namkoong, Timothy Fung, Muzammil Hussain and Madhu Arora, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and David Perlmutter, University of Kansas • Because the majority of research on political blogs has focused on blog content (Adamic & Glance, 2004; Bichard, 2006; Jackson, 2006; Rogers, 2005), the influence of blogs (Drezner & Farrell, 2004) or blog readers (Johnson & Kaye, 2004; Kaye & Johnson, 2002), little study has been done on prominent political bloggers themselves.
The Dynamics of China’s Technical Internet Censorship System • Guangchao Feng and William Y. Lai, The University of Hong Kong • The Chinese government is concerned about its status as the world’s second largest Internet population but with priority on economic development, curbing the Internet is not so straightforward. This paper reveals that Chinese authorities use several methods to block Internet access, which are not just simply centrally-controlled, but instead use sophisticated multi-level filtering techniques. Furthermore, China’s Internet blocking mechanisms are volatile, diversified and dynamic in response to changing situations.
Does Interactivity serve the Public Interest? The Role of Political Blogs in Deliberative Democracy • Kim Garris, Jamie Guillory, Russ Manning and S. Shyam Sundar, Penn State University • Political blogs are distinguished by their heightened interactivity, allowing users to participate directly in the political process. Does the interactivity afforded by political blogs really serve the public interest by contributing to deliberative democracy? A longitudinal between-subjects experiment was conducted during the week preceding the November, 2006 elections to answer this question. Registered voters and unregistered users responded in opposite ways, with theoretical implications for the Elaboration Likelihood Model and the psychology of interactivity.
Online and Offline Activism: Communication Mediation and Political Messaging Among Blog Readers • Homero Gil de Zuniga, Aaron Veenstra, Emily Vraga, Ming Wang, Cathy DeShano and Dhavan Shah, University of Wisconsin-Madison • Political bloggers are viewed by many as lone voices, socially disconnected and working apart from the traditional mechanisms of political participation. In this paper, we seek to challenge the basis for that view by examining the ways in which the members of blog audiences engage in the political process, not just through traditional means but through new online pathways, as well.
Comparing Audiences’ Responses to Real versus Virtual Human Product Endorsers on an E-Commerce Site • Li Gong and Osei Appiah, Ohio State University • Ethnic identity is posited as a key concept for understanding the degree to which ethnic minorities embrace their ethnic membership and communicate according to group-prescribed norms and preferences.
The Mediasphere and the Blogosphere in Canada: Analysis of Content and Link Practices Among Journalist-Blogs • Abby Goodrum, Ryerson University • This paper presents preliminary results from a study exploring Canadian Journalist-Blogs. The study builds on earlier work by Bruns (2005), and Singer (2006) and provides a descriptive baseline for exploring how journalists and mainstream media outlets in Canada are utilizing the blog format. The research focuses on 43 blogs associated with mainstream news media outlets, using a content and link analysis.
Reply magnets and preferential attachment in online political discussions: A network analysis of six month of discussions in 20 political newsgroups • Itai Himelboim, University of Minnesota, Danyel Fisher, Microsoft Research, Eric Gleave, University of Washington and Marc Smith, Microsoft Research • Online discussion groups, as many other large networks, form a power-law distribution, where few participants attract large number of replies to their posts, and most people receive very little. This study aims to explore the dynamics that create this unequal distribution of replies as well as to identify social roles played by the few highly replied individuals.
Comments Discussion and the Public Sphere: A Case Study on Comments in Online News Site • Yejin Hong, University of Minnesota • This paper examined the potential of the public sphere in comments discussion. The comment section is an interactive setting in online news, which encourages participants to exchange their opinions rather than others. In order to decide the potential of the public sphere in comments, three requirements of the public sphere were regarded: the quality of messages; the direction of conversation; the process of consensus.
The Role of Trust in Interactive Communication: Antecedents and Consequences of Website Trust • Jisu Huh and Soyoen Cho, University of Minnesota • The study aims to examine the role of trust in Web users’ participation in interactive communication in a form of information sharing and identify antecedents of trust. By testing a trust model empirically with a nationally representative sample, this study found strong direct relationship between trust in websites and information sharing behavior in commercial Websites.
Choosing is Believing: How Web Gratifications and Reliance Affect Internet Credibility among Politically Interested Users • Tom Johnson, Texas Tech University • This study relied on an online survey of politically interested Web users during the 2004 presidential election to examine the degree to which people judged online information as credible. All online media were seen as only moderately credible, with blogs and online newspapers being rated higher than online broadcast and cable news. Reliance on the online source proved to be the strongest predictor of whether it was judged as credible.
Parsing out the players in the blogosphere:Developing a predictive model of blogging and blog readers • Julie Jones and John Wirtz, University of Minnesota • To date, the means of discovering the attributes of bloggers has been left to largely anecdotal observations (Gillmor, 2004; Trippi, 2004), descriptive statistics (Davis, 2005), in-depth interviews (Cohen, 2005; Kline & Burstein, 2005) and content or linguistic analysis (Herring, Scheidt, Kouper, & Wright, 2007; Nowson, 2006; Sundar, Edwards, Hu, & Stavrositu, 2007).
Impression Formation Effects in Computer-Mediated Communication and Human-Computer Interaction • Sriram Kalyanaraman, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and S. Shyam Sundar, Penn State University • In this conceptual article, we outline the importance of impression formation effects in online environments. Unlike traditional impression formation research, we identify the importance of studying impression formation effects of not just online interactants or communicators, but also impression formation effects of the technology itself.
Perceived Credibility of Online Media: A study of Social Significance, Personal Significance, and Interactivity Factors • Ji young Kim and Stephen Masiclat, Syracuse University • To study online users’ perceived credibility of the online news media, this study proposed a positive influence of the three factors (social significance, personal significance, and interactivity) on the perceived credibility of the online news media, one of the key sources for understanding online media impact. In the tests of hypotheses, two treatment effects of social significance and interactivity were reported in evaluating the credibility of online news media.
Understanding Diffusion of J-blogs: An Examination of Factors Affecting Korean Journalists’ Blog Adoption • Yonghwan Kim, University of Texas-Austin • This study was designed to investigate factors affecting journalists’ adoption of weblogs, using three theoretical frameworks: the diffusion of innovation theory, the theory of planned behavior, and the uses and gratifications approach. The results of a national survey of Korean journalists indicated that perceived characteristics, attitudes, subjective norms, perceived control and perceived needs are partially affecting j-blog adoption, while demographic profile and innovativeness did not turn out significant.
Are You Searching or Surfing? : The Effects of Searching vs. Surfing • Hyo Jung Kim, Jeesun Kim, Kevin Wise, University of Missouri • To contribute to the body of work on the role of searching vs. surfing in information processing, this study examined how these two ways of obtaining online content influence cognitive as well as emotional responses based on the theoretical framework of Elaboration Likelihood Model. A 2 (search type: searching vs. surfing) x 3 (repetition) mixed design experiment was performed.
Does the Internet add value to traditional print products? An analysis of newspaper Web sites and their relationship with the print version • Jennifer Kowalewski, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill • This study investigated how traditional newspapers used their online Web sites to reach readers. Results indicated that larger circulation newspapers added more value to their online product then smaller circulation newspapers. Newspapers with higher household penetration offered a higher level of interactivity online. Newspapers used their online product similarly especially when dealing with offering breaking news, sports and advertising. Editors used Web sites slightly differently when dealing with interactivity.
Exploring Classic Political Participation, Involvement, and Socialization through Communication Technology • Ruthann Lariscy, Kaye Sweetser and Spencer Tinkham, University of Georgia • Looking at age cohorts, this study investigates political socialization and voting behaviors in relation to political participation and involvement in classic and contemporary contexts (including use of FaceBook, MySpace). Informed by general consensus and empirical findings that a younger cohort has different beliefs about politics than their older counterparts, this study delves into the concepts of political participation and involvement.
An International Empirical Analysis of Broadband Adoption Factors • Sangwon Lee and Justin Brown, University of Florida • Broadband infrastructure is a key component of the knowledge economy. Through statistical analysis of more 70 observations, this study examines influential factors of broadband adoption. The results of this empirical study show that platform competition, local loop unbundling, broadband speed, information and communication technology use and population density contribute to global broadband adoption. This study also finds that mobile broadband is neither a complement or substitute for fixed broadband.
Perceived knowledge, emotion, and health Information use: Exploring antecedence and consequence of patients’ worry • Sun-Young Lee, Hyunseo Hwang, Robert Hawkins and Suzanne Pingree, University of Wisconsin-Madison • The Internet has emerged as an important source for people diagnosed with cancer to obtain health-related information. During the course of the illness, women diagnosed with cancer need information to make decisions about treatment and to get help in coping with the decisions they have made.
Satellite Radio Adoption Dynamics: Adopter Cognition, Technology Fluidity and Technology Cluster • Carolyn A. Lin, University of Connecticut • The subscription-based satellite radio services changed the economic fundamentals of the radio industry. To better understand the long-term economic viability of the satellite radio industry, the present study proposes to examine the satellite radio adoption process by exploring audience beliefs, perceptions, attitudes and intentions, relative to their actual adoption behavior. Data was collected via a national telephone survey of radio listeners. Study results are discussed in conjunction with implications for theory building and industry practice.
The perceived ethicality of Web sites and its implication for persuasion processes • Robert Magee, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and Sriram Kalyanaraman, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill • Evidence was found that people can attribute ethicality to a Web site, and differential perceptions of ethicality can lead to related perceptions being realized, as well. This study also extended the scope of previous findings in the Computers Are Social Actors paradigm, which have normally not examined deeper variables, such as extent of persuasion.
Customization vs. Personalization: The Role of Power Usage and Privacy • Sampada Marathe, S. Shyam Sundar and Christen Reese, Penn State University • This paper attempts to explain why power users prefer content that they customize themselves while low-end users would like it when the system personalizes content for them. It experimentally demonstrates that this interaction between self vs. system tailoring and power-usage occurs only under conditions of low privacy. It also explores other theoretical mechanisms via mediators such as self-efficacy, sense of control, convenience, and utility, with implications for theory and design of tailoring sites and systems.
Collective Identity on hate group Web sites • Michael McCluskey and Heather LaMarre, Ohio State University • Hate group Web sites communicate a collective identity to potential members. Analysis of 911 text articles on 28 hate group Web sites showed two elements of collective identity, justification and victimization, varied by target and group type. Material contained highest justification when foreign government and integration were targets, and among Neo-Nazi groups. Highest victimization occurred when Jews and U.S. government were targets, and among Skinhead groups.
Mobile Phone Text Messaging Overuse among Developing World University Students • Stephen Perry, Illinois State University • Mobile phone text messaging often is more affordable than voice messaging in the developing world. Its similarity to instant messaging and other Internet synchronous communication technologies suggests that overuse and addiction-like tendencies might be found among users as has been identified with these similar technology applications. Symptoms related to components of addiction diagnoses were found to be prevalent among 214 respondents to a survey, all of whom were completed questionnaires at the University of Mauritius.
Weight loss blogs: An analysis of their potential as adjuncts to women’s dieting efforts • Paula Rausch, University of Florida • This study sought to fill gaps in existing literature by examining weight loss blogs through qualitative grounded theory techniques to determine what they mean to the women who write and how they fit in to their weight loss endeavors. These meanings fell into six broad themes: expression and reflection, connection, balance, struggle, control, and fear. A theoretical model was developed showing how weight loss blogs may hold potential for breaking resistant weight loss-gain patterns.
Using the Internet for Specialized In-depth Information • Daniel Riffe, Ohio University, Steve Lacy and Miron Varouhakis, Michigan State University • This national survey found that the Internet is a valued source of in-depth information about health, science, and business. Between 31% and 50% of the respondents said they use the Internet weekly for in-depth information in one of the three areas. Background variables predicted whether people use the Internet for such information better than they predicted people’s evaluation of that information’s quality. The results suggest researchers should study the functions of in-depth specialized online information.
Chronicling the Chaos: Tracking the news story of Hurricane Katrina from The Times-Picayune to cyberspace • Susan Robinson, University of Wisconsin-Madison • The extraordinary breaking news story of Hurricane Katrina offered an opportunity to document how multimedia and interactive features interfere with the carefully crafted news story of a newspaper. This textual analysis of the case study was informed by press and medium scholarship. The main finding was that the newspaper tale of a mythic Flood in an American city transformed into a chronicle about people’s personal experiences in cyberspace.
What’s on Wikipedia, and What’s Not? Completeness of Information on the Online Collaborative Encyclopedia • Cindy Royal and Deepina Kapila, Texas State University at San Marcos • The World Wide Web continues to grow closer to achieving the vision of becoming the repository of all human knowledge. While improved search engines such as Google facilitate access of knowledge across the Web, some sites have increased in popularity and have attracted the attention of more Web users than others. Wikipedia is one such site that is becoming an important resource for news and information.
From Have Nots to Watch Dogs: Understanding the Realities of Senior Citizens’ Use of the Internet for Health Information • Sally J. McMillan and Avery Johnson, University of Tennessee-Knoxville and Wendy Macias, University of Georgia • Senior citizens are often positioned as “have nots” in the digital age, but many use the internet for health information. This study uses grounded theory to explore online health communication among older Americans. Open-ended survey responses from 424 internet users age 55+ were analyzed. Selective coding categories were: empowerment, personal and professional communities, and watchdogs and peer assumptions. These themes are discussed in the context of health communication literature with suggestions for future research.
Innovation or Normalization in E-Campaigning? A Longitudinal Content and Structure Analysis of German Party Web Sites in the 2002 and 2005 National Elections • Eva Johanna Schweitzer, University of Mainz • The paper explores the innovation and normalization hypothesis of e-campaigning by a longitudinal content and structure analysis of German party Web sites in the 2002 and 2005 National Elections. The comparison of the formal home page appearance and its argumentative stance provides support for a partial innovation process: The Web sites became more information rich, more interactive, and more sophisticated. On the content level, though, traditional offline strategies, such as metacommunication or negative campaigning, prevailed.
The U.S. Transition to Digital Television: The Final Steps • Pete Seel, Colorado State University • On February 17, 2009 the nation’s television broadcasters will turn off their analog transmitters. The final stage of the transition to digital television will affect five primary groups: broadcasters, the federal government, television manufacturers, multi-channel video program distributors, and consumers. This paper analyzes the preparedness of these groups for the transition and questions if federal plans to assure universal access to the new digital television format are workable.
VOIP-telephone service: Economic efficiencies and policy implications • Sangho Seo, Konkuk University • The primary purpose of this study is to estimate, empirically, the economic efficiency of voice-over-Internet-protocol (VOIP) technology and discuss how the emergence of VOIP technology is effective in leading to additional competition in U.S. local telecommunications markets.
Perceived Credibility of Job Search Sites and Users’ Intention to Post Resume • Wonsun Shin, University of Minnesota • This study investigated how perceived credibility was related to persuasion in two job search websites. Results showed that perceived credibility was positively related to users’ intention to post their resume on the website they visited. Observable credibility cues played more important roles for those who were less familiar with the websites in their decision to post or not to post resume, while reputation and quality attributes did not work differently by website familiarity.
The Interconnected Web: Media Consolidation, Corporate Ownership, and the World Wide Web • Charlene Simmons, University of Tennessee-Chattanooga • Has the Internet become a democratic medium and source of alternative information, like some hoped? Or is the Internet, like other mass media, controlled by large media corporations? This study explores this question by examining the entities behind the most popular Web brands. In the end, the article finds that the most frequented portion of the Web is controlled by commercial corporations and does not appear to serve as an alternative to traditional media sources.
If You Build It, Will They Come? Blogs in the Journalism and Mass Communication Curriculum • Jane B. Singer, University of Central Lancashire/University of Iowa • Despite the spread of blogs in the media and in academia, little scholarly work has explored their use within the journalism and mass communication curriculum. This study, based on incorporation of blogs in 10 classes over five semesters, examines student use of the format in relation to theories of social and blended learning. The findings suggest that although students tend to approach blogging as yet another assignment, their engagement in online conversation offers pedagogical benefits.
Predicting iPod Implementation: Use and Impact of an iPod • Tang Tang, Ohio University • This survey study was designed to examine the iPod usage and impacts. The findings of this study suggested that the iPod usage was influenced by motivations, availability, accessibility, user activities, alternative media behavior, and attitudes toward use. Among all the factors, attitudes toward use was the strongest predictor of the iPod usage, followed by audience availability and the cost an iPod user spent on purchasing music, media files, and accessories for the iPod.
From Product to Service: Dynamic Content in Online Newspapers • Mark Tremayne, Amy Schmitz Weiss and Rosental Alves, University of Texas-Austin • Our study documents a steady increase in dynamic journalism on the websites of 24 U.S. newspapers, including a sharp rise in 2006 of multimedia elements, particularly video. This trend was apparent for smaller newspapers as well as large. While traditional news categories are the most common source of dynamic content, the growth is coming from coverage of weather, sports, crime and accidents. There also appears to be a rise in softer news.
Frames and Opinion in the Blogosphere: Testing Attitude Constraint in Political Blog Readers • Aaron Veenstra, Rosalyna Wijaya, Emily Acosta and Muzammil Hussain, University of Wisconsin-Madison • As blog readership increases, the question of how political blog readers differ from non-readers becomes more important to fully understanding the landscape of political attitude formation. Most extant research on blogs fails to address this question in some fundamental way – focusing on non-political blogs, focusing on bloggers rather than readers, or failing to separate blog readership from other types of Internet use.
Behind Closed Doors: China’s Internet Censorship and Its Implications on the Blogosphere • Shao-Jung Wang and Junhao Hong, University of Buffalo • This paper investigates the implications of regulation in China’s blogosphere and the extent to which it impacts bloggers from both a social and a cultural context. The abundant diary-style blogs and bloggers’ limited interest in politics demonstrate a new cultural phenomenon that obscures the impact of censorship on blogging. However, cyberspace creates the structure of surveillance environment, concentrated power and sustained inequality. China’s blogosphere has relatively little value as a medium for organized free speech.
The Digital Divide and the Knowledge Gap • Lu Wei and Douglas Hindman, Washington State University • Based on a national survey, it has been found that (1) the informational use of the Internet is more important than the access to the Internet in predicting political knowledge, (2) socio-economic status is more strongly associated with the informational use of the Internet than with that of the traditional media, and (3) the usage gap of the Internet is associated with a greater knowledge gap than is the usage gap of traditional media.
“Why do you read blogs and update your facebook page so much?”: Using psychological variables to predict specific Internet behaviors • John Wirtz and Julie Jones, University of Minnesota • The current study presents the results of an analysis of the relationship between four psychological variables-need for cognition (NFC), social comparison orientation (SCO), sensation seeking (SS), and need for uniqueness (NFU)-and three popular Internet behaviors. NFC explained variation in blog reading but not blogging or updates to myspace/facebook pages, while SCO explained variation in all three activities.
Breaking News on the Web: Top Story Life and News Topic and Type • Jin Xu, Winona State University • This research examines the relationship between the life and update of the online news top story and news topic and type. The research sample consists of the real-time updates to CNN.com’s top stories in nine randomly selected 72-hour periods. The findings show that the degree of timeliness is determined, to a large extent, by the topic and type of the top stories. The implications of the findings and further directions of this research are discussed.
Online Consumer Trust in the Context of Internet Experience-Exploring Antecedents and Consequences • Liuning Zhou, University of Southern California • Past studies have looked for determinants of online consumer trust in variables internal to the online shopping process or trusting disposition of online shoppers. It is a strategy for conceptual and empirical convenience. This study puts online consumer trust in the context of Internet experience, and examines variables external to the online transaction process. Results from a national random sample show that Internet ability and Internet perception have a significant impact on online consumer trust.
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