EFFECTS OF SOCIAL PRESENCE ON SOCIAL MEDIA NATIVES: EXAMINATION OF SOCIAL MEDIA AUDIENCE WITH ON/OFFLINE EXPERIMENTS AND BRAIN MEASURES (FNIRS).

Date of Award

June 2019

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Mass Communications

Advisor(s)

Makana T. Chock

Second Advisor

Frank Biocca

Keywords

Empathy, Neuro Cognitive Psychology, Persuasion, Social Media early usage, Social Presence, Temporoparietal junction (TPJ)

Subject Categories

Social and Behavioral Sciences

Abstract

First of all, this study contributed to the scale development of Social Media Natives who are a generation that started to use social media from young ages. By combining several media usage scales, the Social Media Natives scale was developed in phase 1 through exploratory factor analysis (EFA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and elimination based on correlation analysis. This study also investigated when a persuasive information exposure on a social media page (vs. webpage), using different modalities and different types of the endorser, results how the Social Media Natives evaluate the content and the endorser. It also examines how engagement with the information and perceivers’ level of media usage affects how the message is received. In phase 2, an identical message was compared in different eight conditions that were manipulated with (a) modality of information (i.e., video vs. image) by (b) channel of information (i.e., social media vs. website) by (c) endorser (i.e., peer vs. medical doctor) while identifying how Social Media Natives moderate the feeling of social presence and also how mediated social presence affects the message, e.g., attitude on the content, and message sharing intention, health concern & para-social interaction. The path model results in phase 2 showed that combinatory of three IVs were positively associated with feelings of social presence while the Social Media Natives enhanced association. Based on phase 2 results, phase 3 conducted to check the neurological association between early social media usage and temporoparietal junction (TPJ) where social interaction and empathy are found. The findings of the on- and off-line experiments showed early age usage of social media results in fewer hemoglobin activities found in TPJ area where are known for users’ feelings of social presence and empathetic response. Therefore, the researcher suggests that early usage of social media may be harmful to the development of users’ empathetical processes.

Access

SURFACE provides description only. Full text may be available to ProQuest subscribers. Please ask your Librarian for assistance.

This document is currently not available here.

Share

COinS