|
Article Excerpt
Since its inception, the Internet has been hailed because it is convenient, informative, resourceful, and entertaining. It has been estimated that over 54 million Americans go online each day (DiMaggio, Hargittai, Neuman, & Robinson, 2001). That number is still growing.
It is of theoretical and practical significance to examine dependency on the Internet. First, this line of study should further researchers' theoretical understanding of media and Internet dependency, and shed light on the relationship between people and new technologies. Second, research on Internet dependency should help integrate the study of interpersonal and mass communication, and provide insight into mediated communication. In this study, the authors examined the influence of key factors, especially motivation and involvement, on Internet dependency.
Investigating relationships among motivation, involvement, and dependency contributes to understanding of the Internet in several ways. First, although each construct has received extensive inquiry in the past, research investigations have been independent of each other so that links among these constructs are not clear. In particular, the role of involvement in relation to motivation and dependency in the new technology environment remains sketchy. Second, to facilitate researchers' understanding of new media, an inspection of the formative process of communication outcomes is essential (Lin, 1993; Perse, 1998; A. M. Rubin, 2002). Nonetheless, a lack of empirical evidence supporting such a formative process mitigates researchers' conceptualization of media outcomes such as Internet dependency. Understanding media dependency warrants consideration of the possible influence of motivation and involvement in the process. Third, as Greenwald and Leavitt (1984) argued, different media have "different potential for boosting involvement" (p. 590). The unique attributes of the Internet (e.g., combining personal and mediated channels), for example, may help enhance or mitigate effects on involvement (Eveland, 2003). Fourth, researchers have disagreed about how to conceptualize and operationalize constructs such as involvement and dependency in the Internet context. There is a need to clarify the systematic links among these concepts to advance the theorizing of new media research.
Below, relevant literature on motivation, involvement, and dependency are first reviewed. Second, based on the literature, the authors elaborate the rationale for the relationship among these constructs and propose specific research questions and hypotheses. Third, method and results are examined and discussed.
Literature Review
Motivation
Investigators have suggested the effectiveness of combining interpersonal and media motives to examine media use, especially the uses of newer media such as computers and the Internet (e.g., Papacharissi & Rubin, 2000; A. M. Rubin & Rubin, 1985, 2001). Several researchers have suggested that people use the Internet to fulfill interpersonal and media needs (e.g., Charney & Greenberg, 2002; Papacharissi & Rubin, 2000; Wright, 2002). Flaherty, Pearce, and Rubin (1998), for example, argued that people use the Internet to satisfy interpersonal needs (e.g., affection), needs traditionally gratified by the media (e.g., entertainment), and newer media needs (e.g., meeting others). These different types of needs drive a variety of motives for using the Internet.
Internet Motives. Research has shown that traditional media motives explain a significant portion of why people use the Internet. Ferguson and Perse (2000) found people watching television for diversion also tend to use the World Wide Web for diversion. Kaye (1998) compared Web use motives and television viewing motives and found similarities among them. Six prominent motives were identified for using the Internet: entertainment, social interaction, pass time, escape, information, and Web site preference. In a later study, Kaye and Johnson (2002) found people who obtained political information used the Internet for guidance, information seeking/surveillance, entertainment, and social utility.
People, though, might have greater incentive for using the Internet than for using traditional media. Ebersole (2000), for instance, found college students used the Internet for research and reading, for easy access to entertainment, for communication and social interaction, to relieve boredom, to access material otherwise unavailable, to obtain product information and technology support, to access games and sexually explicit sites, and to conduct consumer transactions. Sjoberg (1999) identified four popular reasons why Swedish teenagers use the Internet: surfing the Net, looking for information, chatting with others, and downloading programs.
Media Involvement
In media research, involvement pertains to media users' relationships with messages conveyed by media or with media (Levy & Windahl, 1985), media personae (A. M. Rubin & Perse, 1987), or other media users (A. M. Rubin & Step, 1997). A. M. Rubin and Perse (1987) conceptualized media involvement as "cognitive, affective, and behavioral participation during and because of exposure" (p. 247). The concept of media involvement places the locus of involvement within the individual rather than within messages. Moreover, media involvement stresses the interaction between audiences and external factors such as messages or media. This emphasis corresponds with Andrews, Durvasula, and Akhter's (1990) argument that consumers, not products, are the foci of involvement with advertising. To understand involvement, one needs to understand audiences, as involvement is vital for explaining the "role of active interactants in communication" (A. M. Rubin, 1998, p. 257).
Involvement and Audience Activity. The concept of audience activity has been a focus of many audience studies. The connection between activity and involvement is evident. Lin (1993) explained that audience activity is a construct describing audiences' involvement when using the media. Activity is mostly manifested in people's media motives (i.e., utility), selectivity, and involvement with messages (Blumler, 1979). Levy and Windahl (1984) identified two dimensions of audience activity: the orientation dimension included selectivity, involvement, and use; the temporal dimension covered activities before, during, and after exposure. They argued audience activity varies across different periods of media exposure.
Levy and Windhal (1984) focused on three types of activity: selectivity before exposure, involvement during exposure, and use after exposure. The first type of activity speaks to motives for using the media. The second type speaks to psychological engagement. The third type speaks to media utility and effects. Because these types of activities operate along a temporal dimension, such a relationship between motives, involvement, and uses should hold in a temporal order: media motives [right arrow] involvement [right arrow] media use and effects.
Media Involvement as a Mediator. Several researchers have investigated relationships among media motives, involvement, and effects. Perse (1990a) found instrumental viewing motivation positively related to elaboration, whereas ritualistic viewing motivation positively related to engaging in distracting behaviors. In other words, cognitive involvement was linked to instrumental motives more than to ritualistic motives. Perse (1990b) also found utilitarian motives for viewing local news were linked to cognitive involvement and angry feelings, and diversionary motives were related to happy feelings. In addition, A. M. Rubin and Step (1997) observed that information-seeking and entertainment motives were positive predictors of involvement with television talk-show content. And, Perse (1998) found instrumental motivation predicted cognitive and affective involvement (i.e., positive reactions) with television viewing. Ritualistic motivation predicted affective involvement (i.e., negative reactions), but not cognitive involvement.
Research has shown that cognitive involvement and affective involvement are interrelated and influence media use and outcomes (Perse, 1990a, 1990b). Perse (1998) suggested that people who were cognitively involved and experienced positive affect were less likely to change television channels when viewing. On the other hand, those who were less cognitively involved and experienced negative affect were more likely to change channels. Examining other links between involvement and media use, Henning and Vorderer (2001) found that people with a low need for cognition and unhappy feelings usually watched television more often than did their counterparts. They argued television viewing requires less thinking and cognition than other media, such as reading the newspaper; therefore, people who do not enjoy thinking are more likely to watch television. This suggests that cognition and affect influence media use.
In line with this thinking and research, the relationship between media motives, cognitive and affective involvement, and media use and outcomes can be illustrated as follows: media motives [right arrow] cognitive and affective involvement [right arrow] media use/effects. Here, cognitive involvement and affective involvement function as mediators between media motives and media use/effects.
Media Dependency
Investigators have suggested that media dependency is a relation reflecting how individuals' goals are conditional upon the resources media afford (e.g., Ball-Rokeach, 1985; Grant, Guthrie, & Ball-Rokeach, 1991). This conceptualization is crystallized as the individual media dependency (IMD) theory. Moreover, media dependency cannot be simplified as goals because dependency stresses a relation, whereas goals reflect an attribute (Ball-Rokeach, 1985).
IMD theory ties in with uses and gratifications theory (UGT), but also is at variance with such research in some respects. Grant et al. (1991) commented that both perspectives address the question "what do people do with media?" They argued uses and gratifications focuses on where individuals go to satisfy their needs, and IMD focuses on why an individual accesses this medium to achieve a goal. Ball-Rokeach (1985) contended that the formation of individual media dependency is determined by structural or macro factors, and social psychological factors of individuals....
|
