What Factors Motivate People To Adopt And Use The Social Media Platforms?

Abstract

Growing numbers of individuals use social networking and instant messaging to communicate. This memoire investigates academic discourses regarding the factors motivating participation in social networking platforms. It is driven by the following question: What are the main factors identified as motivating people to adopt and use social networking platforms in three established fields of communications research? The approach taken to address this question involves analyzing literature published in three leading journals in the fields of communication studies, human computer interaction and information studies to identify areas of complementarity and differences across these fields. The findings suggest that across the three fields examined social influence factors are viewed as having the greatest impact on peoples’ commitment to social networking platforms, while the adoption of these platforms is impacted most greatly by a combination of individual and social factors.