著者

柏原 勤

出版者

慶應義塾大学大学院社会学研究科

雑誌

慶應義塾大学大学院社会学研究科紀要 : 社会学・心理学・教育学 : 人間と社会の探究 (ISSN:0912456X)

巻号頁・発行日

no.72, pp.89-107, 2011

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論文This research examines the relationship between motives and frequency of Twitter use from theoretical framework of Uses and Gratifications. Twitter is an internet social service that makes it possible to send 140-charactaristics messages, called Tweets, to many and unspecific users or people, to read and receive Tweets of specific users which the individual chooses to follow in real-time (Tsuda, 2009). These past few years, Twitter has gained notability and popularity worldwide, especially in Japan.On the one hand, Twitter has many features similar to other internet services or applications, particulary SNS, but on the other hand shows the uniqueness of its architecture and the way of use such as live-reporting (jikkyou). It must be emphasized that Twitter visualizes the number, which means the number of other users by whom a user is followed and ReTweets (RTs). It anticipates that user's appraisal of this number may influence Twitter use because users can be gratified by increasing of it. Therefore, I apply user's appraisal of the number to framework of this research.Factor analysis of survey 314 Twitter users discovered the five types of motives for Twitter uses, communication/self-expression, keeping existing interpersonal relations, live-reporting (jikkyou)/information-seeking, self-presentation, relaxation. The motives for live-reporting (jikkyou)/information-seeking and self-presentation have not been identified in existing internet usage research based on Uses and Gratifications approach. Appraisal of the number is classified into two dimensions, gratification by the number and needs for the number by factor analysis. Four multiple regression model whose dependent variable is a variety of Twitter use, reading-TL, reading-except TL, Tweet, conversation found that communication/self-expression, keeping existing interpersonal relations, live-reporting (jikkyou)/information-seeking and relaxation positively predict the frequency of each Twitter use but self-presentation negatively predicts it. The reason why self-presentation shows negative effect on the frequency of Twitter use is presumed that this motive is difficult to achieve or diminishes as period of time of Twitter use is longer. However, neither gratification by the number nor needs for the number shows significant effect on the frequency of Twitter use. This result suggests that user's subjective and goal-oriented motives are more effective predictor than their appraisal of the number visualized in Twitter. This research is meaningful in terms of discovering live-reporting (jikkyou)/information-seeking as the motive and the way of internet use which were not conceptualized in previous internet studies.