research-article

Navigating Imagined Audiences: Motivations for Participating in the Online Public Sphere

Authors:

Heather Faucett,

Scott Robertson,

Sara DouglasAuthors Info & Claims

CSCW '15: Proceedings of the 18th ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing

Pages 1158 - 1169

https://doi.org/10.1145/2675133.2675187

Published: 28 February 2015 Publication History

Abstract

Little is known about why and how people use multiple social media platforms for political participation, or about the contexts through which social media is appropriated. This paper reports on a qualitative interview study of social media use by politically interested citizens. We interviewed 27 residents of the state of Hawaii who integrated one or more social media tools into their daily lives to participate in the online public sphere. Different social media environments offer both different affordances for action and different audiences, and we describe how media choice is driven by the match between motivations and affordances, and also by the imagined audience. We identified a number of motivations including understanding different viewpoints, formulating perspectives, engaging in positive discourse, repairing Hawaii's image, increasing political awareness and improving civic engagement. We discuss how these goals relate to both intrinsic and extrinsic motivations. Finally, we examine how social media choice and satisfaction were tied to the physical world context and people's sense of the audience within any particular medium.

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Cited By

Qin YDuan WWu QLu Z(2024)Dismantling Gender Blindness in Online Discussion of a Crime/Gender DichotomyProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36536868:CSCW1(1-31)Online publication date: 26-Apr-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3653686
Perin MMelo Lde Souza Cde Almeida AFigueira Filho F(2024)Developing and validating a scale for motivation in participating in time-bounded collaborative eventsInternational Journal of Human-Computer Studies10.1016/j.ijhcs.2024.103223185:COnline publication date: 1-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2024.103223
Zade HWilliams STran TSmith CVenkatagiri SHsieh GStarbird K(2023)To Reply or to Quote: Comparing Conversational Framing Strategies on TwitterACM Journal on Computing and Sustainable Societies10.1145/3625680Online publication date: 9-Oct-2023
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Index Terms

Navigating Imagined Audiences: Motivations for Participating in the Online Public Sphere
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Collaborative and social computing
    1. Collaborative and social computing theory, concepts and paradigms
      1. Computer supported cooperative work
2. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Computing and business
      1. Computer supported cooperative work

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cover image ACM Conferences

CSCW '15: Proceedings of the 18th ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing

February 2015

1956 pages

ISBN:9781450329224

DOI:10.1145/2675133

General Chairs:
Dan Cosley
Cornell University, USA
,
Andrea Forte
Drexel University, USA
,
Program Chairs:
Luigina Ciolfi
Sheffield Hallam University, UK
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David McDonald
University of Washington, USA

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Published: 28 February 2015

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https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3653686
Perin MMelo Lde Souza Cde Almeida AFigueira Filho F(2024)Developing and validating a scale for motivation in participating in time-bounded collaborative eventsInternational Journal of Human-Computer Studies10.1016/j.ijhcs.2024.103223185:COnline publication date: 1-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2024.103223
Zade HWilliams STran TSmith CVenkatagiri SHsieh GStarbird K(2023)To Reply or to Quote: Comparing Conversational Framing Strategies on TwitterACM Journal on Computing and Sustainable Societies10.1145/3625680Online publication date: 9-Oct-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3625680
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