TY - GEN
T1 - Understanding news sharing in social media from the diffusion of innovations perspective
AU - Ma, Long
AU - Lee, Chei Sian
AU - Goh, Dion H.
PY - 2013
Y1 - 2013
N2 - Social media is becoming increasingly used as sources of news. The present study thus investigates the factors that may influence news sharing behavior in social media. Based on the diffusion of innovations theory, we propose several influential factors derived from online social networks which include opinion leadership, homophily, tie strength, and news preference. By incorporating social network analysis with the support of other statistical methods, we found that opinion leadership was the strongest factor predicting news sharing, followed by news preference and tie strength. Notably, we looked into the phenomenon of homophily at the network and individual levels. While homophily existed at the network level, such similarity actually hampered news sharing in users' local networks. Implications of our work are also discussed.
AB - Social media is becoming increasingly used as sources of news. The present study thus investigates the factors that may influence news sharing behavior in social media. Based on the diffusion of innovations theory, we propose several influential factors derived from online social networks which include opinion leadership, homophily, tie strength, and news preference. By incorporating social network analysis with the support of other statistical methods, we found that opinion leadership was the strongest factor predicting news sharing, followed by news preference and tie strength. Notably, we looked into the phenomenon of homophily at the network and individual levels. While homophily existed at the network level, such similarity actually hampered news sharing in users' local networks. Implications of our work are also discussed.
KW - Diffusion of innovations theory
KW - News sharing
KW - Social media
KW - Social network analysis
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84893493089&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84893493089&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/GreenCom-iThings-CPSCom.2013.173
DO - 10.1109/GreenCom-iThings-CPSCom.2013.173
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:84893493089
SN - 9780769550466
T3 - Proceedings - 2013 IEEE International Conference on Green Computing and Communications and IEEE Internet of Things and IEEE Cyber, Physical and Social Computing, GreenCom-iThings-CPSCom 2013
SP - 1013
EP - 1020
BT - Proceedings - 2013 IEEE International Conference on Green Computing and Communications and IEEE Internet of Things and IEEE Cyber, Physical and Social Computing, GreenCom-iThings-CPSCom 2013
T2 - 2013 IEEE International Conference on Green Computing and Communications and IEEE Internet of Things and IEEE Cyber, Physical and Social Computing, GreenCom-iThings-CPSCom 2013
Y2 - 20 August 2013 through 23 August 2013
ER -