Yoonjae Nam

An Analysis of Self-Construals, Motivations, Facebook Use, and User Satisfaction

Rare studies have focused on how and why people use social networking sites (SNSs) utilizing individual-level variables such as self-construals and social/nonsocial motivations. This study proposes that the self-construal construct provides a good instrument for measuring the relationship between peoples understanding of self as a predictor of social computing (Facebook use) and satisfaction. A survey was conducted with students from a large western U.S. university. Results indicate that interdependent self-construal is associated with social-motivations to use SNS, and such motivations lead to satisfaction with SNS use. In contrast, independent self-construal failed to predict SNS use. This finding supports the need to examine the influence of “cultural self” and “social motivations” when interpreting social media use behavior. Suggestions for future research are addressed.

The Employment of Dialogic Principles in Website, Facebook, and Twitter Platforms of Environmental Nonprofit Organizations

The present study conducts cross comparisons among nonprofits’ leading Internet platforms regarding use of dialogic principles and investigates relationships between this use and financial capacity. A content analysis was conducted of three Internet platforms (website, Facebook, and Twitter) of 60 U.S.-based environmental nonprofit organizations. The results reveal that (1) 85% of the organizations use either Facebook or Twitter, (2) the overall extent of dialogic principle employment is the highest for the website, followed by Facebook and Twitter, (3) positive correlations are found only between the website and Twitter in the dialogic principles of the dialogic loop and the usefulness of information to the public, and (4) organizational financial capacity is positively correlated only with Twitter in the overall dialogic principle employment. The results indicate that, although nonprofits operate multiple Internet platforms for relation building with the public, they substantially rely on their websites and use Facebook and Twitter to supplement particular dialogic features that are limited on websites.

An analysis of the utilization of Facebook by local Korean governments for tourism development and the network of smart tourism ecosystem

We investigate the utilization of Facebook by local Korean governments for tourism development.Most local Koran governments actively manage Facebook to promote tourism with public.The level of local government affects the level of SNS use for tourism.Korean local governments Facebook pages are co-related as part of a smart tourism ecosystem.The smart tourism ecosystem is associated with governmental utilization of Facebook for activating local tourism. This study investigated the utilization of Facebook by local Korean governments for the purposes of tourism development. The results indicate that most local Korean governments actively manage online tools such as Facebook, to communicate with the public and offer a wide range of information to promote tourism. A notable finding is that the level of local governmental could affect the level of social networking site use for tourism. It is claimed that the varying level of social networking site use is because the scale of the tourism industry and the level of information and communication technology innovation could vary with different types of municipalities. Through network analyses, the study also shows that Korean local governments Facebook pages are co-related in the Facebook system as part of a smart tourism ecosystem, and that the smart tourism ecosystem facilitated by Facebook offerings is associated with governmental utilization of Facebook for activating local tourism.

Can web ecology provide a clearer understanding of people’s information behavior during election campaigns?:

This article examines the web ecology of the 2010 local elections in South Korea by using social science hyperlink analysis. The online networks of candidates were measured daily during the official campaign period. The results indicate that network dynamics among the candidates for education superintendent changed more rapidly as the campaign progressed than in the case of the mayoral candidates. However, the intensity of online networks for both campaigns was lower than for the country’s last presidential election, in 2007, suggesting that the web ecology of a given election is influenced by the perceived importance of the event and the general popularity of certain candidates. The results also suggest that producing and disseminating information, such as news articles, blog posts and tweets, reflects a more politically conscious action than referring to information via hyperlinks. Furthermore, the article sheds light on the ways in which hyperlink analysis serves as a research method for mining data for web ecology analysis, tracking political events at different points in time and illustrating the general landscape of electoral communication in cyberspace.

Communication media diffusion and substitutions: longitudinal trends from 1980 to 2005 in Korea

This study analyzes longitudinal trends in Korean use of (1) domestic mail, (2) international mail, (3) domestic telephone calls, (4) international outgoing telephone calls, (5) telex, (6) mobile telephones, (7) televisions and (8) the internet to examine the media’s displacement or supplementary effects.The results show that international mail, domestic telephone and telex can be best described by a quadratic indicating they are undergoing disadoption while the trends for domestic mail and international telephone calls show exponential growth. Correlations confirmed that new media have displaced international mail, domestic telephone and telex, yet they do not substitute for domestic letters and international telephone calls. Finally, television, mobile telephones and the internet are at the exponential or logistic growth stage and supplement each other.

Wireless Protesters Move Around: Informational and Coordinative Use of Information and Communication Technologies for Protest Politics

ABSTRACT This study explored information and communication technology (ICT) uses for protest politics, focusing on the case of a 2008 protest in Korea. Based on a survey of citizen activists (N = 322), it examined informational and coordinative uses of eight different ICTs for protest participation. The results indicated that heavy, moderate, and nonprotesters were differentiated, particularly regarding the use of Web sites of social movement organizations (SMOs), mobile phone, and e-mail. Across all types of protesters, the portal site was the most prominently utilized tool, while online micromedia showed little contribution. The findings call for the reconsideration of the waning role of SMOs in contemporary protest politics, and the differentiation of the public-oriented ICT from the private use of ICT regarding its contribution to expand civil society.

A semiotic analysis of sounds in personal computers: Toward a semiotic model of human-computer interaction

Abstract We compared three types of auditory interface in personal computing environments: verbal messages, earcons, and auditory icons. We applied Peirces sign theory to the three auditory interfaces to conceptualize verbal messages as “dicent symbol legisigns,” earcons as “dicent indexical legisigns,” and auditory icons as “remantic iconic sinsigns.” Based on theories of the triple triangle model for sign production (Kim, Semiotica 132: 75–100, 2000), we suggested that (a) the three auditory interfaces demand different levels of mental effort for interpretation and (b) the extent to which users are able to interpret the auditory signs of a computer correctly correlates to the communicability of its interface.

Does It Really Matter That People Zip through Ads? Testing the Effectiveness of Simultaneous Presentation Advertising in an IDTV Environment

In an IDTV environment, which facilitates self-scheduling, skipping advertisements by zipping is an emerging ad-avoidance behavior. This study explores whether an alternative ad format, called simultaneous presentation advertising (SPA), may overcome the limitations of classical sequential advertising (CSA) in controlling zipping behavior and increasing the effectiveness of ads. The experiment revealed that SPA is more effective than CSA in reducing zipping and increasing recall, but SPA was more intrusive and produced a negative product image. There was no difference regarding cognitive avoidance. This work discusses the implications of these findings in the interactive media environment.