| Popis: |
Despite the increased research on Social Network Services (SNSs) with Use and Gratification(U&G) Theory, most studies have focused on mainstream media. This paper presented a small-scaleexploratory investigation of Alternative Social Media (ASM) such as Mastodon arose and provided anew way to think about the interactions on this new SNS form. Moreover, to better understand thedifferences between them, we compared two gratification groups. The present study employedSurveyMonkey as the online survey tool and to apply questionnaires to the Mastodon-users only onfifteen different Mastodon-instances. Data were collected through this online questionnaire in 2021,using a representative sample (N=150). The survey results suggest that Mastodon users expect andobtain gratifications of "Convenience", "Privacy", "Information Seeking", and "Social Escapism andSupport". Moreover, of 7 Paired t-Tests for Gratifications Sought and Gratifications Obtained, threepairs (e.g., Information Seeking; Convenience; Privacy;) show that the most satisfying reasons for usersjoining and using Mastodon were the platform being informative, easy to use, and the privacy settingwill shelter users' information from data mining. This study's main contribution to social-scienceresearch is to discover why ASM such as Mastodon arose and provide a new way to think about this newSNS form's interactions. |
