Motives for Maintaining Personal Journal Blogs

Abstract

Although much has been learned about political and news blogs, there has been a lack of research on personal journal blogs. They deserve further research attention because of the implications blogs have in many bloggers' immediate social networks, as well as the opportunities for scientific inquiry in a rich and evolving communication environment. This study explored bloggers' motives for maintaining personal journal blogs, or blogs that resemble diaries about one's personal life. Stemming from the uses and gratifications perspective, antecedents (age, sex, loneliness, disclosiveness) and blogging motives composed a model for predicting the amount of blog use. Seven motives emerged from online survey data: helping/informing, social connection, pass time, exhibitionism, archiving/organizing, professionalism, and get feedback. Age, sex, loneliness, and disclosiveness predicted different motives, and the total model (age, sex, loneliness, disclosiveness, and motives) was useful for explaining 13% of the variance in the amount of blog use.

Introduction

One unique aspect of the Internet is the availability of opportunities to serve as both consumer and producer of content. Although some users may choose to “surf” the World Wide Web, taking in media content, others create their own content and use the Internet as a medium through which their voices can be heard. Blogging provides Internet users an outlet to create. Given the simple and free nature of current blogging Web sites, two large portions of the population in the United States has taken this opportunity to produce their own presence on the Web.¹ Through this presence, bloggers can engage in personal communication with others,² taking advantage of the interpersonal functions of the Internet.

Weblogs, or blogs, are a channel of computer-mediated communication in which users post updates in reverse chronological order.³ Approximately 11% of adults and 14% of teens online in the United States maintain blogs.¹ Although blogging activity has declined in recent years, the use of social-networking Web sites, such as Facebook, is very high.¹ More than 70% of online teens and almost half of online adults in the United States use social-networking Web sites.¹ A form of blogging is often included in social-networking sites, such as the “notes” function of Facebook or the “blog” function of MySpace. Given the prominence of text-based entries in traditional blogs and integrated into social-networking sites, it is important to examine the communication processes related to blogging.

The two prominent types of blogs are personal journal blogs and filter blogs.⁴ Personal journals are composed of shorter posts concerning the blogger's life and internal self, whereas filters are devoted to external content.⁴ Although personal journal blogs are the most commonly maintained blog,^4,5 they are not the most frequently researched. Instead, filter blogs devoted to external information, such as politics⁶ or news,⁷ dominate the scholarly conversation on blogging. These studies are often conducted on small samples.^6,8

Though discoveries made about political and news blogs have been fruitful, much is left to be learned about personal journal blogs. Personal journal blogs fulfill different roles in bloggers' lives, and although they may not be as widely read as filter blogs, they may have far-reaching impact for bloggers and their immediate social networks. The research that does exist on personal journal blogs has not uncovered the reasons why people maintain these Web sites. Examining the motives for blogging may provide an important component in our understanding of bloggers' behaviors.

The uses and gratifications perspective

The uses and gratifications perspective (U&G) was chosen to guide this study. Early in the development of a new technology, communication scholars make several attempts to understand why and how people use that medium. Stemming from a collection of studies in the 1940s through the 1970s on media use, U&G has since emerged as a helpful perspective for understanding how people use media to fulfill certain needs and motives.^9,10 This perspective was informed by a functional approach to communication, which poses that “an object is best defined by its use.”¹⁰ Unlike the direct effects models of the mechanistic perspective, U&G is a more limited effects perspective that rests, in part, on social and psychological antecedents of media use.¹⁰ Media use is embedded in a host of possible influences. It is the U&G researcher's responsibility to flesh out what individual differences mediate the effects of the media on the individual.¹¹ From this perspective, media use is goal-directed and active. Clearly, bloggers are active users of the media in that they are producers of media content, as well as consumers.

Toward an understanding of blogging motives

Thus far, much of the research on computer-mediated communication (CMC) has focused on motives of using the Internet as a whole^12,13 or particular types of Internet use (e.g., social-networking Web sites,¹⁴ seeking health information,¹⁵ online support groups,¹⁶ one-to-one chatting¹⁷). To date, few U&G studies exist that examine motives for blogging. Simply lumping all types of Internet use into one motive typology may not be helpful, considering the inherent differences between producing and consuming media.

A recent study examined citizen journalists' gratifications for generating content online.¹⁸ Four gratifications emerged: recognition, cognitive, social, and entertainment needs.¹⁸ These four needs seem to underlie the motivations for producers of Internet content. However, more investigation is needed to understand personal journal bloggers specifically.

A search of the literature revealed very few studies identifying motives for using personal journal blogs,^19,20 only one of which was guided by U&G.²¹ However, this study was on personal journal blogs that centered on bloggers' experiences with cancer. Due to the specific nature of Chung and Kim's²¹ study and the less systematic methods of previous research,^19,20 the present study builds on this research to explore the motives people have for maintaining their own personal journals.

Potential antecedents of blogging motives

A core assumption of U&G is that social and psychological factors affect the motives for using particular media.^9,10 Certain characteristics of bloggers themselves may predict both motives for blogging and subsequent blog use. Research in CMC and blogging specifically has shown that particular individual characteristics, such as age, sex, loneliness, and disclosiveness, may impact the ways in which people use media. These four individual characteristics may affect motives for blogging and blogging frequency.

Age is one individual characteristic that likely impacts motives for blogging, as well as blog use. Research has shown that age impacts blogging behaviors and content. Specifically, younger people are more likely to blog about personal experiences, and they are more likely to blog to keep in touch with others.¹⁹ Conversely, older bloggers are more likely to be motivated to blog to share their skills or knowledge with their readers.¹⁹

Sex appears to be a significant predictor of Internet behaviors, such as disclosiveness in CMC.^22,23 Lenhart and Fox¹⁹ found that women were more likely than men to be inspired to post to their blogs by a personal experience, which may suggest that they would be motivated to blog for different reasons. Additional researchers reported that more women than men maintained personal journal blogs.^4,24 Although studies have examined the impact of sex on certain behaviors, such as disclosing personal information, little is known about how sex may impact the motives for blogging. For example, if previous research on sex differences in online disclosure holds true, women may be more motivated to blog for self-expression and to communicate with others.

Loneliness is a psychological state in which people perceive their relations to be limited or deficient in terms of quantity or quality.^25,26 The blogosphere may be a haven for lonely people, and the effects of loneliness on online behavior have been explored by a number of researchers.^27–29 With regard to the effects of loneliness on CMC, two perspectives prevail. According to the social compensation hypothesis, people with less social contact will be more likely to use mass media.³⁰ Unsatisfied with their face-to-face (FtF) lives, lonely people may flock to the media to fulfill their unmet needs. McKenna et al.³¹ have applied this idea to the Internet, arguing that the reduced nonverbal cues of the Internet (e.g., visual anonymity) may help people who are socially anxious and lonely be more comfortable in their online communication. On the other hand, the social enhancement hypothesis is a competing prediction that posits that the Internet more often sets up a “rich-get-richer” environment. Sometimes, Internet users with extensive social networks and popularity increase their interaction online.³² Research has shown conflicting results concerning these competing hypotheses.^{27–29,33,34} Blogging is a useful context for testing these competing assumptions because of the potential for interaction and relating through this new media use.

Disclosiveness is “a generalized characteristic or trait of the individual representing that person's predilection to disclose self to other people in general.”³⁵ Stefanone and Jang² explored the role of disclosiveness on the intent for people's blog use. High revealers in their sample were more likely to use their blogs to stay in contact with friends and family. Disclosiveness has been included in other discussions of CMC,³⁶ as offline personality characteristics often impact online behaviors. Based on this research and the definition of personal journal blogs as containing information about the self, it is expected that the personality trait disclosiveness will impact blogging motives.

The present study

The purpose of this study is to explore the motives for maintaining personal journal blogs, as well as the varied predictors of these motives and the effects blogging motives have on blog use. Situated within the uses and gratifications theory, this study will provide a unique perspective of Internet users, primarily because little research exists on personal journal blogs and on users as producers of media content. Undoubtedly, the future of the Internet will include more and more opportunities for people to broadcast themselves. Therefore, this study represents a turn toward that trend among Internet users.

Stemming from the U&G perspective, three research questions guided this study.

RQ1: What are the motives for personal journal blogging?

RQ2: Which antecedents (age, sex, loneliness, disclosiveness) predict personal journal blogging motives?

RQ3: How do antecedents (age, sex, loneliness, disclosiveness) and personal journal blogging motives predict amount of blog use?

Method

This study used a cross-sectional survey design. Participants in this study completed an online questionnaire in the spring of 2008.

Participants

Participants were 299 English-speaking bloggers who responded to a call for research participation. There were certain restrictions to participate in this study. First, participants must have maintained personal journal blogs, which were defined in the call for participation as blogs that are composed of short posts concerning the blogger's life and internal self.⁴ Second, only bloggers who posted to their blogs at least once a month were asked to participate to ensure that participants were active bloggers.

The sample was primarily composed of females (n = 226, 75.6%; males n = 68, 22.7%). Participants' ages ranged from 18 to 70 years (M = 30.34, SD = 10.88). This sample represented a variety of ethnicities and locations. However, most participants were Caucasian (n = 231, 77.3%) and American (n = 245, 81.9%).

Participants were recruited in March and April of 2008 in multiple ways: requesting that individual bloggers take the survey and post an announcement on their blogs, contacting featured bloggers on Blogger.com and Xanga.com to post an announcement on their blogs, and posting announcements on various discussion boards and listservs that bloggers may read. Most of the bloggers contacted were found through the “random” feature available on Livejournal.com and Blogger.com, through the most recently updated blogs on Wordpress.com, or through blogrolls (a list of blogs that the blogger reads). These recruitment strategies were similar to those used in other blogging studies.^5,37,38 As argued by Johnson and Kaye,^7,39 it is near impossible to generate a random sampling of Internet users. Instead, this study relied on the nature of the blogosphere as a community to generate a sample of bloggers. Overall, this study was announced to 297 individual bloggers, eight discussion boards, and six listservs. Bloggers were invited to participate in the study and to announce the study to their friends or blog readers.

Procedure

Upon approval by the Human Subjects Review Board, an online survey was constructed for this study using SurveyMonkey.com. After providing informed consent, participants completed measures of loneliness, disclosiveness, blogging motives, amount of blog use, and demographic variables.

Instruments and measures

Loneliness

Loneliness was measured using a shortened, 10-item version of the Revised UCLA Loneliness Scale.⁴⁰ This version was successfully employed in a study of stress and burnout among teachers.^40,41 This scale asks participants to indicate how often on a scale from 1 (“never”) to 5 (“always”) they feel the way each item describes, such as “How often do you feel that you lack companionship?” Five of the items were reverse coded, and scores were summed and averaged (M = 2.60, SD = 0.68, α = 0.91), with higher scores representing more loneliness.

Disclosiveness

Disclosiveness, as an individual characteristic, was measured in this study with several items from Wheeless' Revised Self-Disclosure Scale (RSDS),⁴² including “I usually talk about myself for fairly long periods of time.” To measure disclosiveness, participants indicated how much they agreed (1 = “strongly disagree”, 5 = “strongly agree”) with each of five statements taken from the general version of the RSDS. Items were chosen based on their face validity to measure disclosiveness as a trait. Stefanone and Jang² used a similar method in their study. Two items were reverse-coded and the scores were summed and averaged, with higher scores indicating more disclosiveness (M = 3.01, SD = 0.71, α = 0.73).

Blogging motives

A measure of blogging motives was constructed for use in this study. Similar to other U&G studies of new technology,¹² a new assessment was constructed from qualitative data in a pilot study. Then, this measure was administered to the sample and subjected to factor analysis.

Potential blogging motives were drawn from multiple sources, including blogging research,^19,20 studies of personal home pages,^43,44 Internet motives research,¹³ and open-ended data from a pilot study of 102 undergraduate students. Sixty items were created to represent the motives taken from these sources and compiled into a motives index. Following focus groups with 22 undergraduate students to check the face validity of the scale and scrutiny by the researcher to eliminate redundancy, the preliminary version of the Blogging Motives Index administered in this study included 56 items. Several items were generated for each conceptual motive to ensure that proper subscale reliability could be established. This method is similar to other U&G research involving motive scales.^12,13

The Blogging Motives Index was used to assess participants' motives for maintaining blogs. The 56-item scale asked participants to indicate how much each item describes their reasons for blogging by choosing a response from 1 (“not at all”) to 5 (“exactly like my own reasons for blogging”). Responses were factor analyzed to reveal the latent factors of participants' blogging motives. After the exploratory factor analysis, responses on items composing each factor were summed and averaged to reveal a score for each participant. Means, standard deviations, and Cronbach's alphas for each motive are reported in the results section.

Amount of blog use

The amount of blog use was measured with one item that asked participants approximately how many times per month they posted to their blogs, on average. Participants who maintained more than one blog were instructed to respond to this question according to the blog they used most often. Bloggers in this study posted to their blogs an average of 15.36 times per month (SD = 12.46).

Demographic information

Participants reported their age, sex, ethnicity, and country of residence to describe the sample. Age and sex were also used to address the study's research questions.

Results

Blogging motives

Research question 1 asked what motives people had for maintaining personal journal blogs. To address this question, a two-stage principal components factor analysis with varimax rotation was conducted on the data from the Blogging Motives Scale. The initial factor analysis revealed 13 factors with eigenvalues of at least 1. The researcher examined each item, eliminating those variables that did not cleanly load on only one factor. Items loading with at least a 0.59 on only one factor were retained for further analysis. Twenty items were eliminated following this process.

A second exploratory factor analysis with varimax rotation was conducted on the remaining 36 items to refine the factor structure further. The second exploratory factor analysis revealed eight factors in the rotated factor structure with cleanly loaded items, and the scree plot supported an eight-factor solution. The eighth factor only contained two items with a bivariate correlation of 0.34 (p < 0.001). Because this correlation was not high, the eighth factor was dropped. Therefore, the final solution contained 25 items, accounting for 58.22% of the variance. Table 1 displays the final seven-factor solution, including each factor's eigenvalue.

Table 1.

Factor Loadings for Final Seven-Factor Solution of Blogging Motives

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
To motivate others	0.84
To help others	0.77
To share information that may be of use to others	0.76
To share my knowledge and skills	0.72
To show others encouragement	0.70
To communicate about a special interest or issue that I care about	0.64
To share information with my friends and family who do not live near me		0.89
To communicate to my friends and family		0.85
To share information with people that I don't talk to on a regular basis		0.79
To communicate to many people at once, rather than telling one at a time		0.69
To pass time			0.84
To occupy my time			0.82
Because I have nothing better to do			0.80
For attention				0.72
To gain fame or notoriety				0.72
Because I like when people read things about me				0.62
To record my thoughts and feelings so I can reflect on them					0.81
Because it helps me organize my thoughts and feelings					0.69
Because I can read what I wrote in previous posts					0.65
To help me get a job						0.83
To put my professional resume on the Web						0.76
Because I have to for a class or job						0.64
To get more points of view							0.72
To get advice from my readers							0.71
To get feedback from others who have similar experiences							0.65
Eigenvalue	7.07	3.53	2.98	2.43	1.76	1.68	1.51
Variance explained (%)	19.65	9.79	8.27	6.76	4.88	4.68	4.20

The first factor, helping/informing, accounted for 19.65% of the variance and included six items. Participants who blogged for helping/informing did so because they wanted to motivate, help, and encourage others by sharing information, as well as to communicate their knowledge and skills. A mean index was computed by averaging the items (M = 3.42, SD = 0.90, α = 0.86).

The second factor that emerged was social connection (M = 3.34, SD = 1.20, α = 0.85). This factor consisted of four items and explained 9.79% of the variance. This motive suggested that people blogged to share information with and communicate with friends and family members with whom they may not talk on a regular basis. Participants who blogged for this motive also maintained blogs to send messages to many people at once, rather than one at a time.

Pass time explained 8.27% of the variance (M = 2.52, SD = 1.14, α = 0.84). The pass-time motive included blogging to pass time, to occupy time, and because there is nothing else to do. The pass-time motive was composed of three items.

Exhibitionism, the fourth factor, was comprised of three items (M = 2.45, SD = 0.97, α = 0.70). This factor explained 6.76% of the variance. People who scored high on exhibitionism blogged for attention, to gain fame, and because they thought people liked to read things about them.

The fifth factor was labeled archiving/organizing (M = 3.93, SD = 0.89, α = 0.72), and it included three items. This factor accounted for 4.88% of the variance in the final solution. Blogging for archiving/organizing included blogging to record thoughts and feelings for further reflection, to organize thoughts and feelings, and to read what was written in previous posts.

Sixth was the professionalism blogging motive, which was comprised of three items and explained 4.68% of the variance (M = 1.41, SD = 0.72, α = 0.74). People who blogged for this reason did so to help get a job, to put their resume on the Web, and because they were required to for a job or school.

The last factor, get feedback, contained three items. This factor explained 4.20% of the variance (M = 3.31, SD = 1.07, α = 0.78). Participants who blogged to get advice and more points of view from others, as well as to get feedback from others who have had similar experiences, were motivated by get feedback.

Effects of antecedents on blogging motives

Research question 2 was posed to address the potential effects of age, sex, loneliness, and disclosiveness on each blogging motive. A series of multiple regressions were conducted. In each regression analysis, the four antecedents (age, sex, loneliness, and disclosiveness) were entered as predictor variables. Each emerging blogging motive served as an outcome variable. Taken together, these four antecedent variables significantly predicted the variance in helping/informing, social connection, pass time, exhibitionism, and archiving/organizing (see Table 2). However, age, sex, loneliness, and disclosiveness did not account for a significant amount of variance in the professionalism, F(4, 285) = 2.25, p = 0.06, or get feedback motives, F(4, 285) = 1.37, p = 0.24. Although specific variables individually predicted these motives, these relationships should not be interpreted because the overall regression model was not significant for these two motives.

Table 2.

Regressing Blogging Motives on Antecedent Variables

	Age	Gender	Loneliness	Disclosiveness
	β	β	β	β	R²
Helping/informing	0.18^**	−0.05	0.01	0.11	0.05^**
Social connection	−0.06	0.08	−0.12^*	0.12^*	0.05^**
Pass time	−0.13^*	0.03	0.18^**	0.05	0.05^**
Exhibitionism	0.04	−0.11	0.15^*	0.25^***	0.08^***
Archiving/organizing	−0.04	0.21^***	0.07	0.04	0.05^**
Professionalism	−0.06	−0.16^**	−0.08	−0.02	0.03
Get feedback	−0.01	0.06	0.06	0.12^*	0.02

All betas are standardized betas.

p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001.

Table 2 lists all standardized betas in regressing blogging motives on antecedent variables, revealing the individual predictors of each motive. This study found that age impacted the helping/informing and pass-time motives. Older participants were more likely to blog to help and inform others, and younger bloggers were more likely to blog to pass time. Sex predicted the archiving/organizing motive in that women were more likely to blog for this reason than men. Loneliness affected social connection, pass time, and exhibitionism. Lonelier participants were more likely to blog to pass time and for exhibitionism, whereas less lonely participants blogged more often for social connection. Finally, more disclosive participants were likely to blog for social connection and exhibitionism.

Effects of antecedents and blogging motives on amount of blog use

A hierarchical multiple regression was conducted to examine the impact of antecedent variables and blogging motives on amount of blog use, as addressed in research question 3. Age, sex, loneliness, and disclosiveness were entered in the first step, followed by the seven blogging motives in the second step. The amount of blog use, defined as how often, on average, participants posted to their most frequently used blog each month, served as the outcome variable.

The overall model explained 12.7% of the variance in amount of blog use, F(11, 269) = 3.56, p < 0.001. The first model, containing antecedents as the only tested predictors, explained 6.2% of the variance, F(4, 276) = 4.56, p < 0.001. Blogging motives entered on the second step of the regression explained an additional 6.5% of variance in amount of blog use, F change(7, 269) = 2.87, p < 0.01. Clearly, both antecedents and blogging motives are meaningful contributors in predicting amount of blog use.

Despite the large impact that these variables collectively made on amount of blog use, only three variables individually predicted the outcome variable on the last step of the analysis: age, helping/informing, and pass time (see Table 3). Older participants, bloggers interested in helping and informing others through their blogs, and people blogging to pass time posted more frequently than others.

Table 3.

Individual Betas in Regressing Amount of Blog Use on Antecedents and Blogging Motives

	Amount of blog use
	β
Age	0.21^***
Gender	0.00
Loneliness	−0.09
Disclosiveness	0.03
Helping/informing	0.18^*
Social connection	−0.06
Pass time	0.13^*
Exhibitionism	0.02
Archiving/organizing	0.09
Professionalism	−0.10
Get feedback	−0.01

All betas are final betas on the last step of the regression. Final R² = 0.13, p < 0.001.

p < 0.05; ***p < 0.001.

Discussion

This study has explored one social use of the Internet that is communicated to a mass audience. In this study, a new typology of motives for maintaining personal journal blogs was developed using data from an online survey of bloggers. These motives included helping/informing, social connection, pass time, exhibitionism, archiving/organizing, professionalism, and get feedback. Participants reported the highest scores on archiving/organizing, helping/informing, social connection, and get feedback. Professionalism was the least reported of the motives. Age, sex, loneliness, and disclosiveness predicted the particular motives, which revealed interesting findings related to blogging motives. Additionally, these antecedents and blogging motives were useful in predicting amount of blog use.

Unlike much previous research that explores Internet users as consumers, this study identifies the unique motives of bloggers as producers of content. Several of the motives found in this study align with existing research. For example, passing time or relieving boredom has been found in many types of media use, including the Internet^13,45 and maintaining personal home pages.^43,44 Social connection is also an established motive of Internet use^12,13,45 and personal home pages.^41,42 It is also well known that people use the Internet¹² and personal home pages^43,44 for professional advancement. It appears that blogs too can be used to further one's career. Bloggers may actually be compensated for maintaining their blogs, according to anecdotal evidence from this study.

The remaining motives are somewhat unique to the context of blogging. Information-seeking is one Internet motive that fits the content consumer role of Internet users well.^12,13,45 Conversely, as content creators, bloggers instead create and share information in their blogs. Papacharissi⁴⁴ found this motive among users of personal home pages. However, in blogs, there was also a helping component to this motive. Participants shared information to help others in some way, which may communicate a sense of caring and support for their audiences.

Exhibitionism, archiving/organizing, and get feedback were new motives that were not found in existing literature. Some bloggers appeared to crave attention, and in so doing, they revealed private information that may entertain others and help them to gain popularity or fame. Blogs were also reported to be useful for archiving and organizing bloggers' thoughts or ideas. This finding suggests that blogs serve as an online journal or diary for some bloggers. Finally, unlike other functions of the Internet, such as personal home pages, people sometimes blogged to elicit feedback or advice from their readers. This motive points to the interpersonal nature of blogs, in which a community of bloggers may forge relationships through the medium.

As expected in the U&G perspective, antecedent variables had an impact on participants' motives for blogging. Older participants were more likely to blog to help and inform others, whereas younger bloggers were more likely to blog to pass time or out of boredom. Women were more likely than men to blog to archive and organize their thoughts. Participants who scored higher in disclosiveness were more likely to blog for exhibitionism.

Loneliness had somewhat contradictory effects on blogging motives. Lonely participants were less likely to blog to establish and maintain social connections with others. This finding supports the social enhancement hypothesis in that the “rich get richer.”³² Less lonely participants sought social connections through their blogs, much like they do in the FtF context. On the other hand, some truth was found for the social compensation hypothesis.³⁰ Lonely bloggers were more likely to blog to get attention or for exhibitionism.

Not surprisingly, bloggers who were generally more disclosive in their FtF lives were more likely to blog for social connection, as found in existing research.² Self-disclosure has long been considered fundamental to relationship development.⁴⁶ Therefore, it seems logical that disclosive people would be more interested in creating and maintaining relationships through their blogs.

The model, informed by U&G, significantly explained 13% of the variance in the amount of blog use. This amount of explained variance suggests that some variables appear to be missing from the model. Future studies may expose additional antecedents that help to explain the frequency with which bloggers post.

Limitations and future research

This study's findings must be interpreted with the limitations in mind. In addition to the limitations normally associated with cross-sectional survey research design, there were also limitations resulting from the sampling techniques. Sampling was convenient, and participants self-selected into the sample. Although English-speaking bloggers from across the globe were able to participate in the survey, the majority of the sample was Caucasian Americans. Therefore, it is possible that this sample may not be an accurate representation of the population of personal journal bloggers, especially when considering a global perspective.

Given this study's limitations, there are many avenues for future research. Psychological and sociological variables may be added to better predict the motives of bloggers. For example, narcissistic bloggers may be more likely to blog for exhibitionism. Extroversion could also potentially affect blogging motives, such as social connection. Now that the motives for maintaining personal journal blogs have been established, future studies should attempt to flesh out our understanding of the multiple factors that play a role in blog use.

In addition to blogs, channels such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are available for Internet users to broadcast themselves, and more technologies are likely to come. The motives for blogging found in this study can apply to these other social media applications as well, as these sites often incorporate some type of blogging in their format. Future researchers should test this typology in more complex social-networking Web sites, such as Facebook, to further our knowledge on motives of new media use.

It would be helpful for researchers to expand this typology in other types of Internet channels that allow for creation of content. Perhaps certain motives can be gratified more clearly using other channels. For example, the exhibition motive seems suited for YouTube, which allows users to upload videos for anyone to view. It is clear from other studies of social media that socially driven motives are directing the use of these channels.^14,47,48 Future research on social uses of the Internet would benefit from a broader application of motives to multiple producer-enabled channels of the Internet. Such a study could lead to a typology of motives for Internet producers, applicable across contexts. It is the researcher's hope that this study has taken a step in that direction by exploring blogging motives. This work is just beginning, as these social functions of the Internet are still in their infancy.

Footnotes

Acknowledgments

This manuscript is derived from the author's doctoral dissertation. The author wishes to thank her advisor, Dr. Nichole Egbert, and committee members, Drs. Paul Haridakis, Jeffrey Child, and Rafa Kasim, for their careful reviews of this research. A version of this manuscript was presented at the 2009 conference of the National Communication Association, Chicago, IL.

Disclosure Statement

No competing financial interests exist.

References

Lenhart

, Purcell

, Smith

et al. 2009. Social media and mobile Internet use among teens and young adults. Pew Internet & American Life Project. http://www.pewinternet.org/∼/media//Files/Reports/2010/PIP_Social_Media_and_Young_Adults_Report.pdf. 2010 May 4.

Stefanone

, Jang

. Writing for friends and family: The interpersonal nature of blogs. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 2007; 13article 7http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol13/issue1/stefanone.html. 2010 May 4.

Herring

. Slouching toward the ordinary: Current trends in computer-mediated communication. New Media & Society, 2004; 6:26–36.

Herring

, Scheidt

, Wright

, Bonus

. Weblogs as a bridging genre. Information Technology & People, 2005; 18:142–71.

Viegas

. Bloggers' expectations of privacy and accountability: An initial survey. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 2005; 10article 12http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol10/issue3/viegas.html. 2010 May 4.

Trammell

, Williams

, Postelnicu

et al. (2006) Evolution of online campaigning: Increasing interactivity in candidate Web sites and blogs through text and technical features. Mass Communication & Society, 2006; 9:21–44.

Johnson

, Kaye

. Wag the blog: How reliance on traditional media and the Internet influence credibility perceptions of weblogs among blog users. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 2004; 81:622–42.

Singer

. The political j-blogger: ‘Normalizing’ a new media form to fit old norms and practices. Journalism, 2005; 6:173–98.

Katz

, Blumler

, Gurevitch

. 1974. Utilization of mass communication by the individual. Blumler

, Katz

. The uses of mass communications: Current perspectives on gratifications research. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 19–32.

10.

Rubin

. 2002. The uses-and-gratifications perspective of media effects. Bryant

, Zillman

. Media effects: Advances in theory and research, 2nd. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 525–48.

11.

Rosengren

. 1974. Uses and gratifications: A paradigm outlined. Blumler

, Katz

. The uses of mass communications: Current perspectives on gratifications research. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 269–86.

12.

Charney

, Greenberg

. 2002. Uses and gratifications of the Internet. Lin

, Atkin

. Communication technology and society: Audience adoption and uses. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton, 379–407.

13.

Papacharissi

, Rubin

. Predictors of Internet use. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 2000; 44:175–96.

14.

Raacke

, Bonds-Raacke

. MySpace and Facebook: Applying the uses and gratifications theory to exploring friend-networking sites. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 2008; 11:169–74.

15.

Yoo

, Robbins

. Understanding middle-aged women's health information seeking on the web: A theoretical approach. Journal of the American Society for Information Science & Technology, 2008; 59:577–90.

16.

Wright

. Motives for communication within on-line support groups and antecedents for interpersonal use. Communication Research Reports, 2002; 19:89–98.

17.

Peter

, Valkenburg

, Schouten

. Characteristics and motives of adolescents talking with strangers on the Internet. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 2006; 9:526–30.

18.

Leung

. User-generated content on the Internet: An examination of gratifications, civic engagement and psychological empowerment. New Media & Society, 2009; 11:1327–47.

19.

Lenhart

, Fox

. 2006. Bloggers: A portrait of the Internet's new storytellers. Pew Internet & American Life Project. http://www.pewinternet.org/reports/2006/Bloggers.aspx. 2010 May 4.

20.

Nardi

, Schiano

, Gumbrecht

et al. Why we blog. Communications of the ACM, 2004; 47:41–6.

21.

Chung

, Kim

. Blogging activity among cancer patients and their companions: Uses, gratifications, and predictors of outcomes. Journal of the American Society for Information Science & Technology, 2008; 59:297–306.

22.

Peter

, Valkenburg

, Schouten

. Developing a model of adolescent friendship formation on the Internet. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 2005; 8:423–30.

23.

Punyanunt-Carter

. An analysis of college students' self-disclosure behaviors on the Internet. College Student Journal, 2006; 40:329–31.

24.

Lenhart

, Madden

. 2005. Teen content creators and consumers. http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/166/report_display.asp. 2010 May 4.

25.

Perlman

, Peplau

. 1981. Towards a social psychology of loneliness. Gilmour

, Duck

. Personal relationships: Vol. 3. Personal relationships in disorder. London: Academic, 31–56.

26.

Rubin

, Perse

, Powell

. Loneliness, parasocial interaction, and local television news viewing. Human Communication Research, 1985; 12:155–80.

27.

Valkenburg

, Peter

. Preadolescents' and adolescents' online communication and their closeness to friends. Developmental Psychology, 2007; 43:267–77.

28.

Caplan

. Preference for online social interaction: A theory of problematic Internet use and psychosocial well-being. Communication Research, 2003; 30:625–48.

29.

Leung

. Loneliness, self-disclosure, and ICQ (“I seek you”) use. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 2002; 5:241–51.

30.

Davis

, Kraus

. Social contact, loneliness, and mass media use: A test of two hypotheses. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 1989; 19:1100–24.

31.

McKenna

KYA

, Green

, Gleason

MEJ

. Relationship formation on the Internet: What's the big attraction? Journal of Social Issues, 2002; 58:9–31.

32.

Valkenburg

, Schouten

, Peter

. Adolescents' identity experiments on the Internet. New Media & Society, 2005; 7:383–402.

33.

Gross

, Juvonen

, Gable

. Internet use and well-being in adolescence. Journal of Social Issues, 2002; 58:75–90.

34.

Zywica

, Danowski

. The faces of Facebookers: Investigating social enhancement and social compensation hypotheses; predicting Facebook and offline popularity from sociability and self-esteem, and mapping the meanings of popularity with semantic networks. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 2008; 14:1–34.

35.

Wheeless

. Self-disclosure and interpersonal solidarity: Measurement, validation, and relationships. Human Communication Research, 1976; 3:47–61.

36.

Walther

. Computer-mediated communication: impersonal, interpersonal, and hyperpersonal interaction. Communication Research, 1996; 23:3–43.

37.

Kaye

. It's a blog, blog, blog, blog world. Atlantic Journal of Communication, 2005; 13:73–95.

38.

Qian

, Scott

. Anonymity and self-disclosure on weblogs. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 2007; 12article 14http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol12/issue4/qian.html. 2010 May 4.

39.

Kaye

, Johnson

. Online and in the know: Uses and gratifications of the Web for political information. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 2002; 46:54–71.

40.

Russell

. UCLA Loneliness Scale (version 3): Reliability, validity, and factor structure. Journal of Personality Assessment, 1996; 66:20–40.

41.

Russell

, Altmaier

, Van Velzen

. Job-related stress, social support, and burnout among classroom teachers. Journal of Applied Psychology, 1987; 72:269–74.

42.

Wheeless

. A follow-up study of the relationships among trust, disclosure, and interpersonal solidarity. Human Communication Research, 1978; 4:143–57.

43.

Jung

, Youn

, McClung

. Motivations and self-presentation strategies on Korean-based “Cyworld” weblog format personal homepages. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 2007; 10:24–31.

44.

Papacharissi

. The self online: the utility of personal home pages. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 2002; 46:346–68.

45.

Ebersole

. Uses and gratifications of the web among students. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 2000; 6. http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol6/issue1/ebersole.html. 2010 May 4.

46.

Altman

, Taylor

. 1973. Social penetration: The development of interpersonal relationships. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

47.

Haridakis

, Hanson

. Social interaction and co-viewing with YouTube: Blending mass communication reception and social connection. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 2009; 53:317–35.

48.

Joinson

. 2008. “Looking at,” “looking up” or “keeping up with” people? Motives and uses of Facebook. Proceedings of the 26th Annual SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.