An Empirical Study to Investigate Gratification of Use Using Social Media: Focused on Kazakhstan

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1 , pp An Empirical Study to Investigate Gratification of Use Using Social Media: Focused on Kazakhstan Ha Jin Hwang, Heon Baek 1 Introduction Recently, it is observed that the transition from the traditional communication methods to media based communication using internet and mobile devices are rapidly increasing. In Kazakhstan it is also noticed that the usage of social media has been continuously increasing and social media is easily available. Thanks to its availability over portable mobile devices, social media has become a main tool for information sharing and communication. This trend has contributed to not only the flow of information but also the development of social relationship. According to the previous researches, there have been many studies on how social media play roles of availability for tasks using media richness theory, social existence theory, how well social media can represents the characteristics of face to face communication, and how richness of media affect the communication on social media. However, there are not many researches conducted on the difference in the gratification of social media reflecting unique features and characteristics of social media. This study is conducted to explore the relationship of competency among social media using niche theory. This study is expected to identify market structure of social media and provide an opportunity for general overview of competency in social media market. 2 Research Methodology Fig. 1. Research Model ISSN: ASTL Copyright 2014 SERSC

net 1 Introduction Recently, it is observed that the transition from the traditional communication methods to media based communication using internet and mobile devices are rapidly increasing.

2 Information inquiry is designed as acquiring information and knowledge using social media. Collecting information about personal interests, hobbies, latest news, reports and professional areas is related to this factor. Social Relations factor is designed as feelings and communication with others using social media as well as sharing interest with others. Social existence factor is involved with the degree of perception on the feelings of humanness and friendliness as well as feelings of others who make influences on users. Richness of media factor is involved with how well social media deal with feedback, language expressions and to represent feelings and perception of users. This factor is concerned about easiness to make questions, availability of functions such as a voice tone, gesture and icons and flexibility in languages. The research model is designed to identify important factors which affect gratification of use over social media. Table Copyright 2014 SERSC

Social Relations factor is designed as feelings and communication with others using social media as well as sharing interest with others.

3 Continuing Table 1 3 Analysis of Research Findings Results of Niche Analysis <표 > Niche breadth Niche breadth is a standardized number, ranged 0 ~ 1, indicating the level of satisfaction for a particular factor. The closer the niche breadth is to 1, the more the media is satisfied by users. It was revealed that Utube and Facebook were considered to be widely accepted in terms of information inquiry factor. Only facebook was Copyright 2014 SERSC 127

The closer the niche breadth is to 1, the more the media is satisfied by users.

4 chosen in terms of social relation factor and all the media are considered to be satisfactory for richness of media factor. Finally, all media were not to be satisfactory for feelings of social existence factor since their niche breadth indicated less than 0.5. Table 2. Niche overlap Niche overlap deals with the degree of competency between two media over common resources or customers. The smaller the value of niche overlap, the higher the degree of competency exists. The high value of niche overlap indicates that the two media are independent each other. This research used 7 points scale which is ranged from 0 to 6. It was noticed that there was a competency between Twitter and Blog in terms of richness of media factor. It was also observed that UTube and Facebook have competency relationship in terms of richness of media. Table 3. Superiority Superiority determines the level of competency of social media. It measures how social media are dependent upon each other to satisfy user s requirement and expectations. Therefore, superiority tells relative competency level compare to other social media. Information described in the above tables can be summarized as follows. Information inquiry : Utube > Facebook = Blog > Twitter Social Relations : Facebook > Twitter = Blog > Utube Feeling of Social Existence : Facebook > Utube > Twitter = Blog Richness of Media : Utube > Facebook > Twitter = Blog 128 Copyright 2014 SERSC

Niche overlap Niche overlap deals with the degree of competency between two media over common resources or customers.

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Measuring Gratification of Social Media Use in Kazakhstan Using Niche Theory

, pp. 453-462 http://dx.doi.org/10.14257/ijmue.2014.9.12.39 Measuring Gratification of Social Media Use in azakhstan Using iche Theory Heon Baek 1, Ha Jin Hwang 2 1 Ph.D. Student, School of Business Administration,