HOW TO ENGAGE READER, Conversation is key and as the communication landscape shifts rapidly, harnessing e is pivotal in extending story

as digital evolves, catapulting publishing from analogue to digital. (Alison Norrington, Harnessing e in Storyworlds: Engage, Enhance, Experience, Entertain, Publishing Research Quarterly; Jun2010, Vol. 26 Issue 2, p96-105, ) The uptake of social media in news organisations is growing and today journalists are romancing new communities by blogging and posting updates and stories on Twitter, YouTube and Facebook, (Emmett, 2008). p.2. (Stassen, Wilma, 2010, Your news in 140 characters: exploring the role of social media in journalism.. Global Media Journal: African Edition; 2010, Vol. 4 Issue 1, p1-16) facebook As Heiberger and Harper (2008: p. 24) articulate, facebook is a synthesis of many Internet-based communication tools integrating static user-designed Webs (personal pages), synchronous (instant messages) and asynchronous chats (wall posts), picture uploading, group formation, event hosting, Web development tools, dynamic searches, RSS feeds (news feeds), blogs (web logs), mass and individual messaging, and e-mail, plus two unique qualities: networks and friends.It is estimated that around 110 million members use Facebook (Lyons, 2008). p. 77-78 (Arikan, Arda, A Closer Look into Prospective English Language Teachers' Social-Networking Activities., E-proceedings of the International Online Language Conference (IOLC); 2009, p7783, 7p, 4 Charts) Technology The transformation from the virtual communities based around text-intensive discussion boards to the social network sites was made possible by two major developments in the technological sphere availability of powerful digital machines, and the wide-spread penetration of high-speed data connections. p. 2 Creating a Presence on Social Networks via Narbs.Full Text Available By: Mitra, Ananda. Global Media Journal: American Edition, Spring2010, Vol. 9 Issue 16, p1-18.

All communities, online and off, seek to motivate members to participate and continue contributing to the betterment of the group (Kanter, 1972; Olson, 1965). Whether posting messages, welcoming newcomers, building information databases, or helping to administrate the groups policy, online communities need member contributions to survive. p. 32 Wikipedia makes an excellent site for digital research because almost all activities on the site, including details of article edits and interpersonal communication, are archived and freely available for download. This data, plus our access to SuggestBots internal logs, allowed us to obtain a complete, time-stamped record4 of (a) who has adopted SuggestBot, (b) who has interacted with whom, and (c) who has edited articles suggested by SuggestBot. The data also allow us to find nonadopters, a much overlooked segment in existing diffusion research (Rogers, 2003) to compare and contrast with adopters. Finally, because all the data collected have a precise time stamp, the resulting empirical measurements can be arranged along a clear temporal order, which gives us more power to make causal inferences. Overall, we believe that our work can contribute to diffusion of innovation research from multiple

dimensions. p.34 In Wikipedia, we anticipate that highly involved editors are more likely to adopt SuggestBot because these people are more committed to improve the quality of Wikipedia entries. Just as Rogers has found that innovativenessvaluing new technologies leads to a greater propensity to adopt technologies in general (Rogers, 2003), we expect that involvement in Wikipediaevidence of valuing the community will lead to a greater propensity to adopt technologies related to Wikipedia.

The Diffusion of a Task Recommendation System to Facilitate Contributions to an Online Community.Full Text Available By: Yuan, Y. Connie; Cosley, Dan; Welser, Howard T.; Ling Xia; Gay, Geri. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Oct2009, Vol. 15 Issue 1, p32-59, The new mode of Internet, called Web 2.0, is a place which people actively use to share their emotions, thoughts, experiences, and memories on a daily basis. Additionally, they do not only share all of these in written format, but also express themselves visually by using photos and videos through social networks. In Web 2.0 and its phenomenon characteristic User Generated Content (UGC), consumers not only create their own advertisements but also act in them. This could be very beneficial for marketers in terms of understanding customers and reaching a wide range of target audiences. However, this situation shifts the balance of power from marketing practitioners to Internet users, which could create serious challenges for the marketing world. Consumers can promote a product but they can also jeopardize its brand equity, which can be mitigated by brand owners keeping close tabs on consumers. p. 138

Web 2.0 describes the second generation of Web-based services that have gained massive popularity by letting people collaborate and share information online in previously unavailable ways and includes social networking sites, wikis, blogging and podcasting (Reactive, 2007, p.3). The common bond of social networks, wikis, podcasts et al, is that Web-based information is now in the hands of the public, and they can create, share, listen, read and even sell this information in ways that suit them. This new form of Internet offers various opportunities to marketers who are eager to adopt and use it in order to engage with customers and develop loyalty which also requires strategic way of thinking.(p.141) social media Based on the information given about Web 2.0 and UGC, social media can be defined as a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of User Generated Content (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010, p.61) and include Wikipedia, YouTube, Facebook, and SecondLife. Hansen, Shneiderman, and Smith (2011, 12) define social media as a set of online tools that supports social interaction between users. As Kietzmann et al. (2011)

indicate, social media presents an enormous challenge, as many established management methods are inappropriate for customers who no longer want to be talked at, but listened to, engaged with and responded to. However, managers should not forget to consider social media as one integral part of overall marketing communications strategies, and thus avoid risk and achieve consistency when involving this new media in overall. p.142 User-generated content constitutes the data, information, or media produced by the general public rather by professionals on the Internet (Arriga and Levina, 2008; Daugherty, Eastin, and Bright, 2008). Digital video, blogging, podcasting, mobile phone, photography, wikis, social networks, and user-forum posts can be given as examples of such online content (elen, Kariv, and Schotter 2010). According to eMarketer (2007)s research results, 142 approximately 69.6 million Internet user generate content and 75.2 million users used or visited UGC web sites in the United States, and this figure is expected to increase up to 101 million in 2011. In 2007 approximately 60% of European online users used UGC (Carrera et al., 2008). As an increasing number of people use and generate UGC it can be said that Web 2.0 is providing consumers with many tools to find information, examine alternative offers, share ideas and/or experiences, make comments in large variety of forms, influence others, and so on. Examples of UGC activities that people are using on the web include: reading or writing blogs, reading or writing customer reviews, taking part in social networking sites, listening to podcasts and setting up RSS feeds (Carrera et al., 2008). (p. 142-143) Consumer As Advertiser: A Conceptual Perspective.Full Text Available By: Uzunolu, Ebru. Global Media Journal: Turkish Edition, Sep2011, Vol. 2 Issue 3, p138-159, Brings together, protests The participants of the unibrennt (university is burning) protest movement, which saw the occupation of Vienna's largest lecture hall by students in October 2009, used social media such as Twitter and Facebook to a large extent. Communication, thus, was anchored in the participants' interconnected individual and personal (online) networks, so both in- and out-group communication took place within a media space that is referred to as networked publics. p.171 A MOVEMENT OF CONNECTED INDIVIDUALS.Detail Only Available By: Maireder, Axel; Schwarzenegger, Christian. Information, Communication & Society, Mar2012, Vol. 15 Issue 2, p171-195, The discursive construction of class, green political orientations, and identities; visions of the good life; and appeals to religion and science are highlighted throughout the analysisas are the discursive strategies for positioning self, other, and audience in the debate. Unravelling the Threads: Discourses of Sustainability and Consumption in an Online Forum.Detail Only Available By: Cooper, Geoff; Green, Nicola; Burningham, Kate; Evans, David; Jackson, Tim. Environmental Communication, Mar2012, Vol. 6 Issue 1, p101-118 Social exchange via personal blogs challenges traditional norms regarding interpersonal communication due to the typically non-directed nature of self-disclosure inherent in blogging. The results from a survey of 145 bloggers from 32 countries suggest that bloggers' selfdisclosure tendencies and their inclination to target their content towards strong-tie networks are positively associated with the adoption of traditional self-disclosure norms when using blogs.

Additionally, results indicate that while female bloggers expect others to acknowledge posts to their blogs, they do not feel obligated to acknowledge others' posts. NON-DIRECTED SELF-DISCLOSURE IN THE BLOGOSPHERE.Detail Only Available By: Jang, Chyng-Yang; Stefanone, Michael A.. Information, Communication & Society, Oct2011, Vol. 14 Issue 7, p1039-1059, Although subjected to varied criticism, especially due to the ambiguity of its definitions, the theory of social representations provides a foothold from which to understand the social mission of the media, given the recognition of the centrality of communication (and mainly mediated in contemporary societies, public communication) in the process of configuration of images, reference systems and categories in which social representations are manifested, as well as the recognition of the centrality of the latter in the emergence of certain conditions of the possibility of communication. It is therefore a simultaneous two-way process: social representations are resource for, and a result of, the communication. One could speak, therefore, of certain media representations of social reality, involved in both the basis anchoring and the objectification, which according to Moscovici (1981, 1984) are the two processes of formation of social representations. In the anchoring, because the media would make a specific proposal for the categorization of the social reality; in objectification, because the media discourse would be the scene of "concretization" of certain realities (especially those more distant or elusive), and of the "translation" of concepts into images. In studies of senders in communication theory, such phenomena might be linked, for example, to approaches such as agenda setting and the thematization. The communication system provides certain images [...] of the institutions and their actions, [...] continuous interpretations [...] of the social environment and events occurring in that area, [which] help keeping the collective representations and worldviews of the groups or individual subjects, provided they do not introduce different views of reality (Martin Serrano, 1993: 53). The media discourse in this way institutionally produces a specific social representation of everyday reality [...], which is manifested in the construction of a possible world (Rodrigo Alsina, 1993: 94). (p.115-6) Media representations of social networks: a case study.Full Text Available By: Pino, Lazaro M. Bacallao. Revista Latina de Comunicacin Social, dec2010, Vol. 13 Issue 65, p1-11,(p.115-6)

As media is rapidly changing and different technologies are gaining and losing favour, youth are adapting to these changes in ways that support their developmental needs. online contexts have changed and evolved, so have young peoples

behaviours within them; yet at its core, these behaviours remain connected to important offline developmental concerns. Youth Connecting Online: From Chat Rooms to Social Networking Sites.Full Text Available By: Waechter, Natalia; Subrahmanyam, Kaveri; Reich, Stephanie M.; Espinoza, Guadalupe. At the Interface / Probing the Boundaries, 2010, Vol. 69, p151-178, Social movements, like every other aspect of life, have become increasingly reliant on the internet for networking, information sharing and coalition building. This is the case even for disadvantaged groups with few resources and less capacity for utilizing computers and the internet. Aboriginal activists in Townsville have been slow to exert their presence on the web, but are gradually becoming savvy in the use of electronic networking in furthering their cause. They rely on listservs, blogs and, more recently, social networking sites to make their struggle known to a wide audience. In addition to the use of Web 2.0 to supplement offline activism, there is a new form of virtual activism emerging. The rise in push-button activism increases the opportunities for everyday engagement with the state by social movement participants. However, it also changes the notion of participation as marches and demonstrations give way to electronic petitions and Facebook fan pages Protest 2.0: online interactions and Aboriginal activists.Detail Only Available By: Petray, Theresa Lynn. Media, Culture & Society, Sep2011, Vol. 33 Issue 6, p923-940 The combination of online learning opportunities and interactive Web 2.0 has provided language teachers with myriad possibilities in creating a real-world language environment in the classroom. A video sharing website where users can upload, view and share video clips, YouTube is one of the greatest things Web 2.0 is offering us (Lacy 2008). Long Live, YouTube: L2 Stories about YouTube in Language Learning.Full Text Available By: Balcikanli, Cem. E-proceedings of the International Online Language Conference (IOLC), 2009, p91-96 A hundred and thirty-one Facebook member profiles were observed, selected to fit the European Commission's youth age range of 1330. Results suggested that most people regardless of gender enter full name, facial pictures, hometown and e-mail addresses in their profiles. However, males are more likely than females to disclose mobile phone number, home address and instant messaging (IM) screen names. Consistent with the past literature, youth, especially between the ages of 18 and 22, seem unaware of the potential dangers they are facing when entering real personal and contact information in their profiles while accepting friendship requests from strangers. Disclosure of personal and contact information by young people in social networking sites: An analysis using Facebook profiles as an example.Full Text Available By: Taraszow, Tatjana; Aristodemou, Elena; Shitta, Georgina; Laouris, Yiannis; Arsoy, Aysu. International Journal of Media & Cultural Politics, 2010, Vol. 6 Issue 1, p81-101 the notion of Web 2.0, understanding it through three related conceptual lenses: (1) as a set of social relations, (2) as a mode of production, and (3) as a set of values. These conceptual framings help in understanding the discursive, technological, and social forces that are at play in Web 2.0 architectures. Questioning the Web 2.0 Discourse: Social Roles, Production, Values, and the Case of the Human Rights Portal.Detail Only Available By: Postigo, Hector. Information Society, May/Jun2011, Vol. 27 Issue 3, p181-193

Comparing this to Marshall McLuhan's saying the medium is the message, the authors propose new media as relations and put forward five observations: (1) New media communication belongs to the domain of relations communication; (2) the communication character of the new media is telelog; (3) Metcalfe's Law offers a good description for the communication effectiveness of new media; (4) the study of new media communication should be shifted from message communication (which focuses on websites) to relations communication (which regards people as the center of the study); and (5) the essence of new media communication is not technical message communication but dialogic relations communication. The rise of new media: an overview Throughout history, every debut of new media has always stimulated peoples positive imaginations on media research. From radio and television to video recorder and now to the Internet and mobile communication, challenges and upsets brought by the new media have always been central to new media research. Indeed, humankind has already been inside the world of media society. From understanding to perception of the world, people rely on the media. In other words, connections between people as well as between people and society have already changed. Using networks, people build online communities, obtain knowledge, and form perceptions about the world, others, and themselves. The media is now internal to peoples cognitive and perceptual self and have become the extension of their lifestyles. People join and maintain the community and take in knowledge from the network. They form perceptions of the world, others, and themselves. Therefore, we propose that the new media not only raises challenges but also leads to subversions at the ontological level. The new media affects todays human functions from the basic level, such as cognition, perception, recognition, and relations, and also moves onto the ontological matter of human existence. The new media has changed how human beings perceive and understand the world. Virtual reality created by new media is not only a simulation of truth but also a reproduction. Virtualization does not just oppose the authenticity of reality. On the contrary, virtualization is a process of reality and it realizes a characteristic of ubiquity, which is also a quasi presence an appearance through new media and across physical, geographical, and social barriers. When Levy (1998) talked about the paradox of digital technology, he said that just as medical transplant operations would allow us to transplant organs between each other, new media technologies could also enable human beings to join in a virtual global body because new media has implanted the organs around the world. Hence individuals begin joining in a great, hybridized, social, and high technologic super-body. Thus new media skill is not only to turn upside down the concept of materials but also to create a paradoxical super-reality, even if it upsets the basic concept of reality. On the other hand, new media has altered the relationship between people and machine. The relationship between people and technology has changed human lifestyle. As early as in the 1960s and 1970s, which may be called the age of flourishing machinery civilization, science and technology philosopher Bruce Mazlish (1967) stood on the Fourth Discontinuity to start rethinking the interaction of human and machine. He considered it inappropriate to only conceptualize humanmachine interactions as the relationship between subject and object. This is because, on the one hand, human beings have already slowly merged the process of their societys

evolution with the development of machine tools. On the other hand, human beings in modern society use scientific concepts to explain their work. Since humans have strong links with machinery work and material evolution, we are not able to imagine what human civilization would resemble without help from the machine. Another science and technology philosopher Don Idle (1991), from the perspective of phenomenology, took science and technology as an extension of human existence. He advocated that the relationship between people and technology has become a relationship of reflection, which has extended and shifted intentionality of the human body and perception. Technology makes the invisible visible (such as the B-network video chat) and externalizes the internal. It means that science and technology let us both appear and disappear. While the philosophical debate continues with regard to humantechnology interaction, the rise of the Internet has brought about new foci in academic research. An issue of concentrated discussion in recent years is whether the Internet links up society or isolates people. (368-69) New media as relations.Full Text Available By: Xianhong Chen; Guilan Ding. Chinese Journal of Communication, 2009, Vol. 2 Issue 3, p367-379, This article looks into YouTube as one of the most popular Social Software platforms, challenging the dominant discourse with its focus on community formation and user empowerment. On the basis of an analysis of the steering mechanisms embodied in the infrastructure as well as empirical observations of YouTube's content fluctuations during a period of time, insight is provided into the embedded cultural values and practices and into the nature of the ongoing negotiation of power and control between the YouTube controllers (owners, designers, editors) and the 'prosumers'. A Critical Cultural Analysis of YouTube: Power and Control in a Web 2.0 Interface.Full Text Available By: Pauwels, Luc; Hellriegel, Patricia. Conference Papers -- International Communication Association, 2009 Annual Meeting, p1-28, It is argued that after the crisis of the "New Economy", the emergence of what is termed "Web 2.0" signifies the increasing importance of the Internet gift commodity strategy. This strategy commodifies the users who produce content and communications online on free access platforms so that advertisement rates are driven up and functions as a legitimizing ideology. In this context the notion the Internet prosumer commodity is introduced. Critical Theory of Information and Communication Technologies & Society (ICT&S) as Keyword in Communication Technology Research.Full Text Available By: Fuchs, Christian. Conference Papers -- International Communication Association, 2009 Annual Meeting, p1-34, This is an observational study of the way the BBC deals with user-generated content (UGC) at its UGC hub. It finds four types of UGC. First a form of unsolicited news story: second a form of solicited content for specific extant news stories; third a form of expeditious content for specific items and features, and fourth a form of audience watchdog content. The study also finds that UGC is routinely moderated by the BBC hub and that traditional gatekeeping barriers have evolved over time to ensure the maintenance of core BBC news values. The study concludes with the view that the extensive use of UGC at the BBC hub encourages the increasing use of soft journalism, with as yet unknown consequences for the BBC. USER-GENERATED CONTENT AND GATEKEEPING AT THE BBC HUB.Full Text Available By: Harrison, Jackie. Journalism Studies, Apr2010, Vol. 11 Issue 2, p243-256 UGC Taking part in unpaid production activities initially seems economically

questionable. Although the benefits of participation in content creation are not obvious, investments of time and effort must be made. However, the costs and benefits associated with user-generated content will generally depend on individuals prior knowledge or consumption capital (Stigler & Becker, 1977). Assuming that active consumers act out of selfinterest at least partly rational choice, there must be a benefit from content production that is at minimum equivalent to the costs internalized (Lerner & Tirole, 2002). Consistent with the notion of rational action, active users expect a higher personal benefit from producing content than from being just a passive recipient. This benefit neither necessarily results simultaneously, nor materially or obligatorily from the direct beneficiaries of the value provisioning. Instead, time, awareness, or emotion can be examples of bartered objects (Kotler, 1972). We predicted that social motives, intrinsic motives, involvement, and covariates would affect time exposure, but we found that only social statusone aspect of a set of broader social motivesinfluences time exposure significantly and relevantly in relation to effect size. p. 32 MANAGING THE ONLINE CROWD: MOTIVATIONS FOR ENGAGEMENT IN USERGENERATED CONTENT.Full Text Available By: Schaedel, Ute; Clement, Michel. Journal of Media Business Studies, 2010, Vol. 7 Issue 3, p17-36, Online satisfaction Guided by the Uses and Gratifications (U&G) perspective, this study examined the influence of unwillingness to communicate, loneliness, Internet-use motives, and Internet (CMC) use and interaction (amount and types of use and self-disclosure) online communication satisfaction and relationship closeness. A total of 261 respondents participated in this study. Overall, participants who perceived their face-to-face communication to be rewarding, used CMC for self-fulfillment, and disclosed their personal feelings to others tended to feel close to their online partners. Moreover, participants who used the Internet for purposes of self-fulfillment and affection and intended to disclose their feelings to others felt satisfied with their communication in online settings. The Influence of Dispositions and Internet-use Motivation on Online Communication Satisfaction and Relationship Closeness.Full Text Available By: Pornsakulvanich, Vikanda; Haridakis, Paul. Conference Papers -- National Communication Association, 2007, p1, 32 Using the Technology Acceptance Model as a conceptual framework and a method of structural equation modeling, this study analyzes user attitude toward Cyworld drawing data from 314 Cyworld users. Individuals' responses to questions about acceptance and usage of Cyworld were collected and combined with various factors modified from the Technology Acceptance Model. The results of this study show that user' perceptions are significantly associated with their motivation to use Web2.0. Specifically, participation and involvement are found to have significant effect on users' motivation. These new constructs are found to be Web2.0-specific factors, playing as enhancing factors to attitudes and intention. Using the Technology Acceptance Model as a conceptual framework and a method of structural equation modeling, this study analyzes user attitude toward Cyworld drawing data from 314 Cyworld users. Individuals' responses to questions about acceptance and usage of Cyworld were collected and combined with various factors modified from the Technology Acceptance Model. The results of this study show that user' perceptions are significantly associated with their motivation to use Web2.0. Specifically, participation and involvement are

found to have significant effect on users' motivation. These new constructs are found to be Web2.0-specific factors, playing as enhancing factors to attitudes and intention. (.5)

While these studies found the significant perceived variables, they still do not find variables specific to the application over Web2.0. In other words, with all the findings, a question is, What are the peculiar variables to Web2.0 that are different from other Web1.0 services? It may be currently faced with the challenge of understanding user behavior as happening in multiple, synchronous, ad hoc, and even ubiquitous connection. User-computer interaction may migrate across devices; users may access the same applications from several different devices, which offer different interaction possibilities; and they may change between these or apply a multitude of devices while interacting. In this light, the present study proposes three new variables specific to Cyworld, which might be also specific to Web2.0: perceived synchronicity, perceived involvement, and the users flow experience. Based on the above literature review and given the wide applicability of TAM in emerging technologies, it is expected that the general causalities found in TAM are also applicable to the Cyworld context. Expanding from Shins (2007) categorization, the present study categorizes perceived usefulness and perceived synchronicity as extrinsic motivation, while including perceived enjoyment and perceived involvement availability to intrinsic motivation. H1: Attitude toward Cyworld is positively related to the intention to use Cyworld. With the main hypothesis in place, sub-hypotheses of extrinsic and intrinsic motivations are introduced in the following sections. 3.1. Perceived usefulness The TAM uses two distinct but interrelated beliefs, perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use, as the basis for predicting end-user acceptance of computer technology. Of the two TAM variables, studies have found perceived usefulness to have the strongest influence (Davis et al., 1989; Igbaria et al., 1996). In the present study, the definition of perceived usefulness follows the classical definition of Davis (1989): the degree to which a person believes that using a particular system would enhance his or her job performance. This study follows this definition and also highlights the aspect of capable of being used advantageously. H2: There is a positive relationship between perceived usefulness and intention to use Cyworld. H3: There is a positive relationship between perceived usefulness and attitude towards Cyworld. 4 3.2. Perceived enjoyment This study replaces the perceived ease of use with perceived enjoyment. The reason is that Cyworld is a relatively simple system to use, and this study assumes that Cyworld as a variation of webblogging has little difficulty in using it. Instead, this study takes perceived enjoyment from Heijdens (2004) study and perceived involvement as an enhancing variable to the perceived enjoyment from the study of Kalyanaraman and Sundar (2006) as the variables more relevant to Cyworld. As a hedonic information system, Cyworld can be better suited with the enjoyment and content quality than the ease of use. While Davis et al. (1992) classify enjoyment as a type of intrinsic motivation and perceived usefulness as a type of extrinsic motivation, they define enjoyment as the extent to which the activity of using a computer system is perceived to be personally enjoyable in its own right aside from the instrumental value of the technology. Venkatesh (2000) compared two training methods (traditional training vs. game-based training) and found the training method

with a component aimed at enhancing intrinsic motivation to induced higher ease of use perceptions. Later, Venkatesh (2001) conceptualized enjoyment as an antecedent of ease of use, whose effect increases over time as users gain more experience with the system. However, the specific effect of enjoyment on attitude has been largely overlooked in a convergence context. Moon and Kim (2001) examined a conceptually similar but distinct intrinsic motivation construct, playfulness, as an antecedent of Web usage, suggesting a significant effect of intrinsic motivation in determining the use of web-based information systems. Most recently, Heijden (2004) researched the Web from utilitarian and hedonic purpose frameworks and found that perceived enjoyment as a hedonic purpose strongly influenced Web use for entertainment purposes. Web2.0 can be seen as a hedonic system as it offers entertaining content and services. Therefore, it can be hypothesized that people seek the hedonic Cyworld to satisfy their entertainment purposes. H4: There is a positive relationship between perceived enjoyment and intention to use Cyworld. H5: There is a positive relationship between perceived enjoyment and attitude towards Cyworld. 3.3. Perceived involvement Communication researchers have suggested that customized sites, with their ability to offer such content that is built around user tastes and specifications, will involve users more than will non-customized sites (Kalyanaraman & Sundar, 2006). Communication researchers studying the construct of involvement have suggested that a users level of involvement can be measured by the number of bridging experiences, associations, or personal references that the user is able to make with the specific message (Zaichkowsky, 1986). Users exposed to customized content will likely exhibit greater involvement than will those exposed to noncustomized content because the former will detect a greater degree of associations or personal references in the content (because it is based on their interests). Furthermore, if users perceive the message to be important and interesting to them, it will draw out greater involvement (Zaichkowsky, 1986). Greater involvement will lead to greater motivation to process the message, and users are likely to consider the message in terms of psychosocial consequences that are closely tied to their personal value system (Peter & 5 Olson, 1987). When users are exposed to customized content, they will be more involved with the content because it is more interesting and important than noncustomized content. Customized Web can foster a sense of engagement or involvement by giving users access to information that they want, and this can result in users adopting a positive stance toward the Web. However, little user involvement research has explicitly made linkages among user involvement, the psychological factors, and technology use. Hartwick and Barki (1994) used the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) model to examine the relationship between user involvement and technology use (Hartwick & Barki, 1994). The TRA states that ones behavior is a function

of ones intentions, and that intentions are determined by ones attitude and the subjective norms concerning the behavior (Fichman & Kemerer, 1975). Hartwick and Barki explain the effect of user involvement on IT use by dividing the traditional notion of user involvement into two constructsuser participation and user involvement. H6: There is a positive relationship between perceived involvement and perceived enjoyment. H7: There is a positive relationship between perceived involvement and attitude towards Web2.0. 3.4. Perceived synchronicity: Perceived social presence and perceived co-presence The authors clearly state that social presence is a property of the medium (p.65). The research on presence follows the technological deterministic approach of information richness theory whereas the amount of cues that can be transmitted by the medium defines the interaction (Daft & Lengel, 1984). This study attempts to relate social presence to the idea of perceived synchronicity. Synchronous activity is that which moves at the same rate and exactly together. Perceived synchronicity is the extent to which users feel like being together on the same activity at the same time (i.e., have a shared focus). This synchronicity ranges from synchronous, real-time interaction of co-presence (e.g., Twidale et al., 1997) to asynchronous interaction of social presence. Given a certain interaction goal, the amount of appropriate interaction and feedback that the medium provides to attain that goal will define the perception of presence. Users may experience a strong illusion of presence using Cyworld. That is, the more synchronized with the remote environment the more presence will be reported. Based on that, it is hypothesized that: H8: There is a positive relationship between perceived synchronicity and perceived usefulness. H9: There is a positive relationship between perceived synchronicity and attitude towards Cyworld. 3.5. Flow 6 Csikszentmihalyi (1977) defines flow as a shift into a common mode of experience when people become absorbed in their activity. (p. 53). Flow experience is more an emotional state during the process of a particular activity than a coping strategy for the post-activity sensitization. When people are in flow, they shift into a common mode of experience when they become absorbed in their activity. This mode is characterized by a narrowing of the focus of awareness, so that irrelevant perceptions and thoughts are filtered out, by loss of selfconsciousness, by a responsiveness to clear goals and unambiguous feedback, and by a sense of control over the environment (p. 72). Flow has also been studied in the context of information technologies and computermediated environments and has been recommended as a possible metric of the online consumer experience (Hoffman & Novak, 1996; Novak et al., 2000). While a valuable construct, flow is too broad and vaguely defined because of the numerous ways it has been operationalized, tested, and

applied. However, value can be seen in some of the emotional and cognitive components used in flow research, namely, intrinsic enjoyment, perceived control, and concentration/attention focus (Koufaris, 2002). During the interaction with the entertaining object, a strong sense of being there (telepresence or immersion) is developed, which leads to a much more thorough exploratory behavior afterward. Presence has been recognized as a key performance goal for many systems and can provide insight into both the mediums ability to provide the feeling that the user is there inside the media (telepresence) (Nowak & Biocca, 2003). When telepresent, the user feels immersed in the environment represented by Cyworld. Nowak and Biocca (2003) and Chou and Ting (2003) have described telepresence as the users compelling sense of being in a mediated space and not where their physical body is located. The present study attempts to use flow experience as an antecedent variable to see how intention is developed in order to identify a possible link between flow experience and usage. This study selects behavioral control, telepresence, and concentration as the components of flow variable. The flow constructs can be used as valid metrics for the Cyworld experience, as well as Web2.0. H10: Flow experience has a strong effect on intention to use Cyworld. Perceived usefulness Perceived synchronicity Involvement Perceived enjoyment Attitude Intention H2 H3 H9 H1 H7 H5 H4 H8 H6 Flow state H10 Extrinsic motivation Intrinsic motivation 7 Fig. 1. Proposed research model The research model is largely based on earlier work by Shin (2007) and Cyr et al. (2007). In particular, the model expands the Shin (2007) model by adding constructs of synchronicity, involvement, and flow. More notably, the model explicitly introduces variability in the perceived telepresence and social presence by manipulating imaginary interaction elements of the Web2.0 interface.

Online churches' are Internet-based Christian communities, seeking to pursue worship, discussion, friendship, support, proselytism and other key religious practices through computermediated communication. CONTEMPORARY RELIGIOUS COMMUNITY AND THE ONLINE CHURCH.Detail Only Available By: Hutchings, Tim. Information, Communication & Society, Dec2011, Vol. 14 Issue 8, p1118-1135,