MOTIVATIONS FOR USAGE OF NATIONAL POLITICAL NEWS IN SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES AND DIGITAL NEWS SITES OF THE UNITED STATES AND SOUTH KOREA: COMPARISON OF NEED FOR SOCIAL AFFILIATION, NATIONAL POLITICAL INTEREST, AND PERCEIVED PLATFORM CREDIBILITY By Pyeongseon Oh A DISSERTATION Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Media and Information Studies - Doctor of Philosophy 2018 ABSTRACT MOTIVATIONS FOR USAGE OF NATIONAL POLITICAL NEWS IN SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES AND DIGITAL NEWS SITES OF THE UNITED STATES AND SOUTH KOREA: COMPARISON OF NEED FOR SOCIAL AFFILIATION, NATIONAL POLITICAL INTEREST, AND PERCEIVED PLATFORM CREDIBILITY By Pyeongseon Oh This study examined different motives in people’s use of national political news on social networking sites and digital news sites in the United States and South Korea. This study examined which motive is most important in predicting the use of national political news: the need for social affiliation, perceived credibility about platforms, or national political interest. Using a survey of 1,000 Koreans and 1,054 Americans, this study compared motives for people from two cultures for their use national political news on social networking sites as well as why they use national political news on digital news sites. The results showed no difference in the best predictor between Koreans and Americans in which motives predicted the use of social networking sites and digital news site for political national news. Perceived platform credibility was the best predictor of social networking site use, and political interest was the best predictor of using digital news sites. TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES.........................................................................................................................v INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................................... 1 LITERATURE REVIEW…………………………………………………………………………5 Social Networking Sites.........................................................................................5 Social networking sites and news............................................................5 Political news on social networking sites................................................7 Digital News Sites..................................................................................................8 Use of Political News.............................................................................................10 Need for Social Affiliation...................................................................................11 Psychological motive of communication...............................................11 Need for social affiliation as communication motivation......................12 National Political Interest....................................................................................15 Credibility of the News........................................................................................17 Perceived platform credibility...............................................................18 Country Differences..............................................................................................20 Different cultures and different values..................................................20 Choice of nations: The USA and South Korea......................................22 METHODS...................................................................................................................................... 25 Material................................................................................................................25 Measures for Individual Variables.......................................................................26 National political interest.......................................................................26 Need for social affiliation......................................................................26 Perceived platform credibility............................................................... 29 Country.................................................................................................... 29 Measures for Dependent Variables......................................................................30 Use of national political news on social networking sites.....................30 Use of national political news on digital news sites..............................31 Control Variables.................................................................................................32 Procedure............................................................................................................. 33 Data......................................................................................................................34 Analysis................................................................................................................34 RESULTS...................................................................................................................................... 37 DISCUSSION................................................................................................................................55 Limitations and future research........................................................................... 59 CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................62 iii APPENDICES..............................................................................................................................63 APPENDIX A Questionnaire…………………………………………………………..64 APPENDIX B Correlations…………………………………………………………….70 APPENDIX C Regression Tables for each Item of Measurement for Use…………….72 BIBLIOGRAPHY..........................................................................................................................89 iv LIST OF TABLES Table 1 Demographic information of the respondents………………………………………...38 Table 2 Scale of use on Facebook and digital news sites……………………………………...39 Table 3 SNS use scale and Motivations in use of political news on SNS……………………..40 Table 4 Digital news sites use scale and Motivations in use of political news on digital news sites……………………………………………………………………………………...………42 Table 5 SNS use scale and difference of countries in use of political news on social networking sites………………………………………………………………………………………...……45 Table 6 Digital news sites use scale and difference of countries in use of political news on digital news sites……………………………………………………………………...………47 Table 7 SNS use scale’s each item and Motivations in use of political news on SNS……………………………………………………………………………………...……51 Table 8 Digital news sites use scale’s each item and Motivations in use of political news on digital news sites………………………………………………………………………………………...……52 Table 9 SNS use scale’s each item and difference of countries in use of political news on social networking sites…………………………………………………………………………...……53 Table 10 Digital news sites use scale’s each item and difference of countries in use of political news on digital news sites………………………………………………………………………54 v INTRODUCTION After the invention of social networking sites (SNS) such as Facebook and Twitter, research on SNS has developed from exploratory general questions about why people use SNS to studies that address particular motives and uses of social media. To examine the use of national political news on SNS, this study focused on investigating how different motivations– the need for social affiliation, perceived platform credibility, and national political interest– are related to SNS use. National political news is news about national politics, such as national parties’ activities, national elections, policy creation, and war (Painter & Jeffrey, 2009). Social affiliation is defined as the desire to be with others and to have social relationships (Barrick & Mount, 1991; Buss & Plomin, 1984; Sadowski & Cogburn, 1997). Former studies indicate that the need for social affiliation is a core reason to use SNS (Goggins & Petakovic, 2014; Krishnan & Atkin, 2014). Although social affiliation is a core reason, people use SNS for a variety of reasons. While there are studies that explain national political interest as the major reason to use political media and news (Iyengar & Han, 2009; Stroud, 2008), there are few studies about why people use national political news on SNS. SNS have become one of the most significant sources of information among national political news users. According to the Pew Research Center, 48 % of U.S. web users responded that they got political news from Facebook in the week prior to the survey (Pew Research Center, 2014). Although SNS are not primarily designed for political communication, studies report that along with everyday photos and stories of users, news and discussions about politics have become visibly increased in SNS (Tufekci & Wilson, 2012). Yet, little research has addressed the reasons behind this increase. 1 This study proposes to fill a gap in the literature by examining the psychological motivations of why people use political news on SNS and digital news sites and how it differs in two countries, the United States and South Korea. Models of news consumptions explain that people choose news stories mainly based on credibility, relevance, source of the news (Althaus & Tewksbury, 2002; Iyengar & Hahn, 2009; Sundar et al., 2007), and other editorial cues, such as the presence of a photograph, and arrangement of the story (Graber, 1988). These models show why people select a specific news article among numerous other ones they are exposed to. SNS provide networking opportunities and news information at the same time. With television and newspapers, users can choose channels or organizations that they favor. Also, blog users usually visit blogs that have the same political leaning as their own (Lawrence et al., 2010). However, SNS differ. SNS display private posts from their users and also import news from other media organizations. In the case of Facebook, about two-thirds (67%) of U.S. adults use Facebook, and 44% of the general population read posted news on Facebook (Pew Research Center, 2016). Research indicates that individual interests and self-identities affect why people select specific information (Donsbach, 1991), which applies to selecting political news on SNS. Redlawsk said, “All social information processing is affectively changed and prone to biases” (2002, p. 1021). Because SNS are used for affiliation and information, the question arises as to which is the more important cause to use national political news on SNS: the need for social affiliation or national political interest. Based on this question, this study aims to answer the following questions: Do people use political news on SNS primarily from the need for social affiliation? Which is a more important reason for using SNS: the need for social affiliation or the need for political news and 2 information on SNS? What makes users trust political news on SNS or digital news sites? Does the primary reason for political news on social media differ between these two countries? To answer these questions, this study surveyed a random sample of SNS users from the United States and South Korea. There were three main objectives to this study: First, this study intended to expand on the previous research and theory about why people use political news on SNS. There are few studies that have investigated why people use national political news on SNS. Second, this study compared and contrasted uses of political news on each platform. Few scholars have examined the role of country on the use of SNS for accessing news. The results were intended to show commonality or differences in use of political news in the two countries. Third, the findings will be helpful for politicians and journalists. When they upload articles or lead a campaign, they can plan a more suitable strategy in time and methods. Through the findings, they will better understand why people read the news on SNS. To understand the reasons to use and reasons to trust national political news on SNS, it is worthwhile to compare and contrast motives to consume national political news on other platforms. Therefore, this study will examine digital news sites, which include online websites and mobile applications that present news produced by professional news companies. The digital news sites were chosen because they use the same electronic devices to reach audiences as SNS. The reasons behind people using digital news sites will also be analyzed. Also, this study compared the specific reasons to use national political news on SNS and digital news sites in two countries. Through the comparison, this study helped better understand cultural differences in using national political news on SNS and digital news sites. Also, it tried 3 to find out which variables are best at predicting the use national political news across platforms and countries. The literature review discusses hypothetical reasons why people use SNS. The features of SNS, digital news sites, and concepts of perceived platform credibility are introduced. After introducing the need for social affiliation with the idea of ontological security, national political interest is discussed as a traditional reason to read national political news. Last, concepts of countries and cultural differences are discussed to compare culturally different uses of national political news on SNS and digital news sites. 4 LITERATURE REVIEW Social Networking Sites Social networking sites and news. SNS refers to a type of online community. SNS has been defined as “the much relatively inexpensive and widely accessible electronic tools that enable anyone to publish and access information, collaborate on a common effort, or build relationships” (Murthy, 2013). SNS allows users to build public or semipublic profiles within an enclosed system, share a list of other users with people in their networks, and view and visit their list of connections within the system (Boyd & Ellison, 2007). For these characteristics of SNS, the users are typically able to communicate with their acquaintances and friends, and they can join virtual groups based on common interests (Kushin & Kitchener, 2009; Woolley et al., 2010). The users are able to instantly connect to others and share information with an unlimited number of peers through SNS (Bakshy et al., 2012). Through the social motivation and the development of technology, SNS has become a usual communication channel to share everyday life, connect to each other, and get information including news. In addition to connecting friends, SNS make it easy to share news content produced by media companies. Networking and sharing have become common ways to use news among SNS users (Cerbin & Greenblatt, 2013). In fact, most news websites offer these sharing news services via SNS. SNS users can show news stories on their own platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter through a few clicks on major news websites (Messing & Westwood, 2014), such as NYTimes.com, WashingtonPost.com, FoxNews.com, Google News, and almost every U.S. newspaper and broadcasting company. This is also true for South Korea. Almost all Korean news 5 websites support a function to post news on SNS. There is considerable evidence that this strategy of capturing users via SNS is successful. Facebook has been the fastest-growing way to access major news websites, while the traditional role to convey news of television and print media is declining (Pew Research Center, 2011). From a survey, 63% of Twitter and Facebook users answered that those SNS are sources for news about issues besides the area of friends and family in 2015, while 52% of Twitter and 47% of Facebook users answered that they took news from their SNS in 2013 (Pew Research Center, 2015). In the case of Facebook, there are 1.71 billion monthly active users (Facebook, 2016) and 240 million among them are Americans and 17 million are Koreans (Internet World Stats. 2017a and 2017b). Considering the population of SNS and the numbers of news users through SNS, the relationship between news consumption and SNS should now be examined as an underlying part of the media environment. Before the development of digital news delivery, the selection of news content meant choosing a source – a certain news program, a particular newspaper, or more recently, a specific news website. Consequently, news media organizations depended on their brand and tried to develop a solid reputation to market their news content. Among that environment, social feedback about news contents was limited to interpersonal discussion with others, or comments on the pertinent web pages (O’Reilly, 2007). The emergence of SNS has changed the modern media environment. Without intending to read news, users can encounter news stories on SNS through other users’ posts. This change indicates a fundamental shift from the past approach of news consumption where people accustomed themselves to dependable gatekeeping sources. Instead of that, SNS users can take news from a large number of sources identified by friends or other internet users to be important or interesting (Messing & Westwood, 2014). In this environment, people can select and transfer 6 a news article to their SNS even when they visit traditional news websites, and nearly every news organization provides a system of connecting to SNS. The selective function of SNS makes it possible for users to intentionally select and post news articles that are then unintentionally encountered by other users. Furthermore, people encounter national political news stories intentionally or unintentionally on SNS. Political news on social networking sites. Users of SNS usually communicate with their friends or other internet users based on common interests (Kushin & Kitchener, 2009; Woolley et al., 2010). On the other side, a specific feature of SNS is that a diverse user population exposes more SNS users to different, dissimilar, and contrasting perspectives (Kim, 2011). As noted above, the basic motivation of SNS users is social connection with others (Pew Internet & American Life Project, 2012). Nonetheless, users of SNS also are exposed to information that they do not expect. Using SNS can notably increase the opportunities for encountering news and political information (Nielsen Reports, 2009). In fact, some studies found a weak relationship or none at all between SNS use and political participation (Baumgargner & Morris, 2009; Dimitrova & Bystrom, 2013). Rather, SNS provide more of an opportunity to communicate about politics. Because of its social function, even a person who does not have much interest in politics can incidentally encounter political information. Although SNS are not specifically politically designed, there is exposure to political news incidentally because it is an interactive platform (Neuman et al., 2010; Wojcieszak & Mutz, 2009). The habitual viewing of news posts exposes SNS users to information they had not originally intended to find (Xenos et al., 2014). In the case of national political news, this incidental exposure can consist of information that has the potential to influence an individual’s 7 existing political ideologies. An incidental exposure to not only similar information (Messing & Westwood, 2014), but also counter information influences the users’ existing political ideologies (Morris & Morris, 2013). News and information delivered through social ties introduce politics in less intellectually demanding ways than intended news watching and can evoke immediate interest to further search for related information, and increase the individual’s understanding of news (Mutz, 2006; Pan et al., 2006). Habitual review of their newsfeed on SNS could expose users to political information. From this perspective, this study pays attention to the need for social affiliation (NSA) as a motive to use national political news on SNS. Digital News Sites News on SNS begins from digital news sites. According to survey data by the Pew Research Center (Mitchell, 2014), almost half of SNS users repost or share news stories taken from digital news sites. Although they are half (50%) of SNS users, the stories taken by them are shared with other users in the network. The digital news sites include websites of CNN, MSN, Fox, MSNBC, New York Times, and local news sources, Yahoo news, and Google news, etc. According to the Reuters Institutional Digital News Report (Reuters, 2015), the number of news users of digital news sites and SNS has increased from 2012 to 2015, while the number of news users of televisions and newspapers have decreased during the same period. The users of SNS and digital news sites use similar devices, such as computers, tablets, mobile phones, etc., and those provide more freedom to the users in time and place. The term, media users is more appropriate to those who use SNS than the term media audience because they have more right to 8 edit news stories, such as searching, skipping, and sharing (Picone, 2016). While there are similarities, the two platforms differ in managing news and the perceived platform credibility. Compared to SNS news, digital news sites have distinct differences. News presented in SNS comes from diverse and inadvertent sources taken by other users. Also, SNS companies do not have staff that create news, while digital news sites have staff and provide their own news. In this respect, digital news sites more closely resemble traditional media. Historically, acquiring news content meant selecting news outlet and tuning into a particular television or radio news program or purchasing a certain newspaper. To get news information from digital news sites, users need to open a news website or an application of the news company (Probst, et al., 2013). In this respect, digital news sites are digital versions of traditional media outlets and follow a top-down approach. Only news-workers have the right to choose topics and events and edit news (Ceron, 2015). According to one survey (Pew Research Center, 2012), television viewing, listening to the radio news, and reading newspapers are declining in the United States, but getting news on digital news sites and SNS is increasing. South Korea shows similar patterns. The Korea Press Foundation (2015) found that the time spent on news reading through digital news sites and SNS is increasing while the time spent on news reading through other media is decreasing. Digital news sites are currently used as news platforms and have a sizable number of users similar to SNS. In the case of national political news, users of digital news sites have their own reasons to use them. 9 Use of Political News Users have diverse reasons and motivations to use political news. To investigate the different motivations for using political news on SNS and digital news sites, it is necessary to review the concept of the use of political news. First, politics is defined as being all about power (Painter & Jeffrey, 2009). At an operational level, politics includes actions such as making laws, political parties’ activities, public policy creation, warfare, foreign affairs, and so on (Painter & Jeffrey, 2009). For example, elections are politics itself, and policy issues discussed during the election season are political too. Among diverse units of politics, this study limits the area to national politics. In other words, this study will discuss national politics including national parties’ activities, national policy creation, elections, and warfare. Knowing about politics is important to people’s lives because politics affects their daily lives (Painter & Jeffrey, 2009). People obtain information about politics through political news. Also, political news refers to news about politics produced and disseminated through media such as newspapers, television, radio, or internet media companies. Second, the concept of the use of news has changed with the development of convergence technology. First, “use” of news has two aspects – simple exposure to news contents and attention of mental effort to news content (Eveland et al. 2009). More specifically, attention is usually discussed as a relationship between an individual and something else (Chaffee and Schleuder, 1986). In other words, use of news can mean simple exposure or having a relationship to news content. To measure news media use, Eveland et al. (2009) asked about the amount of time of exposure and the level of attention to the news content. This study asks about news usage time and levels of activities in news usage. Second, there is the time difference in the 10 concept of the use of news. Before the internet era, the use of news referred to reading, viewing, or listening to news. However, in the internet era, news websites provide text and photographs, as well as audio and video, and the most distinctive feature of the internet news is interactivity. This feature changes the way people use news: commenting, sharing, rating, tagging, and so on (Picone, 2007). The use of political news reinforces existing belief, tends to increase political knowledge and political interest, and affects political beliefs and actions (Morrell, 2003). News media reportage leads to political awareness and helps increase participate in politics (Kanervo et al., 2005; Zhang, 2012). In this respect, it seems that the use of political news is a prerequisite of democracy and supports democracy (Kalyango, 2009). In the internet era, ways to use political news have diversified and opportunities to access political news have increased. However, one can ask how the diverse platforms of the internet influence the use of political news. To measure the use of national political news, this study uses 5 scales developed from Pew’s scales for news use on Facebook (Pew Research Center, 2013). This study investigates psychological, personal, and cultural factors as motives of national political news use. These include need for social affiliation, political interest, perceived platform credibility, and different countries. Need for Social Affiliation Psychological motive of communication. Communication is a natural human behavior and is compelled by basic human needs and motives (Rubin & Rubin, 1985). All communication, either interpersonal or mediated communication, is driven by needs and 11 motives. Depending on channels, each communication might satisfy different needs. For example, interpersonal communication has been assumed to satisfy individual needs such as the necessity for information, emotional requirements, or reinforcement of personal values, while mass media has strength in social functions, such as interacting with other people (Katz et al., 1973). However, interpersonal and mass channels are coequally alternatives; these two modes of communication are useful ways of satisfying interpersonal needs (Rubin & Rubin, 1985). According to Rubin (1984), communication, both interpersonal and mass, derive from basic human motives as the need for inclusion and control. That is related into a psychological motive, ontological security, which is “a sense of the reliability of persons and things” (Silverstone, 1993, p.599). As an ability to manage and develop a sense of personality related to social and physical environments, the ontological security presents trust in self and others (Silverstone, 1993). Considering the basic motive of communication and ontological security, social affiliation emerges as one of the primary reasons to communicate. When Maslow explained the hierarchy of human needs (1968), he posited social affiliation about love and belonging, right above physiological and safety needs as one of the most important human needs. In communication perspective, face-to-face and mediated communication are derived from one essential motivation, social affiliation (Cohen & Metzger, 1998). In other words, social affiliation is a primary need for understanding the world. Need for social affiliation as communication motivation. Considering communication’s motives, the concept of inclusion shows the motivation to affiliate with other people and refers to social relations. The motivation for affiliation is a feeling or affection related to liking and loving (Hill, 1987). Specifically, the motivation of affiliation is an essential 12 motivation related to the safety drives that move people closer to other people in a social network (Greenberg, 1991) and has been identified as a reason for communication. The communication action derived by affiliation’s motivation gratifies the NSA, need for social affiliation. NSA is defined as a preference to be with others and to engage in social relationships (Barrick & Mount, 1991; Buss & Plomin, 1984; Sadowski & Cogburn, 1997). In other words, NSA has been identified as sociability (Price & Arnould, 1999) and can be considered as “a tendency to affiliate with others and to prefer being with others to remaining alone” (Cheek & Buss, 1981, p.330). Therefore, being congenial with other people is a reward itself for NSA. An individual’s NSA shows that a person’s inclination for social contact or belongingness is linked with the person’s tendency to obtain social fulfillment as a reward from a sense of communion with others (Veroff & Veroff, 1980). Individuals with a high NSA are essentially admiring their relationships with other people (Carver & Scheier, 1992). Also, people with a high NSA have a high level of concern in founding, maintaining, and rebuilding personal and emotional relationships. Consequently, a high NSA reflects a strong motive to like other people, be liked by others, and a strong desire for encouragement and approval (Heyns et al., 1958). In contrast, people with a low NSA show a lower need to belong, less satisfaction with their personality, and do not express their opinions well in social relationships (Marin & Maya, 2011). If NSA is satisfied by others, it will be a core of communication and may have a positive relationship with the SNS use. To ask the level of individual NSA, this study adopts measures of Hill’s need for social affiliation (1987). Specific questions are discussed more in the methods part. A basic premise of theories of motivation is that underlying human needs propel behavior. Therefore, scientists must explain those basic motivations to interpret social events or 13 human actions (Cohen & Metzger, 1998). Although there are debates over what are the most fundamental human motives, generally it is agreed upon that one motive is NSA. Hill said that NSA is a characteristic of a human being (1987). NSA is the basic motive of communication regardless methods or channels. Communication is the mechanism that individuals come to know each other and be relate to society (Ruben & Kim, 1975). Meanwhile, affiliation with other people is one of the processes that people use to better understand themselves and their environment. Thus, social affiliation is the key to the process to understanding an individual in the context of social life (Mead, 1934). Considering that NSA refers to a tendency to affiliate with others, the essential motivation for all human communication is NSA (Haferkamp & Kramer, 2009). It is the same in both interpersonal and mediated communication (Cohen & Metzger, 1998). In the newspaper or television era, the users’ basic motive to use them is social interaction (Nordlund, 1978). The change and development of media such as newspapers, radio, television, and media based on the internet have not changed the basic motivation for communication. Rather, the development of new media has quickened the process of fulfilling interpersonal affiliative needs (Cohen & Metzger, 1998). In the digital era, NSA is still an important motivation for communication. NSA has been used to analyze motivations in use of virtual communities (Ridings & Gefen, 2004). While there are distinctly different functional purposes of each online platform, the users of SNS seek social support, friends, and information sharing. This is the major reason to use SNS (Goggins & Petakovic, 2014; Krishnan & Atkin, 2014). Considering that SNS is a platform designed not only to save photos and news stories only for the user, but also to share them with others, SNS could have a positive relationship with NSA. Furthermore, with the interactivity, SNS are facile 14 platforms to provide political needs (Neuman et al., 2010; Wojcieszak & Mutz, 2009). Politics is everywhere and influences daily lives (Painter & Jeffrey, 2009). People get most of their political information through political news. People use political news also on SNS. NSA is one of the reasons to use SNS. Like other activities on SNS, NSA would become a reason to use political news on SNS. To examine the relationship between NSA and use of national political news on SNS and digital news sites, this study hypothesizes that: H1: As scores on the need for social affiliation scale increase, the use of political news on social networking sites will increase. National Political Interest Political interest means “citizens’ willingness to pay attention to politics at the expense of other endeavors” (Lupia & Philpot, 2005). In other words, political interest is a mental status or will about politics, but does not mean political activity or participation itself. However, political interest has worked as the most important reason to prompt citizens to engage in political areas (Xenos & Moy, 2007). Citizens with high levels of interest in politics are more likely to pay attention to political events and devote substantial time focusing on politically adjusted materials in their limited time (Lupia & Philpot, 2005). On the other hand, people who lack political interest spend their given time and resources on other issues rather than in the political area. Likewise, people who care about and pursue politics - politically highly interested citizens - are willing to participate in political activities (Verba et al., 1995). The political influence of new media use has also been discovered to depend on the users’ political interest 15 (Bimber, 2003), exceeding other related factors, such as occupation and education (Luskin, 1990). Specifically, this study discusses national political interest. When SNS users see political information, they receive national political information from SNS based on their social interaction with friends and family. Receiving such information would not necessarily be the outcome of a deliberate information-seeking activity. Rather, it could be a reaction to a personal connection (Garrett & Danziger, 2011). For example, when a person starts to uses SNS not for a political purpose, if the news is provided from a trusted family member or friend, it may increase attention to national political news. In general, however, a person’s interest and self-identity have a tendency to impact exposure to information (Donsbach, 1991). To evaluate the impact of NSA on news use, this study compares it with the influence of national political interest to use national political news. The online environment provides users almost a limitless amount of information and multiple ways to satisfy their communicative needs (Prior, 2007). In particular, SNS have become a platform to share users’ stories about any topic and interest, and it has rapidly increased the amount of available information because all users can become both a producer and a consumer of information on SNS. With limited time and energy, it is not possible to read or comment on all posted information on SNS. As with other media, politically interested users will be more motivated to dedicate their limited resources and more willing to use political information on SNS. This phenomenon will be similar in the SNS era. This study asked users to describe their levels of national political interest. Also, based on this review, this study hypothesizes that: H2. As scores on the national political interest scale increase, the use of national political news on social networking sites will increase. 16 H3. As scores on national political interest scale increase, the use of national political news on digital news sites will increase. Credibility of the News In examining national political news on SNS and digital news sites, comparative credibility could be also a significant area of study. Practically, journalists and news institutions have interest in their credibility because an audience is more likely to use news content provided by their trusted sources (Thorson et al., 2010). In scholarship, news credibility has been of interest for a long time. Scholars have researched diverse dimensions of credibility. Gaziano and McGrath (1986) arranged those dimensions and developed a 12-item news credibility index through factor analysis. The index includes trustworthiness, bias, accuracy, privacy, fairness, reporter’s qualifications, and community relations. Emphasizing the dimensions of privacy and reporter professionalism, Rimmer and Weaver (1987) added media interests. Another study examined the dimension of community affiliation, which concentrated on the role of media within their local area (Meyer, 1988). Wanta and Hu (1994) highlighted believability; the perceptions of balance in the news were also underscored (Fico et al., 2004). These dimensions, or the subset of these dimensions, have been used in numerous studies across diverse contexts, including web blogs and online digital news sites (Cosenza et al., 2015; Fahmy & Neumann, 2015; Johnson & Kaye, 2016; Meltzer, 2015). McCroskey and Teven (1999) stated that goodwill (empathy toward the user), competence (qualification, expertness, intelligence, authoritativeness), and trustworthiness 17 (character, sagacity, safety, honesty) would explain the source’s credibility. When thinking about the source credibility, the feeling of closeness, and how the user perceives the information as caring about the user should be considered. The scholars have focused on users’ cognitions in measuring source credibility in particular using the concept of perceived source credibility, which concentrates on the perceiver. When there is same information on a source, some people may feel that is credible, and the other people may not. This study expands the concept to the perceived platform credibility by focusing on platforms, while the perceived source credibility is about sources. When the information comes from the same source but on different platforms, people may perceive the credibility depending on the platforms. To compare users’ perceived credibility in different platforms, SNS, and digital news sites, this study will use the concept of the perceived platform credibility Perceived platform creditability. Credibility is an impression, and diverse factors can influence the perceived credibility of the web information (Metzger et al, 2003). In addition to these criteria about content and author’s identity, other peripheral cues might influence users’ assessment of the perceived credibility. Warnick (2004) suggests that the usefulness of site content, usability, professional design, and information structure impact users’ assessment of web credibility. In the web era, speed, convenience, availability, and accessibility influence credibility (Julien & Michels, 2004; Rieh & Hilligoss, 2007; Savolainen, 2008). Also, credibility judgment relies highly on the users’ goals and situations (Hilligoss & Rieh, 2008; Metzger, 2007; Rieh, 2002), and NSA and national political interest are different goals for using information on SNS or digital news sites. Within two web environments, users may perceive different levels of credibility about the national political news. 18 A national study in the US disclosed research about the perceived platform credibility of digital news sites (Consumer Reports Web Watch, 2005). According to the study, 67% of the respondents said that the digital news sites they visited were usually believable. According to the report, the believability of daily newspapers was the same (67%) and national television news was similar (68%). The survey shows that perceived platform credibility of digital news sites is similar to that of traditional media. Furthermore, one age-group, between 15-30 years old, showed higher credibility about the news on digital news sites than news on the other platforms (Huang, 2009). In South Korea, the perceived credibility of news on digital news sites is higher than the other types of news outlets except for television news (Korea Press Foundation, 2014). While users of news on digital news sites expressed higher trust towards the news, the consumers of news on SNS showed lower credibility toward the news on SNS (Ceron, 2015). However, SNS are more collaborative and flow news stories in a community-based culture (Westerman et al., 2014). In different environments and platforms, the perceived platform credibility of digital news sites might be different. When news users trust some news sources, they are more likely to use the sources (Thorson et al., 2010). Furthermore, different types of websites cause pre- message expectancies that will influence individuals’ credibility perception (Flanagin & Metzger, 2007). When they feel a higher perceived credibility about a platform, it will affect their national political news usage. Four dimensions of credibility - believability, fairness, accuracy, and comprehensiveness - were used to investigate the credibility of national political news on both platforms. H4. As scores on the perceived credibility scale of the social networking sites increase, the use of national political news on social networking sites will increase. 19 H5. As scores on the perceived credibility scale of the digital news sites increase, the use of national political news on digital news sites will increase. After analyzing the relationships between each motive and political news use in platforms, this study compared what motivations are more related to political news on SNS and digital news sites. RQ1. Which of the three variables (need for social affiliation, national political interest, platform credibility) is the best predictor of use of SNS? RQ2. Which of the three variables (need for social affiliation, national political interest, platform credibility) is the best predictor of use of digital news sites? Country Differences Different cultures and different values. Research comparing journalistic routines in different media systems has long recognized that the features of a country’s media rely on the culture in which they operate (Merrill, 1995; Nimmo & Mansfield, 1982). That is because a culture is essential in its society and unique to that society (Biernatzki, 1991). Culture is defined as “a set of commonly shared symbols, values, beliefs, and attitudes, and their translation into everyday social perceptions, behavior and material artifacts” (Haddon, 2004. p, 29). Furthermore, cultural values mean shared abstract contexts about what is right, good, and 20 desirable in a society (Williams, 1970). It could create a specific value and trend, and those would be different in each country because the introduction of SNS is relatively new to all countries. Hofstede (1984, 1991, 2001) discussed cross-cultural comparisons and identified five cultural dimensions: power distance, collectivism/individualism, masculinity/femininity, uncertainty avoidance, and long-term/short-term orientation. Power distance refers to a level to which the less powerful members of organizations in a society expect and perceive that power is unevenly distributed. A country with a high power distance ranking is usually heavily populated and shows unequal distribution of wealth. Individualism focuses on individual achievement more than group goals, which are emphasized in collectivist cultures. Masculinity/femininity addresses the role distribution by gender in a society. In masculine cultures, gender roles are classified distinctly. Uncertainty avoidance states the patience for uncertainty. A country with a high uncertainty avoidance ranking typically has controls and regulations to reduce the amount of uncertainty because the members of the society have low patience for uncertainty. Last, long- term orientation is the extent to which a society emphasizes a pragmatic future-oriented viewpoint. A country which has long-term orientated perspective has esteem for tradition and respect for long-term commitments. Among these dimensions, this study focuses on individualism and collectivism because the SNS is a collaborative platform and users communicate with each other on the platform. Different cultures under individualism or collectivism influence the use of national political news and perceived platform credibility. Specifically, individualism, as a dimension of a national culture, indicates a society in which the ties among individuals are loose. Members of an 21 individualistic society have a tendency to care for themselves and their immediate family only. To the contrary, collectivism calls for a society to show strong and cohesive in-group loyalty rather than loyalty to self. In a culture with high individualism, identity is based on the individual; everyone has a right to a private life, and emphasis is on individual achievement. A society with high individualism considers individual decisions are better while group decisions better in a society with low individualism. A wide spread philosophy in Asia stresses collectivism and the notions of importance and fixed truth that are different from Western ideas that emphasize individualism (Winfield et al., 2000). In Asian culture, individual expression is considered selfish, and sometimes as a threat to the group. In this culture, the place of the individual in a group and collectivism define the press system; how to write and read news (Winfield et al, 2000). SNS offers a new style of news platform, and this cultural difference influences news usage. With digital news sites, this research looked at the national political news usage and perceived platform credibility difference of SNS and digital news sites depending on cultures. Choice of nations: The USA and South Korea. This study of two countries, the USA and South Korea, will examine how national political news use on SNS differs. While the USA is a country of multiple cultures, there are shared features. According to the UN ICT Development index (2015), both countries are high-level internet countries. The index reported that around 87.36% of Americans and 87.87% of Koreans use the internet. These numbers are much higher than the world average, 40.57%. Another index, the Internet World Stats (2017a & 2017b), reports that 73.5% of the US population and 37.6% of the Korean population use Facebook, and that it is the most-used SNS in both countries. 22 In the national political system, both countries are democratic. The Democracy Index 2015 accessed democratic levels of 167 countries after gauging 5 areas: 1. electoral process and pluralism; 2. functioning of government; 3. political participation; 4. political culture; 5. civil liberties (The Economist, 2015). From the index, the United States was ranked as No. 20, and South Korea was No. 22 out of the 167 countries. Both countries’ governments have the presidential system of three branches: legislative, executive, and judicial (United States Government, 2016; South Korea Government, 2016). According to Hofstede (2001), the US scored as a highly individualism society (91 out of 100), and it was the highest among those 56 countries. Korean society was given 18, which is low. Considering those national differences and the use of news, this study suggests research questions: RQ3. Do Americans differ from South Koreans in their use of SNS for national political news? RQ4. Do Americans differ from South Koreans in their use of digital news sites for national political news? The users in each country would have different motives to use national political news on SNS and digital news sites. This study asked what motivations are more related to the users of the different countries. RQ5. Do the best predictors of American SNS use for national political news differ from the best predictors South Korean SNS use for national political news? 23 RQ6. Do the best predictors of American news site use for national political news differ from the best predictors of South Korean news site use for national political news? This study combines separate scales of media use to create an overall measure of media use. The overall measures of the use of political news on SNS and digital news sites contains diverse activities, such as seeing headlines of news, clicking news, sharing news, and using time of news. However, it is possible that the individual use scales are predicted by different combinations of the independent variables than the overall measure. To explore this possibility, the last research question asks: RQ7. Do the best predictors differ for an individual measure of the use of political news on SNS and digital news sites? 24 Material METHODS Facebook is the SNS used for this study. According to the Pew Research Center (2016), the most-used platform of SNS in the United States was Facebook. While more than 70% of US people use Facebook, Twitter users were fewer than 20%. According to a Korean report, 74% use Facebook and 15% use Twitter among SNS users in South Korea (Digieco, 2016). Those two SNS platforms ranked as the ten most-visited websites in the world (Alexa, 2016). Contributions and comments of individual users or organization pages build up this platform. Users can create a profile and “friend” one another. When users post their individual status updates, pictures, videos, websites, or news articles on their timeline, their friends can see or share them. Although it is free to choose whom to be friends with, after making friends, a user’s right to edit is somewhat limited. Users should encounter information in their newsfeeds because it is built up with the users’ contribution. Facebook states that the usual goals of its news feed function are to provide relevant stories and connect with friends (Facebook, 2016). The company emphasizes that its news feed algorithm will update and help the users see more posts from friends and family. More specifically, the algorithm will provide the most relevant information to the user after scanning and collecting information of the user’s activity on Facebook, such as commenting, posting, following, clicking likes, and so on (Oremus, 2016). A user’s activity on Facebook will 25 determine the user’s news feed. If a user visits someone’s timeline, they have more of a chance to see posts from that person later. If a user comments on a person’s wall, the user has a higher chance to see a post from that person than if the user clicks “Like” on a post (Matias, 2014). In the case of national political news, the Facebook users will see the news more or less frequently according to their levels of national political interest, perceived credibility of the platform, and need for social affiliation. Measures for Independent Variables National political interest. Respondents were asked to express their level of national political interest. The general social survey (Smith et al., 2016) has a standard national political interest measurement. “How interested would you say you personally are in national politics?” on a seven-point scale, ranging from “Not interested at all (1)” to “Very interested (7).” Need for social affiliation. An initial goal of this study is to determine what motivation helps SNS users to use national political news on SNS. Thus, this study employed measures of Hill's need for social affiliation (1987). Hill proposed four patterns of affiliation motivations from the Interpersonal Orientation Scale (IOS): positive stimulation, attention, social comparison, and emotional support. Scholars have used all dimensions of the IOS. For example, Schwartz et al. (2007) adopted all four dimensions to explain the relationship between anxiety and each dimension. 26 Among them, only one dimension (attention) had a significant relationship with anxiety. From managerial psychology area, Decker et al. (2012) sought a relationship between entrepreneurial interest and all four dimensions of IOS. As a result, positive stimulation had the highest relation with the entrepreneurial interest. When Mann et al. (2015) disclosed the relationship between humiliation and affiliation, they adopted only one dimension, emotional support. They considered that the emotional support among the whole affiliation measurement would explain about the humiliation. Anderson et al. (2011) chose two dimensions, emotional support and social comparison, to see relations between drinking in middle school and peer affiliation. They used all 11 items of emotional support and social comparison to measure the peer affiliation. Also, van Rompay et al. (2011) used dimensions of positive simulation, and social comparison to study relations between shopping pleasure and affiliation motivation. Li et al. (2004) used positive simulation only to study relations between a computer program, Groupware, and affiliation. Wiesenfeld et al. (2001) also adopted items from positive stimulation to study virtual workers’ organizational identification. Among four dimensions of IOS, this study adopted a scale of positive stimulation. That refers to the capability of affiliation to present enjoyable affective and cognitive stimulation. Hill (1987) adopted the concept of the positive stimulation from the idea of affiliative need of Murray (1938). In Murray’s discussion, the need for affiliation was a sense of communion and a tendency to get satisfaction from harmonious relationships. Also, Hill (1987) says while the other three patterns are related to social contact, positive stimulation is about a sense of closeness to others. Among the correlations of the IOS with other personality measures, positive stimulation had highest correlation with sociability scale that is related to affiliation motivation. 27 Compared to other scales, the positive stimulation would better explain the motive to use of SNS. Participants rated each of 9 statements on a 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree) scale. The statements were:  I think being close to others, listening to them, and relating to them on a one-to-one level is one of my favorite and most satisfying pastimes.  Just being around others and finding out about them is one of the most interesting things I can think of doing.  I feel like I have really accomplished something valuable when I am able to get close to someone.  One of the most enjoyable things I can think of that I like to do is just watching people and seeing what they are like.  I would find it very satisfying to be able to form new friendships with whomever I liked.  I seem to get satisfaction from begin with others more than a lot of other people do.  I think it would be satisfying if I could have very close friendships with quite a few people.  The main thing I like about being around other people is the warm glow I get from contact with them.  I think I get satisfaction out of contact with others more than most people realize. Cronbach’s alpha was calculated to estimate the reliability of this measurement (alpha = .932). The range of values for the scale ran from 9 to 63. 28 Perceived platform credibility. Four dimensions of credibility - believability, fairness, accuracy, and comprehensiveness - were used to measure perceived platform credibility of national political news on SNS and digital news sites. They were not only used traditionally (Gaziano & McGrath, 1986, Johnson & Kaye, 1998, 2002; Meyer, 1988; Newhagen & Nass, 1989), but also were used to measure perceived platform credibility of news on digital news sites (Cassidy, 2007). Respondents were asked 8 questions:  When using Facebook, how believable (fair, accurate, comprehensive) do you find national political news on Facebook to be?  When using digital news sites, how believable (fair, accurate, comprehensive) do you find national political news on digital news sites to be? The participants measured this by using a 7-point Likert-type scale (1 = not at all fair, believable, fair, accurate, or comprehensive, 7 = extremely believable, fair, accurate, or comprehensive). Scores on the four credibility measures of each platform were summed into a credibility index. Cronbach’s alpha for Facebook credibility is .928, and for digital news platform is .922. The range of values for the scale ran from 4 to 28 each. Country. Data of two countries were measured through different survey platforms, the M-turk for the American samples, and the dataSpring for the South Korean samples. As a binary variable, the country variables were measured as dummy variables, such as the US is “0”, and South Korea is “1”. Through dummy variable regression, this study examined how the motives of news usage work differently from the two countries. 29 Measures for Dependent Variables Use of national political news on social networking sites. To rate news usage on Facebook, this study asked about both time and activities about political news. A question about time was: “On average, when you use national political news, about how much time do you spend on Facebook in a week?” The answers were rated on a seven-point scale: “less than Half hour,” “one hour,” “two hours,” “three hours,” “four hours,” “five hours,” and “more than five hours.” As for activities, this study adopted questionnaires from Pew. Pew (Pew Research Center, 2013) surveyed how Americans use Facebook news. The report asked whether the users see headlines, click the post, share the post, click the “like” button, post news, or discuss with other people on Facebook. This study applied those questions developed for general news to the national political news area. Participants rated each of 5 statements on a 1 (Never) to 7 (Always) scales. All statements began with “Thinking about when you are on Facebook, how often, if at all, do you…” and the other parts followed:  see headlines about the latest stories in national political news?  click on links to national political news stories?  post or share links to national political news stories?  click “like” or comment on national political news stories?  discuss issues in national political news with other people on Facebook? 30 Cronbach’s alpha for this measurement is .880. The range of values for the scale ran from 6 to 42. Use of national political news on digital news sites. Digital news sources include Google news, Yahoo news, websites of media companies such as CNN, local news sources, MSN, Fox, MSNBC, New York Times, etc. Exposure to national political news on digital news sites were measured by time: “On average, when you use national political news, about how much time do you spend with digital news sites in a week? (Digital news sites include but are not limited to Google news, Yahoo news, websites of media companies such as CNN, local news sources, MSN, Fox, MSNBC, New York Times, etc.).” The answers were rated on a seven-point scale: “less than Half hour,” “one hour,” “two hours,” “three hours,” “four hours,” “five hours,” and “more than five hours.” Also, participants rated each of the 5 statements on a 1 (Never) to 7 (Always) scale. All statements began with “Thinking about when you visit a news web or mobile site, how often, if at all, do you…”  see headlines about the latest stories in national political news?  click on links to national political news stories?  share social media links (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) to national political news stories?  write comments about national political news on the news or mobile site? Cronbach’s alpha was calculated to estimate the reliability of this measurement (.770). The range of values for the scale ran from 5 to 35. 31 Control Variables Research indicates that SNS use varies with age (Smith & Anderson, 2018), which suggests that demographic variations may influence the dependent variables in this study and possible the relationships between individual independent variables and dependent variables. Therefore, this study adds demographic information as control variables, which are age, gender, and income level. Age was measured with the question: “What is your age?” Income was measured by asking: “Please indicate your total household income, before taxes. Again, this information will be kept confidential?” The answers were recorded on a 10-point scale in USA and Korean survey: “Less than $15,000,” “Between $15,001 and $25,000,” “Between $25,001 and $35,000,” “Between $35,001 and $45,000,” “Between $45,001 and $55,000,” “Between $55,001 and $65,000,” “Between $65,001 and $75,000,” “Between $75,001 and $85,000,” “Between $85,001 and $95,000,” “More than $95,000.” Gender was measured by asking: “What is your gender? The gender variable was introduced in the regression equations as a dummy variable with female recorded as “0”, and male as “1.” 32 Procedure An online survey was conducted on SurveyMonkey (www.surveymonkey.com), an online survey program, and linked to Mechanical Turk (www.mturk.com), a crowd-sourcing service operated by Amazon.com in January of 2017. The subjects of Mechanical Turk are much more diverse than the most pools of college-age subjects (Paolacci & Chandler, 2014). Mechanical Turk allows for a random sample of American participants who participate in SurveyMonkey. To compare and contrast America and Korea, a Korean-translated online survey was conducted on dataSpring (www.d8aspring.com), a global sample and survey tool, which is well-known in Korea. A filtering question was used to determine if respondent use Facebook because this study focuses on Facebook users. The other context of the survey and other conditions were same. The self-administered questionnaires were created in English initially. To assure comparability, the survey was translated into Korean and then back-translated into English by two Korean-English bilingual individuals. To minimize translation bias, the translated version of the survey was evaluated by several judges. The Korean version was judged by native Korean speakers with a spoken knowledge of English and native English speakers with a spoken knowledge of Korean. As a result, it was judged to be equivalent. 33 Data This self-reported questionnaire was distributed through M-Turk and dataSpring in January of 2017. A total of 2,054 responses were collected in this survey, 1,054 in the US and 1,000 in Korea. The U.S. data included three incomplete or unrecognizable questionnaires. Although there were only three out of 2,054 missing, to get a more accurate result, the three incomplete questionnaires were dropped from the analysis (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2013). For the final analysis, 2,051 valid responses were kept. Four outliers were found and the extreme outliers assigned the value of three standard deviations to the case value. Analysis To test the hypotheses and answer the research questions, this study used Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) multiple regression. There are multiple indicators and OLS will analyze how those different predictors will work in a model. For H1, H2, H3, H4, H5, RQ1, RQ2, RQ3, and RQ4, this study designed two equations. Y1 = C + b1a1 + b2a2 + b3a3 + b4a4 + b5a5 + b6a6 + b7a7 + e From this equation, “Y1” refers the use of national political news on SNS. “C” is constant, “b1, b2, b3, b4, b5, b6, b7” are regression weights for the variables, “a1” is political interest, “a2” is 34 NSA, “a3” is perceived platform credibility of SNS, “a4” is dummy variable for the countries, “a5” is a control variable for age, “a6” is a control variable for gender, “a7” is a control variable for income, and “e” is the error term. Y2 = C + b8a1 + b9a2 + b10a3 + b11a4 + b12a5 + b13a6 + b14a7 + e From this equation, “Y2” refers the use of national political news on digital news sites. “C” is constant, “b8, b9, b10, b11, b12, b13, b14” are regression weights for the variables, and others are the same as before. To answer RQ5 and RQ6, this study ran two regressions each. After analyzing equations for each country, the regression coefficients for the two countries will be compared. In RQ 5, “Y1” is the use of national political news on SNS of the US participants, and Y2 indicates the use of national political news on SNS of South Korean participants. Also, “a1” is political interest, “a2” is NSA, “a3” is perceived platform credibility of SNS, “a4” is a control variable for age, “a5” is a control variable for gender, “a6” is a control variable for income, and “e” is the error term. Y1 = C + b1a1 + b2a2 + b3a3 + b4a4 + b5a5 + b6a6 + e Y2 = C + b7a1 + b8a2 + b9a3 + b10a4 + b11a5 + b12a6 + e In RQ 6, “Y3” is the use of national political news on digital news sites of the US participants. “Y4” indicates the use of national political news on digital news sites of South Korean participants. 35 Y3 = C + b1a1 + b2a2 + b3a3 + b4a4 + b5a5 + b6a6 + e Y4 = C + b7a1 + b8a2 + b9a3 + b10a4 + b11a5 + b12a6 + e To answer RQ7, this study applied all of the above equations to the individual items of measurements for the use of political news. To test the strength of the relationships between the independent and dependent variables, this study uses part correlations. A part correlation refers measure of the correlations between two variables that remains after controlling for the influence of other variables (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2013). This is a better way than beta weights because part correlations are similar to Pearson’s correlations, only with the influence of other variable removed, while beta weights are standardized, which means they are not comparable across samples. Furthermore, the squared part correlations show the unique variable shared between the dependent and independent variable with other variables in the equation controlled for. 36 RESULTS The sample characteristics in terms of gender, age, citizenship, and ethnic background are presented in Table 1. The data shows that nearly 52.36 percent of the respondents are female and the remainder are male. Table 1 shows that the USA has more female respondents (58.71%) and Korea has more male respondents (54.30%). In the case of age, the sum of 30s (32.42%) and 20s (27.16%), and 40s (22.53%) are more than 80%. Under 39, both countries have similar distribution but Korea has more in the 40s and the USA has more respondents over the 60s. For Ethnicity, participants were allowed to check plural choices in the question. In the US data case, Caucasian is 77.94%, Asian (6.82%), Hispanic (3.14%), Native American (2.24%), and Other (1.61%) were followed. In Korea case, all participants were Asian. In Table 2, the t-test for the scale of use of Facebook and digital news sites shows that the USA users spent statistically significantly more time on using political news on Facebook than Korean users (3.2 versus 2.3 hours per week, t = 12.8, p < .05). This is the same in the case of digital news sites. The USA users read more headlines on both platforms than the Korean users, and the Korean users shared and made comment on both platforms more than the USA users. Korean participants discussed issues in the national political news with other people on SNS more than American participants (3.18 versus 3.39, t = -2.8, p < .05), and they gave more comments on the digital news sites (2.53 versus 3.14, t = -8.1, p < .05). 37 Table 1 Demographic information of the respondents All (2,051) USA (1,051) Korea (1,000) Gender Female 1074 (52.36%) 617 (58.71%) 457 (45.70%) Age Ethnicity* Male 970 (47.29%) 427 (40.63%) 543 (54.30%) None Marked 7 (0.34%) 7 (0.34%) 557 (27.16%) -19 20-29 7 (0.67%) 7 (0.67%) 287 (27.31%) 0 (0.00%) 0 (0.00%) 270 (27.00%) 30-39 665 (32.42%) 350 (33.30%) 315 (31.50%) 40-49 462 (22.53%) 189 (17.98%) 273 (27.30%) 50-59 60-69 70-79 Caucasian African- American Asian Hispanic Native American Other 281 (13.70%) 73 (3.56%) 6 (0.29%) 144 (13.70%) 68 (6.47%) 6 (0.57%) 869 (77.94%) 92 (8.25%) 76 (6.82%) 35 (3.14%) 25 (2.24%) 18 (1.61%) 137 (13.70%) 5 (0.50%) 0 (0.00%) 1,000 (100%) *Respondents were allowed to check plural choices in Ethnicity. Total checked choices are 1115 38 USA (Mean) (SD) 5.2443 1.3796 Korea (Mean) (SD) 4.4660 1.4632 t P 12.402* .000 4.0533 1.5649 3.0438 1.6984 4.1580 1.4917 3.3650 1.7113 -1.549 .122 -4.264* .000 3.5152 1.6759 3.5370 1.6975 -.292 .770 3.1762 1.7450 3.3900 1.6943 -2.812* .005 3.2298 2.0063 2.2650 1.3619 12.805* .000 5.3276 1.3959 4.9710 1.3476 5.890* .000 4.5586 1.4887 4.6540 1.3965 -1.496 .135 2.9012 1.6648 3.3010 1.7185 -5.353* .000 2.5315 1.6056 3.1350 1.7601 -8.095* .000 3.1438 1.7638 2.8200 1.6740 4.265* .000 Table 2 Scale of use on Facebook and digital news sites Platform Questions Facebook When you are on Facebook, how often, if at all, do you See headlines about the latest stories in national political news? When you are on Facebook, how often, if at all, do you Click on links to national political news stories? When you are on Facebook, how often, if at all, do you Post or share links to national political news stories? When you are on Facebook, how often, if at all, do you Click “like” or comment on national political news stories? When you are on Facebook, how often, if at all, do you Discuss issues in the national political news with other people on Facebook? (Time) On average, when you use national political news, about how much time do you spend with Facebook in a week? When you visit a news web or mobile sites, how often, if at all, do you See headlines about the latest stories in national political news? When you visit a news web or mobile sites, how often, if at all, do you Click on links to national political news stories? When you visit a news web or mobile sites, how often, if at all, do you Share social media links (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) to national political news stories? When you visit a news web or mobile sites, how often, if at all, do you Write comments about national political news on the news or mobile site? (Time) On average, when you use national political news, about how much time do you spend with digital news sites in a week? Digital News Sites *p < .05, **p < .01 39 Hypothesis 1 predicted that when the need for social affiliation scale increases, the use of political news on SNS will increase. An Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) multiple linear regression was calculated. A significant regression equation was found [(F(3, 2047) = 244.562, p < .01)] with R2 of .457 (Table 3). The analysis showed that the need for social affiliation (β = .115, t = 6.645, p < .01) is a significant predictor of the use of political news on SNS. At this point, Hypothesis 1 is supported. However, the effect size was small, only 1.2%. The other hypotheses will explain more about the motivations. Table 3 SNS use scale and Motivations in use of political news on SNS Part Correlation Variable B SE B β Square of Part Correlation Political Interest .329 .015 .375** .355 .126 Need for Social Affiliation Perceived Credibility of SNS Citizenship Age Gender Income R2 .130 .453 .266 .000 -.127 -.006 F *p < .05, **p < .01 .020 .115** .109 .018 .047 .002 .044 .009 .446** .102** -.004 -.049** -.013 .421 .093 -.004 -.048 -.012 .457 244.562** 40 .012 .177 .009 .000 .002 .000 Hypothesis 2 forecasted that as scores on the national political interest scale increase, the use of political news on SNS will increase. From the same equation, the analysis showed that the political interest (β = .375, t = 21.711, p < .01) is also a significant predictor of the use of political news on SNS (Table 3). Thus, Hypothesis 2 is supported with 12.6% of unique variance in use of political news associated with political interest. Hypothesis 3 predicted that as scores on national political interest scale increase, the use of national political news on digital news sites will increase. A multiple linear regression was assessed to predict participants’ use of national political news on digital news sites. A significant regression equation was found [(F(3, 2047) = 200.971, p < .01)], with R2 of .409 (Table 4). The analysis showed that political interest (β = .429, t = 23.360, p < .01) is a significant predictor of the use of political news on digital news sites. This result suggests that political news users on digital news sites use the news for political interest. Thus, Hypothesis 3 is supported with 15.8% of unique variance in use of political news associated with political interest. Hypothesis 4 anticipated that when scores on the perceived credibility scale of the social networking sites increase, the use of political news on social networking sites will increase. From the multiple linear regression about SNS, the analysis stated that the perceived credibility of the SNS (β = .446, t = 25.795, p < .01) is a significant predictor of the use of political news on SNS (Table 3). This result suggests that political news users on SNS use the news for perceived credibility of the SNS. Therefore, Hypothesis 4 is supported because 17.7% of unique variance in use of political news on SNS is associated with perceived credibility of platform. 41 Table 4 Digital news sites use scale and Motivations in use of political news on digital news sites Square of Part Correlation Part Correlation Variable B SE B β Political Interest .332 .014 .429** .398 .158 .175 .018 .174** .168 .028 Need for Social Affiliation Perceived Credibility of Digital News Sites .269 .017 .283** .267 Citizenship -.229 .043 -.099** -.090 Age Gender Income R2 .002 .031 .010 .002 .020 .020 .040 .013 .013 .008 .023 .021 .409 F *p < .05, **p < .01 200.971** .071 .008 .000 .000 .000 Hypothesis 5 forecasted that when scores on the perceived credibility scale of the digital news sites increase, the use of national political news on digital news sites will increase. From the multiple linear regression about digital news sites, the analysis stated that perceived credibility of the digital news sites (β = .283, t = 15.658, p < .01) is a significant predictor of the 42 use of political news on digital news sites (Table 4). Thus, Hypothesis 5 is supported with 7.1% of unique variance in use of political news in digital news sites associated with perceived credibility of platform. Research Question 1 asked which of the three variables among need for social affiliation, national political interest, and platform credibility about SNS is the best predictor of use political news in SNS. From Table 3, as a result of the multiple linear regression, the perceived credibility of the SNS (Square of part correlation= .177) is the best predictor of use of political news in SNS. This equation was significant [F(3,2047) = 244.562, p < .01] with R2 of .457, and other variables, political interest (Square of part correlation= .126), and the need for social affiliation (Square of part correlation= .012) are second and third predictor of use of SNS. This result suggests that the perceived credibility of the SNS is a stronger predictor than political interest and need for social affiliation to use political news on SNS. The second-best predictor, political interest, is also a strong predictor of motivations to political news use on SNS. It seems that people who score higher on the perceived credibility of the SNS scale and political interest are more likely to use political news on SNS than are people who score high on the need for social affiliation. Research Question 2 asked which of the three variables among need for social affiliation, national political interest, and platform credibility for digital news sites is the best predictor of use of digital news sites. From the Table 4, the results of multiple linear regression calculated to find the best predictor to use of digital news sites, political interest (Square of part correlation= .158) is the best predictor of use of political news in digital news sites. This multiple linear regression was significant [F(3,2047) = 200.971, p < .01], with R2 of .409, and other variables followed: Perceived credibility of the digital news sites (Square of part 43 correlation= .071) and need for social affiliation (Square of part correlation= .028). This result shows that the political interest is a better predictor than perceived credibility of the digital news sites and need for social affiliation. In using political news in digital news sites, it seems that political interest is a stronger influence than the perceived credibility of the digital news sites or the need for social affiliation. In comparing the Table 3 and Table 4, the most remarkable difference is perceived platform credibility. For the SNS users, the perceived platform credibility is the most important motivation to use political news on SNS (17.7%), but it is not for the digital news sites users (7.1%). In both tables, NSA was the least important reason each. While political interest is an important motivation in SNS (12.6%), it is more important in digital news sites (15.8%). Research Question 3 asked whether Americans differ from South Koreans in their use of SNS for national political news? The USA was coded as 1 and Korea as 0. Table 3 indicated that citizenship (β = .102, t = 5.713, p < .01) is a significant predictor of the use of political news in social networking sites. Therefore, it is possible to state that Americans differ from South Koreans in their use of SNS for national political news. Table 3 shows that Americans use the political news on social networking sites more than Koreans, although citizenship has small influence on the use of political news on social networking sites (square of part correlation = .009). This indicates that country predicts less than 1 % of the variance in use of political news on SNS. Research Question 4 asked, do Americans differ from South Koreans in their use of digital news sites for national political news? Table 4 indicates that citizenship (β = -.099, t = - 5.292, p < .01) is a statistically significant predictor of the use of political news in digital news sites. Therefore, this result showed Americans differ from South Koreans in their use of digital 44 news sites for national political news. However, the unique variance in use of political news in digital news sites explained by citizenship is less than 1%. USA Korea Table 5 SNS use scale and difference of countries in use of political news on social networking sites Squa re of Part Corr elati on Squar e of Part Correl ation Part Corr elati on Variable B B SE B Part Corre lation SE B Β Β Political Interest Need for Social Affiliation Perceived Credibility of SNS Age Gender Income .294 .021 .359** .346 .120 .367 .023 .383** .343 .118 .115 .027 .107** .103 .011 .143 .028 .116** .107 .011 .408 .025 .416** .399 .159 .498 .025 .465** .425 .181 .002 .003 .016 .016 .000 -.007 .003 -.057* -.053 .003 -.229 .067 -.085** -.083 .007 -.029 .057 -.011 -.011 .000 -.018 .011 -.039 -.039 .002 .019 .014 .032 .030 .001 R2 F *p < .05, **p < .01 .385 107.981** .551 202.972** Research Question 5 asked, do the best predictors of American SNS use for national political news differ from the best predictors South Korean SNS use for national political news? 45 To compare the best predictors from each country, a multiple linear regression was calculated after splitting data to USA and Korea. In the USA case, a significant regression equation was found [(F(3,1047) =107.981, p < .01)], with R2 of .385 (Table 5). The analysis showed that the perceived credibility of the SNS is the best predictor (β = .416, t = 16.369, p < .01), followed by political interest (β = .359, t = 14.188, p < .01) and by need for social affiliation (β = .107, t = 4.231, p < .01). In the Korea case, the regression equation was also significant [(F(3,996) = 202.971, p < .01)], with R2 of .551. Like USA case, perceived credibility of the SNS is the best predictor (β = .465, t = 19.975, p < .01), followed political interest (β = .383, t = 16.119, p < .01), and need for social affiliation (β = .116, t = 5.044, p < .01). From both countries, the order of the squares of part correlation is also the same. This result showed that the perceived credibility of the SNS is the best predictor in both countries. Thus, the best predictors of use of political news in SNS are not different between two countries. Research Question 6 asked: Do the best predictors of American news site use for national political news differ from the best predictors of South Korean news site use for national political news? A multiple linear regression was used after splitting data to USA and Korea. In the USA case, a significant regression equation was found [(F(3,1047) = 83.804, p < .01)], with R2 of .327 (Table 6). The analysis showed that the political interest is the best predictor (β = .410, t = 15.298, p < .01), followed by perceived credibility of the digital news sites (β = .247, t = 9.456, p < .01), and the need for social affiliation (β = .168, t = 6.492, p < .01). In the Korea case, the regression equation was significant [(F(3,996) = 176.679, p < .01)], with R2 of .516. In this equation, political interest is the best predictor (β = .447, t = 17.866, p < .01), followed by perceived credibility of the digital news sites (β = .304, t = 12.461, p < .01), and need for social affiliation (β = .162, t = 6.841, p < .01). 46 In the two countries, the order of the squares of part correlation is also the same. Political interest is the best predictor of use of political news in the digital news in both countries. Therefore, the best predictors are not different in the two countries. Table 6 Digital news sites use scale and difference of countries in use of political news on digital news sites Korea USA Variable B SE B Β Part Corre lation Squa re of Part Corre lation B SE B Β Part Corre lation Squa re of Part Corre lation Political Interest Need for Social Affiliation Perceived Credibility of Digital News Sites Age Gender Income .290 .019 .410** .390 .152 .389 .022 .447** .394 .155 .155 .024 .168** .166 .028 .182 .027 .162** .151 .023 .225 .024 .247** .241 .058 .309 .025 .304** .275 .076 .005 .003 .057* .055 .003 -.004 .003 -.037 -.034 .001 .064 .061 .027 .027 .001 -.010 .053 -.004 -.004 .000 -.008 .010 -.020 -.019 .000 .048 .013 .089** .083 .007 R2 F *p < .05, **p < .01 327 83.804** 47 .516 176.679** Among the control variables, only gender (β = -.049, t = -2.912, p < .01) was a significant predictor of the use of political news on SNS (Table 3). In comparing countries, gender (β = -.085, t = -3.393, p < .01) was significant in the USA, and age (β = -.057, t = -2.492, p < .05) was influential in Korea (Table 5). In the case of digital news sites, there was no influential control variable in the use of political news (Table 4). However, in comparing countries, age (β = .057, t = 2.146, p < .05) was significant predictor in the USA, and income (β = .089, t = 3.745, p < .01) was influential in Korea (Table 6). From the whole scales of the use of political news, the control variables are not more influential than the given variables: political interest, NSA, and perceived platform credibility. Research Question 7 asked if the best predictors of the use of political news on SNS and digital news sites differ for individual measures compared to the overall measure? Multiple linear regressions were calculated per each item of a measurement. The measurement for use of political news on SNS has six items, and digital news sites’ has five items. The next four tables will address the Research Question 7. First, in the SNS use measurement, the item of seeing headlines and time of use show difference. Comparing political interest, NSA, and perceived credibility of platform, showed perceived credibility of platform is the best predictor for most of the scales (Table 7). Only the item of seeing headlines shows that political interest (β = .310, t = 15.906, p < .01) is the most relevant predictor. Citizenship worked as motivation in only three items: seeing headlines (β = .263, t = 13.099, p < .01), positing/sharing news (β = -.049, t = - 2.485, p < .05), and time of use (β = .289, t = 13.519, p < .01). Especially, citizenship is the most influential variable in the time of use and the second usual predictor in seeing headlines. In considering control variables, age is significant in seeing headlines (β = -.087, t = -4.570, p < .01), and posting/sharing news (β = .059, t = 3.191, p < .01). Gender is significant in seeing 48 headlines (β = -.105, t = -5.558, p < .01), clicking news (β = -.095, t = -5.415, p < .01), and clicking like/commenting (β = -.050, t = -2.778, p < .01). Income is not influential at any item of measurement in use of political news on SNS. Second, in the digital news sites measurement, comparing political interest, NSA, and perceived credibility of platform, political interest is the best predictor in all items (Table 8). Perceived credibility of platform and NSA followed. However, NSA is highly influential in sharing news (β = .179, t = 8.792, p < .01) and commenting (β = .176, t = 8.561, p < .01), which makes sense because these are behaviors associated with engaging other people. Citizenship worked as motivation in all items. Especially, in commenting (β = -.195, t = -8.986, p < .01), citizenship is the second influential motivation among all variables. In considering control variables, age is significant in seeing headlines (β = -.040, t = -2,023, p < .05), and sharing news (β = .063, t = 3.146, p < .01). Gender is significant in all items except sharing news. Income is only significant in seeing headlines (β = .057, t = 2.728, p < .01). Third, each item of the measurement for use of political news on SNS is compared in two countries. Comparing political interest, NSA, and perceived credibility of platform, perceived credibility of platform is the best influential factor in most items in both countries (Table 9). Only in the item of seeing headlines, political interest (β = .282, t = 9.601, p < .01) is more influential than perceived credibility of platform (β = .211, t = 7.153, p < .01) in the USA. More complete analysis of the relationships between motivations and individual scales can be found in tables in Appendix C. 49 Control variables work differently in two countries. Age is influential in only seeing headlines (β = -.067, t = -2.273, p < .05) in the USA. However, age is influential in four items in Korea: seeing headlines (β = -.128, t = -4.729, p < .01), clicking news (β = -.072, t = -2.941, p < .01), clicking like and commenting (β = .064, t = -.064, p < .05), and discussing (β = -.057, t = -2.139, p < .05). Gender is influential in seeing headlines (β = -.132, t = -4.549, p < .01), clicking news (β = -.131, t = -5.139, p < .01), and clicking like and commenting (β = -.090, t = -3.439, p < .01) in the USA. In Korea, gender is influential in seeing headlines (β = -.094, t = -3.620, p < .01) and clicking news (β = -.057, t = -2.403, p < .05). Income is only influential in posting and sharing news (β = -.085, t = -3.201, p < .01) in the USA. Fourth and last, each item of the measurement for use of political news in digital news sites is compared in two countries. In comparing three variables: political interest, NSA, and perceived credibility of platform, political interest is the best influential factor in most items in both countries (Table 10). However, in the item of sharing news (β = .281, t = 9.451, p < .01) and commenting (β = .287, t = 9.735, p < .01), perceived credibility of platform is more influential than political interest in Korea. In control variable, age is influential in only time of use (β = .064, t = 2.191, p < .05) in the USA, and significant in seeing headlines (β = -.086, t = -3.062, p < .01) and clicking news (β = -.115, t = -4.493, p < .01) in Korea. Gender is only influential in time of use (β = .112, t = 3.918, p < .01) in the USA. In Korea, gender is influential in seeing headlines (β = -.083, t = -3.045, p < .01), clicking news (β = -.083, t = -3.375, p < .01) and commenting (β = .073, t = 2.652, p < .01). Income is only influential in sharing news (β = -.095, t = 3.300, p < .01) in the USA. However, income is significant predictor in seeing headlines (β = .068, t = 2.423, p < .05), commenting (β = .065, t = 2.279, p < .05), and time of use (β = .100, t = 3.250, p < .01) in Korea. 50 Table 7 SNS use scale’s each item and Motivations in use of political news on SNS Seeing Headlines Clicking News Part Correl ation .293 β .330** Part Correl ation .312 Part Correl ation .268 Part Correl ation .306 Variable β .310** .092** .274** Political Interest Need for Social Affiliation Perceived Credibility of Platform Citizenship .263** Age -.087** Gender -.105** Income .035 *p < .05,**p <.01 Posting/Sharing News β Clicking Like/Commenting Β .283** .324** Discussing Time of Use β .318** Part Correl ation .301 β .226** Part Corre lation .214 .087 .103** .097 .090** .085 .108** .102 .105** .100 .051* .048 .259 .437** .413 .408** .386 .406** .383 .356** .337 .243** .230 .241 -.084 -.102 .032 -.017 -.033 -.095** .019 -.015 -.032 -.093 .017 -.049* .059** .017 -.036 -.045 .057 .017 -.033 .028 -.021 -.050** -.025 .026 -.020 -.049 -.023 -.026 .014 .001 -.028 -.024 .014 .001 -.026 .289** .032 -.015 -.018 .265 .031 -.015 -.017 51 Table 8 Digital news sites use scale’s each item and Motivations in use of political news on digital news sites Commenting Variable Β Clicking News β Part Correlation Sharing News β Part Correlation Seeing Headlines Β Part Correl ation .302 .326** .087** .084 .124** .427** .396 .120 .263** .179** .245 .172 .176** .169 .055** .053 Time of Use β Part Correlation .326** .303 Part Correlati on .218 .235** .240** Political Interest Need for Social Affiliation Perceived Credibility of Platform Citizenship Age Gender Income *p < .05, **p < .01 .056** -.040* -.055** .057** .226 .280** .264 .203** .192 .177** .167 .144** .136 .051 -.039 -.054 .052 -.112** -.032 -.047** .033 -.102 -.031 -.046 .030 -.141** .063** .005 -.033 -.128 .062 .005 -.031 -.195** .033 .065** -.003 -.178 .032 .064 -.003 .047* .031 .061** .039 .043 .031 .059 .036 52 Table 9 SNS use scale’s each item and difference of countries in use of political news on social networking sites Seeing Headlines Clicking News Discussing Posting/Sharing News β Part Correlation Clicking Like/Commenting Β Part Correlation Time of Use β Part Correlation β Part Correlation .315** .304 .239** .230 .100** .305** .096 .293 .059* .247** .057 .237 .049 -.019 -.059* .047 -.019 -.059 .040 -.032 -.044 .038 -.031 -.043 .296** .265 .229** .205 .109** .412** .101 .377 .044 .258** .041 .236 -.053 .025 .023 -.057* .026 .025 -.011 .026 .058 -.010 .025 .054 Part Correlation β Part Correlation .272 .078 .203 -.064 -.129 .034 .310 .094 .325 -.118 -.091 .024 .281** .084** .444** .271 .081 .426 -.010 -.129 .024 .351 .104 .367 -.067 -.055 .015 -.010 -.131** .025 .391** .112** .402** -.072** -.057* .016 .279** .092** .387** .048 -.024 -.085** .288** .078** .410** .045 .044 .031 .269 .088 .371 .046 -.023 -.084 .258 .072 .375 .042 .042 .028 .316** .096** .389** -.004 -.090** -.043 .319** .114** .410** -.064* -.010 .007 .305 .093 .373 -.004 -.088 -.043 .286 .106 .375 -.060 -.010 .006 Variable β .345** .282** .081** .211** -.067* -.132** .034 USA Political Interest NSA Perceived Credibility of Platform Age Gender Income Korea Political Interest NSA Perceived Credibility of Platform Age Gender Income *p < .05, **p <.01 -.128** -.094** .025 .101** .356** 53 .282** .268 .002 -.027 .052 .043 .003 .037 .281** .267 .204** .194 .040 .254** .039 .247 .186** .126** .183 .123 .390** .110** .297** .371 .108 .290 Part Correlation Part Correlation Part Correlation Clicking News β Commenting Β Seeing Headlines Β Sharing News Β Part Correlation Table 10 Digital news sites use scale’s each item and difference of countries in use of political news on digital news sites Variable USA Political Interest NSA Perceived Credibility of Platform Age Gender Income Korea Political Interest NSA Perceived Credibility of Platform Age Gender Income *p < .05,**p < .01 .041 -.038 -.095** -.086** -.083** .068* -.115** -.083** .042 -.010 .073** .065* .412 .133 .219 -.009 .071 .061 .042 .003 .036 .048 .040 -.056 .040 -.037 -.094 .002 -.026 .052 .467** .143** .242** .136 .254 .050 .030 .045 .145** .197** .135 .179 .106** .287** .098 .260 .207** .067* .205 .065 .239** .211 .274** .242 -.107 -.080 .040 -.080 -.080 .063 .147** .281** .054 .031 .048 .050 .041 -.057 .383** .338 Time of Use β Part Correlation .333** .317 .051 .168** .050 .164 .064* .112** .003 .061 .110 .003 .320** .283 .066* .105** .061 .095 -.007 .012 .093 -.007 .012 .100** 54 DISCUSSION This study examined why people use national political news on SNS and digital news sites in two countries. The results showed that perceived platform credibility and political interest are the main reasons for people using the political news on SNS and political news on digital news sites. These findings confirmed past studies suggesting that high levels of interest in national politics in both countries lead to high levels of political attention (Xenos & Moy, 2007; Lupia & Philpot, 2005) in the case of digital news sites. More importantly, this study found that the perceived platform credibility is one of the most important reasons people choose to use political news on SNS. Although Korea and the United States have different cultures, the results of this study did not show large differences in the influences of predictor variables. However, in comparing individual items of measurements about the use of political news on SNS and digital news sites, there were partial differences between two countries. The study also found that age and gender had different influences for the use of political news on SNS and digital news sites between two countries. All in all, this study hypothesized that higher NSA would lead to higher use of political news in SNS and digital news sites. Previous research found that NSA selection is correlated with SNS use (Cohen & Metzger, 1998; Nordlumd, 1978). However, these results showed that NSA was not a major reason to use political news in SNS or digital news sites. More interestingly, NSA was not able to explain why people use political news in SNS less frequently than in digital news sites. Mutz (2006) argues that users concern about the social harmony within their networks creates a tendency to constrain conversations in order to avoid conflict. In this context, even in an already established trusted relationship, posting or commenting on the 55 political news on SNS would be difficult when the users have a disagreement with their friends. In other words, although some people use political news on SNS because of NSA, the NSA might also work as an obstacle to using it on SNS at the same time because the users do not want to create conflict in their relationships on SNS. When NSA is not the motivation to use political news, other motivations explain political news use on each platform. Having found that NSA was not a key motivation to use political news on SNS and digital news sites, the next step was to identify the variables that influence people’s use of political news on each platform. In the case of digital news sites, political interest was a major motivation to use political news. Individual interest initiates the users’ exposure to related information (Donsbach, 1991). In media, political interest and the use of political news also have positive correlations, and it is reciprocal (Strömbäck & Shehata 2010). In examining to digital news sites, it was true that the users who have high political interest sought political news more frequently. Therefore, it is possible to say that political interest is a major reason to use political news in digital news sites. However, political interest is not the only motivation to use the news on SNS. In SNS, perceived platform credibility was an important motivation to use political news on SNS as well as political interest. The Consumer Reports Web Watch (2005) found that 67% of users of newspapers and television news replied that they trust their usually visited newspapers or television sources. This study found perceived platform credibility was a motivation to use political news on SNS. Several possible explanations present themselves. First, elements of platform design of SNS connect to the perceived platform credibility and the use of political news. Warnick (2004) states that the author’s identity is not crucial to evaluate web credibility, instead peripheral cues, such as information structure, usefulness of site content, design, and 56 usability influences the user to evaluate web credibility. The users of an SNS might give more weight to the structure, usefulness, design, and usability than they do in digital news sites. The second possible explanation is accustomedness. In the web era, news users would sometimes compromise the credibility of the information with speed, convenience, accessibility, and availability (Rieh & Hilligoss, 2007; Julien & Michels, 2004; Savolainen, 2008). In the end, the perceived platform credibility of SNS is a better predictor of why people use political news on SNS than other motivations. Another important goal of this study was to compare differences in user motivations between two countries. A culture establishes the patterns of how the press system functions within a society: for example, how to write and read news (Winfield et al, 2000); this study predicted that users in the USA and South Korea would show different motivations while using political news on SNS and digital news sites. Specifically, the people in these two countries showed different levels of individualism. Although this study did not find significant differences among the motivation variables in predicting the overall measures of using political news use on SNS and digital news sites, there are a few differences between two countries in comparing individual measurement scales. Specifically, political interest was the best predictor of headline reading on SNS among USA users, while perceived credibility of platform was most influential motivation at every item of both countries. In consider control variables, there were more differences to use political news on SNS between USA and Korea. Gender was the most influential control variable among USA users. It was significant in the items of seeing headlines, clicking news, and clicking like and commenting. For Korean users, age was the most influential. It was significant in the items of 57 seeing headlines, clicking news, clicking like and commenting, and discussing. Age was significant in only one item, seeing headlines among USA users. From the individual item analysis of measurements for digital news sites, while political interest was the most influential motivation at every item of both countries, perceived credibility of platform was exceeded it among Korean users in two items, sharing news and commenting. When examining demographic variables, age and gender were significant motivations for time of use on political news in digital news sites among USA users while income was more influential among Korean users. It is not clear how culture plays into differences in the predictors of individual scales or why age, gender, and level of income vary in their predictions of individual scales. Explaining these results is beyond the scope of these data; however, the results suggests the need for further research. Overall, the findings from this study add to the understanding of why people use political news on each platform and differences between countries. Previous studies found that there are many people who encounter political news on SNS accidentally (Xenos et al., 2014; Messing & Westwood, 2014). This study found that people use political news because of perceived platform credibility and political interest. This study expected that NSA would influence use political news on SNS, and the level of individualism would influence on NSA. However, there was no link between them and the motivations from different countries are similar. Scholars and journalists who want to understand and influence the use of SNS need to explore the factors that influence platform credibility. Why do users of Facebook see it as a credible place to find news? Does credibility of the source of news have any influence on platform credibility increasing use of political news? 58 With regard to digital news sites, scholars and journalists need to explore the factors that generate political interests. Understanding such relationships would allow news organizations to promote greater demand for their political coverage. For scholars, the results indicate the need for a more complex model that includes the antecedents of the motives examined in this study. Limitations and future research It is important to note that this study began from a question about the influence of NSA in using political news on SNS. Although this study confirmed some motivations for the use of political news on SNS and digital news sites, the strength of the hypothesized motivations were limited. In other words, other motivations beyond these three probably influence the use of political news -- for example, for fun, to learn, and so on. Future research should consider more motivations about the use of national political news on SNS and digital news sites. The second limitation is the measurement of NSA. Using all four dimensions of Hill’s measurement (1987) might show different results. Hill proposed for areas about NSA: positive stimulation, attention, social comparison, and emotional support. To look at relations between NSA and use of political use in SNS and digital media, this study borrowed positive stimulation, one dimension of the measure of affiliation from Hill because Hill stated that only positive stimulation named about a sense of closeness to others. This dimension was adopted because of its significance in the previous studies that used it often, and because it was expected that the positive stimulation could explain enjoyable affective and cognitive simulation in online environment. However, use of news is not only just online behavior but also psychological process. When using all four dimensions or different dimensions of Hill’s measurement, the 59 research might reveal how four dimensions work differently to use of political news in each media. The third limitation is the direction of influence among the variables. For example, political interest was a significant motivation to use political news on both platforms. However, unlike citizenship, political interest and using political news are reciprocal. When people have more political interest, they would likely to use political news on SNS and digital news sites more. On the other hand, when people use political news, their political interest would increase. This concern about direction is similar with NSA and platform credibility. Future studies should control for the direction of the influence among variables with longitudinal data and with statistical analysis. The fourth limitation is the number of countries used to compare the difference of the motivations. This study selected two countries to show cultural similarities or differences to use political news on SNS and digital news sites. However, it is unknown if the users in other countries have similar motivations in using political news on each platform. To generalize these results beyond these two countries, it is necessary to extend this study to include other countries that have different, diverse cultures. Also, this study was conducted when both countries were not experiencing large or sensitive national news issues. If the survey was processed when both countries faced more critical issues - such as a presidential election, a natural disaster, economic crisis, or a war – or other possible catalysts that may cause people to use news through diverse media, the result might find difference between two countries. In the future research, more countries should be examined for cultural differences. Despite suggestions in existing literature that cultural differences exist between Korea and the United States, these data did not reveal strong differences in which variables predicted 60 use of SNS or digital media sites. Future research should address possible reasons behind this result. Perhaps new technology use is not as influenced by culture as much as are other behaviors. Perhaps the impact of culture only develops after a new behavior has been integrated into a culture over time. It might also be possible that the impact on culture varies with generation, and when those generations are combined, it is difficult to find a cultural impact. All of these possibilities pose potential research questions for further study. This study did not examine source credibility. Further research might examine source credibility as a predictive variable. For the readers, source credibility is one of the important reasons to choose the news company. That is because this study aimed to disclose motivations to use information from different platforms. However, some platforms might be able to reflect characteristics of sources. For example, depending on the structure of platforms, an internet platform may highlight or hide an original name of the news company. More studies in considering the source credibility will give more interesting results. One more suggestion for future research is to study another genre of news. This study was confined to research motivations in the political news area. It would be useful to study the relations among the IVs and the use of other news, such as economic news, international news, entertainment news and so on, on SNS and digital news sites. If other genres are examined, it will show similarities or differences in motivations across news types. 61 CONCLUSION From the introduction of this study, the researcher suggested three objectives of the study: 1. To discover why people use national political news on SNS; 2. To compare how differently people use national political news on SNS and digital news site; and 3. To help politicians and journalists. In considering the findings mentioned above, this study is an initial expedition to know motivations why people use political news on SNS, compared between platforms. This study has applied the same research pattern and found similar results from two different countries. Finally, this study suggested that the NSA is not a leading motivation to use political news on SNS and digital news sites, and there are different and diverse motivations in each platform. Considering the results, journalists need to post national political news in digital news sites for the people who have high political interest. Because perceived platform credibility and political interest are usual motivations to use political news on SNS, politicians need to use SNS for the people who are more familiar with the SNS. This study began to answer the question of why people use political news on SNS and digital news sites. Findings from this study indicate people use political news on different platforms for different motivations. People use political news on SNS because of SNS’ perceived platform credibility and political interest, and use it on digital news sites because of political interest. 62 APPENDICES 63 APPENDIX A Questionnaire The following questions are about your personal characteristics. Please indicate how strongly you agree or disagree with the following statements by circling the number that corresponds with your level of agreement: Strongly disagree Disagree Somewha t disagree Neither agree or disagree 4 Somew hat agree 5 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 Agree Strongly agree 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 4. One of the most enjoyable I think being close to others, listening to them, and relating to them on a one-to-one level is one of my favorite and most satisfying pastimes Just being around others and finding out about them is one of the most interesting things I can think of doing I feel like I have really accomplished something valuable when I am able to get close to someone things I can think of that I like to do is just watching people and seeing what they are like I would find it very satisfying to be able to form new friendships with whomever I liked I seem to get satisfaction from begin with others more than a lot of other people do I think it would be satisfying if I could have very close friendships with quite a few people 8. The main thing I like about being around other people is the warm glow I get from contact with them I think I get satisfaction out of contact with others more than most people realize 1. 2. 3. 5. 6. 7. 9. 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 64 For the next question, please circle the number that corresponds to your answer. The “national political” term includes national law making, political parties’ activities, national public policy creation, warfare, foreign affairs, national elections, policy issues discussed during the national- level-election season, and so on. 10. On a scale of 1 to 7, with 7 being very interested, how interested would you say you personally are in national politics? (Circle one) 1 Not interested at all 2 3 4 5 6 7 Very interested These next questions deal with your use of national political news on Facebook. Please indicate level of frequency by circling the number that corresponds with your answer: “National political news” includes news about making laws on the national level, political parties’ activities, national public policy creation, warfare, foreign affairs, national elections, policy issues discussed during the national-level-election season, and so on. “National political news on Facebook” means national political news posted on Facebook, imported from news companies, such as NYTimes.com, WashingtonPost.com, FoxNews.com, CNN.com, Huffington post, and so on. Thinking about when you are on Facebook, how often, if at all, do you…(Check one per each item) Always Very often Often Sometimes Rarely Very Rarely Never 65 11. see headlines about the latest stories in national political news? 12. click on links to national political news stories? 13. post or share links to national political news stories? 14. click “like” or comment on national political news stories? 15. discuss issues in the national political news with other people on Facebook? 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 3 3 3 3 3 4 4 4 4 4 5 5 5 5 5 6 6 6 6 6 7 7 7 7 7 16. On average, when you use national political news, about how much time do you spend with Facebook in a week? (Check one) Less than Half hour One hour Two hours Three hours Four hours Five hours More than five hours The following questions are about your use of national political news on digital news sites. Digital news sites include but are not limited to Google news, Yahoo news, websites of media companies such as CNN, local news sources, MSN, Fox, MSNBC, New York Times, etc.` Thinking about when you visit a news web or mobile sites, how often, if at all, do you…(Check one per each item) 66 Always Very 1 often 2 Often 3 Sometim es 4 Rarely 5 Very Rarely Never 6 7 1 1 1 2 2 2 3 3 3 4 4 4 5 5 5 6 6 6 7 7 7 17. 18. 19. see headlines about the latest stories in national political news? click on links to national political news stories? share social media links (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) to national political news stories? 20. Write comments about national political news on the news or mobile site? 21. On average, when you use national political news, about how much time do you spend with digital news sites in a week? (Check one) Less than Half hour One hour Two hours Three hours Four hours Five hours More than five hours These next questions deal with your perception of perceived platform credibility about national political news on Facebook and digital news sites. Please indicate level of credibility by circling the number that corresponds with your answer. Not all 1 2 3 4 5 6 Extremely 7 22. When using Facebook, how believable do you find national political news on Facebook to be? 67 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 5 5 6 6 5 6 5 6 5 6 5 6 5 6 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 23. When using Facebook, how fair do you find national political news on Facebook to be? 24. When using Facebook, how accurate do you find national political news on Facebook to be? 25. When using Facebook, how comprehensive do you find national political news on Facebook to be? 26. When using digital news sites, how believable do you find national political news on digital news sites to be? 29. When using digital news sites, how fair do you find national political news on digital news sites to be? 27. When using digital news sites, how accurate do you find national political news on digital news sites to be? 28. When using digital news sites, how comprehensive do you find national political news on digital news sites to be? Changing topics now. The following questions deal with financial and other personal information. Once again, all information will be treated in strict confidence, and neither will never be linked by name to this information. 29. What is your age? ________ (fill in the blank) For the next three questions, please circle the number that corresponds to your answer. 68 30. What is your gender? 1 Female 2 Male 31. What is your ethnicity? (Check all that apply) 1 Caucasian 2 African- American 3 Hispanic 4 Native American 5 Asian 6 Other 33. Please indicate your total household income, before taxes. Again, this information will be kept 32. What is your citizenship? 1. US citizen 2. Non-US citizen confidential. 1. Less than $15,000 2. Between $15,001 and $25,000 3. Between $25,001 and $35,000 4. Between $35,001 and $45,000 5. Between $45,001 and $55,000 6. Between $55,001 and $65,000 7. Between $65,001 and $75,000 8. Between $75,001 and $85,000 9. Between $85,001 and $95,000 10. More than $95,000 34. Finally, in your own words, include comments about your experiences on news usage, please provide it below. Thank you very much for participating. If you would like the results of this survey sent to you, please write your email address here: 69 APPENDIX B Correlations Table 1 Correlations among Motivations to use political news on Social Networking Sites Use of Political News on Control Variables Citizenship Use of Political News on Digital News Sites Need For Affiliation Political Interest Perceived Platform Credibility on Digital News Sites Digital News Sites Need For Affiliation Political Interest 1.000 . .296 (.000) .540 (.000) .430 (.000) 1.000 . .269 (.000) 1.000 . .171 (.000) .176 (.000) Note. Numbers in parenthesis are levels of statistical significance Table 2 Correlations among Motivations to use political news on Digital News Sites Use of Political News on Social Control Variables Citizenship Networking Sites Need For Affiliation Political Interest Use of Political News on Social Networking Sites Need For Affiliation Political Interest Perceived Platform Credibility on Social Networking Sites 1.000 . .300 (.000) .470 (.000) .547 (.000) 1.000 . .190 (.000) 1.000 . .171 (.000) .265 (.000) Note. Numbers in parenthesis are levels of statistical significance 70 Perceived Platform Credibility on Digital News Sites 1.000 . Perceived Platform Credibility on Social Networking Sites 1.000 . Table 3 Correlations among Motivations to use political news on Social Networking Sites with Citizenship Control Variables Use of Political News on Social Networking Sites Need For Affiliation Political Interest Perceived Platform Credibility on Social Networking Sites Citizenship Perceived Platform Credibility on Social Networking Sites Citizenship 1.000 . .177 (.000) 1.000 . Need For Affiliation 1.000 . .029 (.195) .149 (.000) .145 (.000) Political Interest 1.000 . -.098 (.000) -.050 (.024) Note. Numbers in parenthesis are levels of statistical significance Table 4 Correlations among Motivations to use political news on Digital News Sites with Citizenship Perceived Platform Credibility on Digital News Sites Citizenship Political Interest 1.000 . -.185 (.000) 1.000 . .068 (.002) -.113 (.000) 1.000 . Control Variables Use of Political News on Digital News Sites Need For Affiliation Political Interest Perceived Platform Credibility on Digital News Sites Citizenship Need For Affiliation 1.000 . .001 (.950) .034 (.123) .113 (.000) Note. Numbers in parenthesis are levels of statistical significance 71 APPENDIX C Regression Tables for each Item of Measurement for Use Table 1 SNS use scale - Seeing Headlines - and Motivations in use of political news on SNS Variable Political Interest Need for Social Affiliation Perceived Credibility of Platform Citizenship Age Gender Income R2 F *p < .05, ** p <.01 B .305 .117 .314 .774 -.011 -.308 .019 SE B β Part Correlation Square of Part Correlation .293 .087 .259 .241 -.084 -.102 .032 .019 .025 .022 .059 .002 .055 .011 .310** .092** .274** .263** -.087** -.105** .035 .311 130.783** .086 .008 .067 .058 .007 .010 .001 72 Table 2 SNS use scale - Clicking News - and Motivations in use of political news on SNS Variable Political Interest Need for Social Affiliation Perceived Credibility of Platform Citizenship Age Gender Income R2 F *p < .05, **p < .01 B .339 .136 .519 -.051 -.005 -.291 .011 SE B β Part Correlation Square of Part Correlation .019 .024 .022 .057 .002 .054 .011 .330** .103** .437** -.017 -.033 -.095** .019 .401 194.397** .312 .097 .413 -.015 -.032 -.093 .017 .097 009 .171 .000 .102 .009 .000 Table 3 SNS use scale – Posting or Sharing News - and Motivations in use of political news on SNS Square of Part Correlation Correlation Variable Part B SE B β Political Interest Need for Social Affiliation Perceived Credibility of Platform Citizenship Age Gender Income R2 .324 .133 .542 -.167 .009 .059 -.023 F *p < .05, **p <.01 .022 .028 .025 .067 .003 .063 .012 .283** .090** .408** -.049* .059** .017 -.036 .343 151.120** 73 .268 .085 .386 -.045 .057 .017 -.033 .072 .007 .149 .002 .003 .000 .001 Table 4 SNS use scale – Clicking “like” or Commenting - and Motivations in use of political news on SNS Variable Political Interest Need for Social Affiliation Perceived Credibility of Platform Citizenship Age Gender Income R2 F *p < .05, **p < .01 B .365 .157 .531 .095 -.003 -.170 -.015 SE B β Part Correlation Square of Part Correlation .306 .102 .383 .026 -.020 -.049 -.023 .021 .027 .025 .065 .003 .061 .012 .324** .108** .406** .028 -.021 -.050** -.025 .359 162.618** .094 .010 .147 .001 .000 .002 .001 Table 5 SNS use scale – Discussing - and Motivations in use of political news on SNS Variable Political Interest Need for Social Affiliation Perceived Credibility of Platform Citizenship Age Gender Income R2 F *p < .05, **p < .01 B .366 .157 .476 -.089 .002 .002 -.018 SE B β Part Correlation Square of Part Correlation .022 .029 .026 .069 .003 .065 .013 .318** .105** .356** -.026 .014 .001 -.028 .315 133.253** 74 .301 .100 .337 -.024 .014 .001 -.026 .091 .010 .114 .001 .000 .000 .001 Table 6 SNS use scale - Time of Use - and Motivations in use of political news on SNS SE B β Part Correlation Square of Part Correlation .025 .032 .029 .076 .003 .072 .014 .226** .051* .243** .289** .032 -.015 -.018 .218 81.018** .214 .048 .230 .265 .031 -.015 -.017 .046 .002 .053 .070 .001 .000 .000 Variable Political Interest Need for Social Affiliation Perceived Credibility of Platform Citizenship Age Gender Income R2 F *p < .05, **p < .01 B .271 .079 .337 1.034 .005 -.055 -.012 Table 7 Digital news sites use scale – Seeing Headlines - and Motivations in use of political news on digital news sites Variable Political Interest Need for Social Affiliation Perceived Credibility of Platform Citizenship Age Gender Income R2 F *p < .05, **p < .01 B .301 .104 .272 .155 -.005 -.151 .029 SE B .019 .024 .023 .058 .002 .054 .011 β .326 .087 .240 .056 -.040 -.055 .057 .249 96.467** 75 Part Correlation Square of Part Correlation .302 .084 .226 .051 -.039 -.054 .052 .091 .007 .051 .003 .002 .003 .003 Table 8 Digital news sites use scale – Clicking the News - and Motivations in use of political news on digital news sites Variable SE B B β Part Correlation Square of Part Correlation Political Interest Need for Social Affiliation Perceived Credibility of Platform Citizenship Age Gender Income R2 F *p < .05, **p < .01 .413 .156 .332 -.322 -.004 -.135 .018 .018 .023 .022 .056 .002 .052 .010 .427 .124 .280 -.112 -.032 -.047 .033 .367 168.258** .396 .120 .264 -.102 -.031 -.046 .030 .157 .014 .069 .010 .001 .002 .001 Table 9 Digital news sites use scale – Sharing the News - and Motivations in use of political news on digital news sites Variable Political Interest Need for Social Affiliation Perceived Credibility of Platform Citizenship Age Gender Income R2 F *p < .05, **p < .01 B .300 .263 .284 -.479 .010 .018 -.021 SE B .024 .030 .029 .073 .003 .068 .013 β .263 .179 .203 -.141 .063 .005 -.033 .219 81.597** 76 Part Correlation Square of Part Correlation .245 .172 .192 -.128 .062 .005 -.031 .060 .029 .037 .016 .004 .000 .001 Table 10 Digital news sites use scale – Commenting - and Motivations in use of political news on digital news sites Variable Political Interest Need for Social Affiliation Perceived Credibility of Platform Citizenship Age Gender Income R2 F *p < .05, **p < .01 B .268 .260 .247 -.665 .005 .223 -.002 SE B .024 .030 .029 .074 .003 .069 .014 β .235 .176 .177 -.195 .033 .065 -.003 .206 74.940** Part Correlation Square of Part Correlation .218 .169 .167 -.178 .032 .064 -.003 .048 .029 .028 .032 .001 .004 .000 Table 11 Digital news sites use scale – Time of Use - and Motivations in use of political news on digital news sites Part Correlation Square of Part Correlation Variable Political Interest Need for Social Affiliation Perceived Credibility of Platform Citizenship Age Gender Income R2 F *p < .05, **p < .01 B .377 .082 .205 .162 .005 .210 .025 SE B .025 .031 .030 .076 .003 .071 .014 β .326 .055 .144 .047 .031 .061 .039 .303 .053 .136 .043 .031 .059 .036 .190 67.931** 77 .092 .003 .018 .002 .001 .003 .001 Table 12 SNS use scale – Seeing Headlines - and difference of countries in use of political news on social networking sites Korea USA B SE B Β .379 .031 .345** .143 .436 .038 .034 .101** .356** Part Correla tion .310 .094 .325 -.019 -.277 .017 .004 .076 .018 -.128** -.094** .025 -.118 -.091 .024 .376 99.901** Square of Part Correlatio n .096 .009 .106 .014 .008 .001 Variable B SE B β Part Corre lation Square of Part Correlati on .089 .214 .238 Political Interest NSA Perceive d Credibili ty of Platform Age Gender Income R2 F *p < .05,**p < .01 -.368 .016 -.008 .025 .282** .272 .032 .030 .081** .211** .078 .203 .003 .081 .014 -.067* -.132** .034 -.064 -.129 .034 .172 35.750** .074 .006 .041 .004 .017 .001 78 Table 13 SNS use scale – Clicking the News - and difference of countries in use of political news on social networking sites Korea USA Variable B SE B β Part Corre lation Square of Part Correl ation B SE B Β Part Correl ation Square of Part Correlati on .271 .105 .512 Political Interest NSA Perceived Credibilit y of Platform Age Gender Income R2 F *p < .05,**p < .01 -.418 .013 -.001 .438 .029 .391** .351 .162 .502 .036 .031 .112** .402** .104 .367 -.011 -.172 .011 .004 .072 .017 -.072** -.057* .016 -.067 -.055 .015 .474 149.198** .123 .011 .135 .004 .003 .000 .025 .281** .271 .033 .030 .084** .444** .081 .426 .003 .081 .014 -.010 -.131** .025 -.010 -.129 .024 .354 94.162** .073 .007 .181 .000 .017 .001 79 Table 14 SNS use scale – Posting/Sharing News - and difference of countries in use of political news on social networking sites Korea USA Variable B SE B β Part Corre lation Square of Part Correl ation B SE B Β Part Correl ation Square of Part Correlati on .290 .125 .483 Political Interest NSA Perceived Credibilit y of Platform Age Gender Income R2 F *p < .05, **p < .01 .007 -.081 -.050 .370 .035 .288** .258 .129 .588 .044 .039 .078** .410** .008 .150 .024 .005 .088 .021 .045 .044 .031 .397 108.953** .072 .375 .042 .042 .028 .067 .005 .141 .002 .002 .001 .028 .279** .269 .037 .034 .092** .387** .088 .371 .004 .092 .016 .048 -.024 -.085** .046 -.023 -.084 .293 71.208** .072 .008 .138 .002 .001 .007 80 Table 15 SNS use scale – Clicking “like” or Comment - and difference of countries in use of political news on social networking sites USA Korea Variable B SE B β Part Corre lation Square of Part Correl ation B SE B Β Part Correl ation Square of Part Correlati on .130 .480 .326 Political Interest NSA Perceived Credibilit y of Platform Age Gender Income R2 F *p < .05,**p < .01 -.307 -.025 -.001 .406 .035 .319** .286 .188 .583 .043 .038 .114** .410** .106 .375 -.011 -.035 .005 .004 .086 .021 -.064* -.010 .007 -.060 -.010 .006 .412 115.837** .082 .011 .141 .004 .000 .000 .027 .316** .305 .036 .033 .096** .389** .093 .373 .004 .089 .015 -.004 -.090** -.043 -.004 -.088 -.043 .321 81.339** .093 .009 .139 .000 .008 .002 81 Table 16 SNS use scale – Discussing - and difference of countries in use of political news on social networking sites Korea USA Variable B SE B β Part Corre lation Square of Part Correl ation B SE B Β Part Correl ation Square of Part Correlati on .337 .007 .140 .392 Political Interest NSA Perceived Credibilit y of Platform Age Gender Income R2 F *p < .05,**p < .01 -.068 -.036 .376 .035 .296** .265 .179 .585 .044 .038 .109** .412** .101 .377 -.010 .089 .020 .004 .087 .021 -.057* .026 .025 -.053 .025 .023 .399 110.011** .070 .010 .142 .003 .001 .001 .030 .315** .304 .039 .036 .100** .305** .096 .293 .004 .097 .016 .049 -.019 -.059* .047 -.019 -.059 .251 57.705** .092 .009 .086 .002 .000 .003 82 Table 17 SNS use scale – Time of Use - and difference of countries in use of political news on social networking sites Korea USA Variable B SE B β Part Corre lation Square of Part Correl ation B SE B Β Part Correl ation Square of Part Correlati on .295 .007 .096 .366 Political Interest NSA Perceived Credibilit y of Platform Age Gender Income R2 F *p < .05, **p < .01 -.130 -.030 .234 .033 .229** .205 .058 .294 .041 .036 .044 .258** .041 .236 -.002 .071 .037 .004 .081 .020 -.011 .026 .058 -.010 .025 .054 .188 38.227** .042 .002 .056 .000 .001 .003 .037 .239** .230 .048 .044 .059* .247** .057 .237 .005 .120 .020 .040 -.032 -.044 .038 -.031 -.043 .150 30.507** .053 .003 .056 .001 .001 .002 83 Table 18 Digital news sites use scale – Seeing Headlines - and difference of countries in use of political news on digital news sites Korea USA Variable B SE B β Part Corre lation Square of Part Correl ation B SE B Β Part Correl ation Square of Part Correlati on .044 .280 .241 Political Interest NSA Perceived Credibilit y of Platform Age Gender Income R2 F *p < .05, ** p <.01 -.076 .025 .000 .387 .030 .383** .338 .189 .233 .037 .034 .145** .197** .135 .179 -.012 -.224 .043 .004 .074 .018 -.086** -.083** .068* -.080 -.080 .063 .319 77.598** .114 .018 .032 .006 .006 .004 .025 .282** .268 .032 .032 .040 .254** .039 .247 .003 .081 .014 .002 -.027 .052 .002 -.026 .052 .184 38.858** .072 .002 .061 .000 .001 .003 84 Table 19 Digital news sites use scale – Clicking the News - and difference of countries in use of political news on digital news sites Korea USA Variable B SE B β Part Corre lation Square of Part Correl ation B SE B Β Part Correl ation Square of Part Correlati on .132 .351 .357 Political Interest NSA Perceived Credibilit y of Platform Age Gender Income R2 F *p < .05, **p <.01 .009 .019 .005 .489 .028 .467** .412 .194 .295 .034 .032 .143** .242** .133 .219 -.016 -.233 .028 .004 .069 .017 -.115** -.083** .042 -.107 -.080 .040 .440 129.869** .169 .018 .048 .011 .006 .002 .025 .390** .371 .031 .031 .110** .297** .108 .290 .042 .003 .036 .003 .079 .013 .043 .003 .037 .325 82.690** .138 .012 .084 .002 .000 .001 85 Table 20 Digital news sites use scale – Sharing the News - and difference of countries in use of political news on digital news sites Korea USA Variable B SE B β Part Corre lation Square of Part Correl ation B SE B Β Part Correl ation Square of Part Correlati on .288 .166 .247 Political Interest NSA Perceived Credibilit y of Platform Age Gender Income R2 F *p < .05, **p < .01 -.129 -.054 .006 .308 .039 .239** .211 .244 .422 .048 .045 .147** .281** .009 .107 .038 .005 .096 .023 .054 .031 .048 .281 64.675** .136 .254 .050 .030 .045 .045 .018 .065 .003 .001 .002 .031 .281** .267 .038 .038 .186** .126** .183 .123 .004 .098 .016 .041 -.038 -.095** .040 -.037 -.094 .166 34.291** .071 .033 .015 .002 .000 .009 86 Table 21 Digital news sites use scale – Commenting - and difference of countries in use of political news on digital news sites Korea USA Variable B SE B β Part Corre lation Square of Part Correl ation B SE B Β Part Correl ation Square of Part Correlati on .266 .007 .200 .085 Political Interest NSA Perceived Credibilit y of Platform Age Gender Income R2 F *p < .05, **p < .01 .132 -.031 .361 .040 .274** .242 .180 .442 .049 .045 .106** .287** .098 .260 -.002 .259 .054 .005 .098 .024 -.010 .073** .065* -.009 .071 .061 .294 68.886** .059 .009 .068 .000 .005 .004 .030 .204** .194 .038 .038 .207** .067* .205 .065 .004 .097 .016 .050 .041 -.057 .048 .040 -.056 .110 21.104** .037 .042 .004 .002 .002 .003 87 Table 22 Digital news sites use scale – Time of Use - 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