Influences and benefits of role models on social media

Jenkins, Lyndsey; Lin, Ruoyun; Jeske, Debora

Abstract

The current paper examined three research questions. First, what are the perceived benefits for social network users who have role models online? Second, to what extent does having role models online influence one’s self-presentation on social media? And finally, are users who expect more in return (greater reciprocity) more likely to have role models on social media? Using two opportunity survey samples and exploratory analyses, study 1 (N = 236) demon-strated that having role models was associated with greater perceived support for one’s career aspirations, and perceived access to information. The results of study 2 (N = 192) revealed that participants who had role models online reported that their online profile presented a more realistic self-presentation of values and pri-orities, as well as having higher reciprocity expectation.

Citation

Jenkins, L., Lin, R., & Jeske, D. (2016). Influences and benefits of role models on social media. In E. L. Slade, N. P. Rana, S. Al-Sharhan, A. C. Simintiras, Y. K. Dwivedi, M. Mäntymäki, …M. Clement (Eds.), Social Media: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, Proceedings 15th IFIP WG 6.11 Conference on e-Business, e-Services, and e-Society, I3E 2016 (673-684). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-45234-0_60

• Conference Name: 15th IFIP Conference on e-Business e-Services & e-Society (I3E)
• Start Date: Sep 13, 2016
• End Date: Sep 15, 2016
• Acceptance Date: Jun 5, 2016
• Online Publication Date: Oct 1, 2016
• Publication Date: Sep 13, 2016
• Deposit Date: Jun 6, 2016
• Publicly Available Date: Sep 13, 2016
• Publisher: Springer
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Pages: 673-684
• Series Title: Lecture Notes in Computer Science
• Series Number: 9844
• Series ISSN: 0302-9743
• Book Title: Social Media: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, Proceedings 15th IFIP WG 6.11 Conference on e-Business, e-Services, and e-Society, I3E 2016
• Chapter Number: 60
• ISBN: 978-3-319-45233-3
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-45234-0_60
• Keywords: Role model; social media; information-seeking; reciprocity expectations
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/id/eprint/10343