Investigating Public Shares on Facebook: A Case Study Involving Posts on the Fan Page "Lazy.News" during the 318 Students` Movement

Abstract

The study of information flow on platforms characterized by user-generated information is more likely to adopt the ego-centrism model because of the emphasis on users` characters. However, communication activities on social media are related to factors such as platform design, user patterns, and communication culture. Communication activities cannot always be explained by user self-reporting. Accordingly, this study argues that a data-centered explanatory model could be an alternative explanation about how users interact with the unique design of social media platforms and lead to theoretical concepts that are differentiated from those of the mass media era. Through collecting and visualizing ＂publicly shared＂ information, this research finds that the information communication model on Facebook can be portrayed by two indicators: communication depth and width. After detouring from self-report and personal character study, we think that researchers should focus more on the cooperative characters of sharing activities on social media to develop the communication theory of social media.

使用者生產內容平臺上的資訊傳遞研究，常因側重使用者特徵而形成「使用者中心」的解釋模型。然而，數位社群平臺上的溝通活動，涉及介面設計、使用慣性乃至於溝通文化等影響因素，有時並非加總使用者自我報告所能描繪。有鑑於此，本文認為資訊中心的解釋模型，較能夠回應社群平臺臉書的特殊設計，導引出有別於大眾傳播時代的理論概念。透過蒐集「公開分享」資訊並加以視覺化，本文發現，臉書上的資訊傳播模型可由傳播深度與廣度兩個指標來描繪。本文認為在繞過自我報告與個人屬性考察後，研究者較能關注社群媒體上分享活動的協作特質，發展能夠數群媒體特徵的傳播理論。