- Author
- Year
- 2008
- Title
- Getting acquainted through social networking sites: Testing a model of online uncertainty reduction and social attraction
- Journal
- Conference papers: International Communication Association: annual meeting
- Volume
- 2008
- Document type
- Article
- Faculty
- Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences (FMG)
- Institute
- Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR)
- Abstract
-
The first aim of this study was to examine which uncertainty reduction strategies members of social networking sites used to gain information about a person who they had recently met online. The second aim was to investigate whether and how these uncertainty reduction strategies resulted in social attraction. Drawing on a survey of 704 members of a social networking site, we found that respondents had used active, passive, and interactive strategies to reduce uncertainty about their new acquaintance. Interactive strategies were most effective in reducing uncertainty about the target person. Respondents’ level of uncertainty about the acquaintance mediated the relationships between the use of interactive uncertainty strategies and perceived similarity on the one hand and social attraction on the other. Finally, respondents’ perceived valence of the obtained information about the acquaintance moderated the relationship between the level of uncertainty and social attraction.
- Link
- Link
- Language
- English
- Note
- Top-two paper award, Communication and Technology Division for this paper
Proceedings title: Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Communication Association, TBA, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, May 21, 2008
Publisher: International Communication Association
Place of publication: Washington, DC - Persistent Identifier
- https://hdl.handle.net/11245/1.397851
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