Researchers points out that social media has become a powerful venue to spread news, both for the news business and the users. Although the news diffusion has become a phenomenon to be reckoned with, we have found no research in Sweden about what motivate users of social media to share news. This thesis work therefore investigates news sharing on the social network Facebook by examining user motives in the light of the media theory uses and gratifications. A web survey was conducted and distributed to students at a Swedish university. The result showed that expression was the strongest motive to share news on Facebook, and the item that was highly valued by the students was to give other valuable information. The result also showed that other motives for sharing news was socialization, information, status and entertainment.

Social media, example Facebook, has made it possible for people to easily be a part of news sharing and to produce news. As a result of this, there are opportunities for each and everyone to influence and to be more involved in news dissemination but at the same time there are risks involved. It has been shown to be common for misinformation to spread through social media where it rapidly reaches a large group of people, which can result in a false image of reality. In this study theories about Uses and Gratifications and source credibility have been brought together for an analysis. The purpose was to investigate what our respondents thought about the benefits of an active audience when it comes to sharing news, but also to investigate the negative sides of news sharing and the risks that follow. The study presents various needs that are satisfied with news sharing on Facebook. With a focus on Facebook the study also presents opinions, behaviors and attitudes about source credibility and news sharing amongst young adults. Young adults have shown to be very active on social media where they also consume a lot of their news intake – which is why we selected this group of people in our study. To find out what young adults think about our subject previously mentioned, we formed focus groups of participants in the ages of 18-29 where they discussed questions about the subject. This study’s most significant finding is that news sharing on Facebook is mostly about satisfying a need of attention – a need to show other people that one has knowledge about recent news and a need to be confirmed by others, in example via comments. Another discovery is that the participants in this study mean that the only way to value sources on social media is to compare different sources with one another. But it was shown that other factors are also important when they value sources on social media. / Sociala medier, exempelvis Facebook har gjort det möjligt för allmänheten att på ett enkelt sätt vara med och bidra till nyhetsskapandet och nyhetsspridning. I och med detta finns det möjligheter för alla att påverka och vara delaktiga i nyhetsspridningen, men samtidigt medföljer även risker. Det har visat sig vara vanligt att falsk information sprids via sociala medier där den snabbt når ut till många människor, vilket kan ge en missvisande bild av verkligheten. I denna studie förs teorier om Uses and Gratifications samman med området källkritik, för att dels undersöka hur våra respondenter resonerar kring fördelar med att alla aktivt kan vara delaktiga i nyhetsspridningen och dels undersöka hur de resonerar kring de negativa sidorna, vilket området källkritik tar upp genom olika risker. Studien redogör för olika behov som uppfylls vid nyhetsspridning på Facebook samt vilka åsikter, beteenden och attityder unga vuxna har kring källkritik och nyhetsspridning på sociala medier, med fokus på Facebook. Varför just unga vuxna undersökts är eftersom den gruppen generellt är mycket aktiva på sociala medier och att de till stor del får reda på nyheter via exempelvis Facebook. För att få reda på hur unga vuxna resonerar kring ovanstående genomfördes fokusgrupper där deltagare mellan 18-29 år fick möjlighet att diskutera frågor kring ämnet. Utmärkande av resultatet i studien är att nyhetsspridning på Facebook till stor del handlar om att uppfylla ett behov av uppmärksamhet. Behov av att andra ska se att man har koll och behov av att få bekräftelse genom exempelvis kommentarer. En annan upptäckt är att deltagarna i studien menar att sättet de värderar källor på sociala medier är att jämföra informationen från olika källor, men däremot spelar flera andra faktorer roll även om deltagarna är mindre medvetna om dessa faktorer då de värderar trovärdigheten.

Social media platforms create rich social structures, expand users' boundaries of social networks and revolutionize traditional forms of communications, social interactions and social relationships. These platforms not only facilitate the creation and sharing of news and information, but they also drive various kinds of businesses models, processes and operations, knowledge sharing, marketing strategies for brand management and socio-political discourses essential for healthy and democratic functions. As such, social media has greater implications on organizations and society brought about by individuals' social media usage patterns, and therefore, calls for further investigations. The main objective of this dissertation is to explore and offer insights into such social media usage and information sharing behaviors via data driven examination of various theories. This dissertation involves three studies that focus on factors that explain individuals' three different social media usage behaviors. Essay 1 investigates individuals' perceived importance of online affiliation, self-esteem, self-regulation and risk-benefit structure as antecedents of users' geo-tagging behavior on social media. Essay 2 examines the role of online news quality, source credibility, individuals' perception towards online civic engagement, attitude towards news sharing and social influences to understand users' news sharing behavior on social media platforms. Essay 3 seeks to examine the individuals' information verification behavior on social media through the lens of individuals' fake news awareness, perceived cost of information verification, trust in social media and truth-seeking.

本研究以政治新聞為例，了解社群媒體時代，臉書使用者的新聞選擇與分享行為，是否改變了傳統新聞守門的理論與實踐，創造出不同於傳統的網路新聞創用行為。 本研究以深度訪談法進行，並結合受訪者臉書的貼文進行研究，採立意和滾雪球兩種抽樣方式，最後訪談對象共12人，男生8人，女生4人。 研究發現可分為四點： 一、網路新聞定義和價值產生質變：對於使用者來說，傳統價值所強調的 「正確性」仍重要，但期許接收更多富含觀點、解釋性的內容。 二、分享行為再定義，臉書使用者的多元社群角色：研究發現使用者身處 多個社群，角色並非固定，而是隨著不同的社群展示不同的形象，提 供不同的功能。本研究彙整臉書使用者可能呈現的五種角色：(1)宣 傳資訊的里長伯 (2)引領思考的領航員 (3)試圖說服的傳教士 (4) 自說自話的說書人 (5)尋求對話的監視者。 三、先分享再過濾，接力合作的社群守門：網路時代，新聞守門仍以多元 的形式在實踐，其中包含臉書演算法、個人守門、朋友守門人，和結 合群眾與科技的協力守門。守門行為不再專屬媒體組織，而是開放使 用者共同合作，不斷協力參與的資訊增值過程。 四、臉書社群的緊密與疏離：「社群」對於臉書使用者的新聞接收和意見 形塑，產生不可忽視的影響，社交網絡的互動出現小眾化、同質化的 現象，密切的人際互動多為立場雷同的對象。 從政治新聞分享者的使用行為中，可發現其動機除了資訊尋求、人際互動以外，臉書使用者更希望在後續的討論過程中影響他人意見、說服他人以不同角度看待政治新聞，新聞分享行為不只是純粹的資訊傳播的過程，而可能是使用者用來觀測輿情、開啟對話、攏絡異己的政治工具。

Submitted by JOSIANE SANTOS DE OLIVEIRA (josianeso) on 2017-06-13T13:22:15Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Carlos Alberto Teixeira Corrêa_.pdf: 2747574 bytes, checksum: 605b5f6ad1f74060cbd461ac95749732 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-06-13T13:22:15Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Carlos Alberto Teixeira Corrêa_.pdf: 2747574 bytes, checksum: 605b5f6ad1f74060cbd461ac95749732 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-03-24 / Nenhuma / A presente pesquisa busca analisar as mudanças pelas quais passam os critérios de noticiabilidade no ambiente do jornalismo online a partir de uma maior participação do público via sites de redes sociais. Para tanto, se utiliza do comparativo de parâmetros entre os jornalistas e o público. Enquanto toma como medida dos valores do jornalista as manchetes de capa dos sites do Correio do Povo e da Folha de S. Paulo, se baseia nas notícias mais compartilhadas pelo público a partir dos perfis oficiais dos dois veículos de comunicação nos sites de redes sociais Facebook e Twitter. Como metodologia, são utilizadas entrevistas com responsáveis pelos sites, observação e a criação de mecanismos de coleta de dados que possibilitam a comparação por meio de quatro variáveis: presença de editorias, posição na página, presença de valores-notícia e presença de valores-notícia detalhados. Verifica-se que na maior parte dos casos aqui analisados há consonância entre o jornalista e o público em relação aos critérios de importância, mas atenta-se para a importância das diferenças, também essenciais no processo, sugerindo-se que a questão não seja resumida a um ou outro. / The present research seeks to analyze the changes that involve the newsworthiness criteria in the environment of online journalism from a now bigger participation of the public via social networking sites. To do so, it is used a comparative of parameters between journalists and the public. While taking as a measure of the journalist's values the headlines of the cover of the sites of the Correio do Povo and Folha de S. Paulo, is based on the most shared news by the public from the official profiles of the two communication vehicles on social network sites Facebook and Twitter. As a methodology, it is used interviews with site managers, observation and the creation of data collection mechanisms that allows the comparison through four variables: presence of editorials, position on the page, presence of news-values and presence of detailed news-values. It is verified that in the majority of the cases analyzed here there is consonance between the journalist and the public in relation to the criteria of importance, but it is attentive to the importance of the differences, also essential in the process, suggesting that the issue should not be summarized to one or the another.