A fine line between red and dark: Anti-communist film-induced tourism

This study explores the ‘30 September Movement’ that staged a communist coup in 1965 as travel motivation for an anti-communism museum. ‘Framing’ and ‘uses and gratifications’ theories were used for this case study. The findings concluded that negative film plots and scenes are signature themes that can be used as attributes of red or dark film motivations for tourism. The use of theories, such as ‘framing’ and ‘uses and gratifications’, along with reflexive thematic analysis has provided unique and valuable theoretical insights that may be overlooked by other analyses.

Online Opinion Expression about Women Serving as Judges among University Students in Egypt and Kuwait: An Integrative Study of the Spiral of Silence and Uses and Gratifications

This study integrates the Spiral of Silence and Uses and Gratifications theories to examine the willingness of university students to express on Twitter their opinions about a controversial issue, women serving as judges in Kuwait and Egypt. The analysis of a survey of 640 respondents showed that they used Twitter for information seeking, opinion formation, opinion reinforcement, and social utility in discussions, and for its democratizing capability. Democratization was the only motive to predict the expression of opinion online. When the Kuwaiti and Egyptian samples were analyzed separately, the democratization motive predicted opinion expression for the Kuwaiti students but not for the Egyptian students. Interaction effects between motivations and size of the respondent's social network on Twitter were found to predict the online expression of opinion. For example, the variable assessing the size of a respondent's social network interacted with information seeking motivation and also with opinion reinforcement to predict opinion expression online.

Consumer engagement in value co-creation within virtual video game communities

With the emergence of the gaming industry as the most empowering form of entertainment, video game online communities have become a refuge for many users who are looking to fulfil specific needs, leading them to participate in creating their own experiences. Drawing upon the uses and gratifications theory, this research aims to understand the motivations behind consumer engagement in value co-creation within digital game distribution services (exp. Steam), and how it affects loyalty. To the extent of the author’s knowledge, little research has addressed this question within the gaming industry. We conducted an online survey administered to video game platforms users, through which 195 valid answers were collected. Findings suggest that hedonic along with personal and social motivations have positive influence on user’s engagement to co-create value, which in return increases their loyalty behavior.

Kesenjangan Kepuasan Penggunaan Media Sosial Whatsapp oleh Penyuluh Pertanian di Kabupaten Wonogiri

Penyuluh pertanian sebagai ujung tombak pertanian Indonesia berperan salah satunya sebagai pusat data dan informasi. Penyuluh pertanian dituntut untuk memperluas wawasan dan kompetensi dengan mengumpulkan berbagai informasi melalui pemanfaatan teknologi informasi dan komunikasi di era digital, seperti media sosial whatsapp. Penggunaan media sosial whatsapp didasari oleh berbagai motif kebutuhan yang ingin dipenuhi. Motif kebutuhan yang dapat terpenuhi oleh penggunaan media whatsapp akan menciptakan suatu perolehan kepuasan. Tujuan penelitian ini adalah untuk menganalisis kesenjangan antara motif dan kepuasan dalam penggunaan media sosial whatsapp oleh penyuluh pertanian di Kabupaten Wonogiri. Metode penelitian yang digunakan adalah kuantitatif deskriptif dengan analisis kesenjangan oleh Palmgreen dan mengacu pada teori Uses and Gratifications. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa skor rata-rata total motif (Gratification Sought) lebih besar dari skor rata-rata total kepuasan (Gratification Obtained) yakni 44.67 (GS) > 43.43 (GO), artinya terjadi kesenjangan antara motif dan kepuasan penggunaan media whatsapp. Perbandingan skor rata-rata total tersebut membuktikan bahwa media whatsapp kurang memberikan kepuasan yang maksimal kepada penyuluh pertanian di Kabupaten Wonogiri.