Motivations behind individuals' engagement with urban, community-building nonprofits on Facebook : a uses and gratifications approach

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] This research examines how individuals engage with urban, community-building nonprofits on Facebook. Nonprofits rely heavily on social media marketing (SMM) given its cost efficiency and nonprofits' limited budgets (Young, 2017). Given the importance of social media to nonprofits, it is important to examine why individuals are engaging with nonprofits on Facebook. Applying Uses and Gratifications (U&G), the current research identifies motivations behind the public's engagement with nonprofits. U&G provides a psychological communication perspective that assesses how individuals use mass media and what gratifications they get from media uses. While U&G has been applied to social media in general, U&G has not been used to examine this narrow inquisition in nonprofit research. An urban, community-building nonprofit is defined as a 501(c)(3) that is based in a major city in the United States, and the nonprofit's work must be oriented towards helping the community that it is based in. The purpose of this study is to find what uses and gratifications individuals seek when they engage with an urban, community-building nonprofit's Facebook site and to what extent those gratifications are believed to be obtained. This study utilizes a survey methodology and Whiting and Williams (2013) uses and gratifications social media framework will be used to uncover what motivates individuals' engagement with urban, community-building nonprofits on Facebook.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.A.

Level thesis:degree_level

Masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Journalism (MU)

Grantor dc:publisher

University of Missouri--Columbia

Year dc:date.issued

2018

Author dc:creator

• Conway, Christian

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Rodgers, Shelly (Shelly Lannette), 1965-

Statement dc:rights

• Access to files is limited to the campuses of the University of Missouri with SSO login.

Language dc:language.iso

eng, English

DOI

https://doi.org/10.32469/10355/67733

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:mospace.umsystem.edu:10355/67733