INVESTIGATING THE INDIVIDUALS' PERCEPTION ABOUT SOCIAL MEDIA INFLUENCERS: A SURVEY STUDY ON UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

2022-9
Yüksel, Umutcan Sümeyye
Internet and social media have become integral to our lives, creating social media celebrities or influencer terms. This thesis explores social media influencers' effects on social media users. Perceived similarity by the user to the influencer, wishful identification by the user with the influencer, perceived credibility of the influencer, and parasocial identification between the user and the influencer are investigated. This thesis aims to contribute to the literature by simultaneously analyzing perceived similarity, wishful identification, credibility, and parasocial identification in the Turkish social media context. An online survey was sent to Middle East Technical University students, and 100 valid answers were collected. Findings revealed that perceived similarity, wishful identification, and trustworthiness dimension of credibility are strong predictors of parasocial identification.

Suggestions

Analyzing and Predicting Privacy Settings in the Social Web
Naini, Kaweh Djafari; Altıngövde, İsmail Sengör; Kawase, Ricardo; Herder, Eelco; Niederee, Claudia (2015-07-03)
Social networks provide a platform for people to connect and share information and moments of their lives. With the increasing engagement of users in such platforms, the volume of personal information that is exposed online grows accordingly. Due to carelessness, unawareness or difficulties in defining adequate privacy settings, private or sensitive information may be exposed to a wider audience than intended or advisable, potentially with serious problems in the private and professional life of a user. Alt...
FACT EXTRACTION AND VERIFICATION PIPELINE FOR COVID-19 RELATED USER POSTS IN SOCIAL MEDIA
Temiz, Orkun; Taşkaya Temizel, Tuğba; Department of Bioinformatics (2022-6-29)
Social media has become a prevalent platform for consuming and sharing information online. The vast amounts of information, shared easily and rapidly by social media, have increased the demand for fact-checking. Misinformation threatens not only the reputation of individuals and organizations but also society. When the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, the concerns around misinformation, which threatens public health and society, have significantly increased. In this thesis, a new zero-shot fact extraction and v...
Moderating roles of gender and self-esteem in the link between relationship satisfaction and social media addiction
Demircioğlu, Zeynep Işıl (2018-04-21)
Nowadays, social media is an inevitable part of our lives. The literature revealed that extensive social media use or addiction was associated with negative personal and interpersonal outcomes for individuals (Andreassen, Torsheim, Brunborg, & Pallesen, 2012). One of these outcomes are argued to be dissatisfaction in romantic relationships (e.g., Valenzuela, Halpern, & Katz, 2014). However, it can be argued that, individuals’ happiness in their romantic relationships may affect their tendency ...
Usability in Local E-Government: Analysis of Turkish Metropolitan Municipality Facebook Pages
YILDIZ, METE; Ocak, Nihan; Yildirim, Caglar; Çağıltay, Kürşat; Babaoglu, Cenay (2016-01-01)
Social media use is on the rise throughout the world. Influenced by this trend, governments of all levels and sizes are establishing their social media (like Facebook) presence due to the communication and interaction capabilities that such a presence brings. This study examines and explains the social media presence of Turkish local governments from a usability perspective. Usability studies provide governments with important empirical data about the citizens'/users' view/perception of the efficiency, effe...
Twitter use by politicians during social uprisings an analysis of Gezi park protests in Turkey
KARKIN, NACİ; Yavuz, Nilay; PARLAK, İSMET; İKİZ, ÖZLEM ÖZDEŞİM (2015-06-30)
Social uprisings clearly show that social media tools, especially Twitter, help news spread more than the press does recently. In some cases Twitter substitutes traditional media if censorship is enlarged to such a level that the mainstream media channels prefer not to reflect the actual volume of the protests. Twitter is also utilized by politicians during such events to reinforce "us vs. them" division, and to gain support and legitimization for their own actions. Using critical discourse analysis, this p...
Citation Formats
U. S. Yüksel, “INVESTIGATING THE INDIVIDUALS’ PERCEPTION ABOUT SOCIAL MEDIA INFLUENCERS: A SURVEY STUDY ON UNIVERSITY STUDENTS,” M.B.A. - Master of Business Administration, Middle East Technical University, 2022.