Analysis of Superposters' Motives for Participating in Online Forum Discussions
Authors
Irena Miljković Krečar
Veleučilište VERN', Zagreb
Maja Kolega
Veleučilište VERN', Zagreb
Keywords:
online social behaviours, motives of forum communication, superposters, questionnaire
Abstract
The main aim of this study was to identify factors which motivate daily participation of extremely active online forum members. An extensive online questionnaire was constructed and sent to the Forum.hr members with more than 8,000 posts. The final sample consisted of 112 respondents. Principal components analysis provided an interpretable three components solution, explaining 54.6% of the item variance. The components were labelled as self-esteem, information exchange, and confrontation. Some significant differences were also found among motivational subscales and variables of gender, age, and the intensity of forum activity. Results are discussed in relation to previous research.
