The Usage Behaviors, Motivations and Gratifications of Using User-Generated Media: The Case Study of Taiwan’s YouTube

Abstract

Video sharing websites have become an indispensable online service to Internet users. We aim to investigate the relationships between motivations of using video-sharing websites, online reputation management, innovation orientation, and video-sharing website usage behaviors, and how these factors affect gratification obtained from video-sharing website usage. This study employs focus group interviews and online questionnaire surveys. The research findings reveal that the higher the interpersonal media related motivations, such as participating or sharing, the higher the level of involvement of video-sharing website usage behaviors is. However, the mass media related motivations, such as browsing or consuming, are irrelevant to the level of usage involvement.