Computers in Human Behavior 29 (2013) 26222631

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Computers in Human Behavior

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/comphumbeh

Information sharing on social media sites

Babajide Osatuyi
Department of Computer Information Systems & Quantitative Methods, College of Business Administration, The University of Texas-Pan American, 1201 W University Drive,
Edinburg, TX 78539, United States

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Available online 26 July 2013
Keywords:
Information sharing
Social media
Credibility
Computer-mediated communication
Exploratory

a b s t r a c t
This study reports on an exploratory survey conducted to investigate the use of social media technologies
for sharing information. This paper explores the issue of credibility of the information shared in the context of computer-mediated communication. Four categories of information were explored: sensitive, sensational, political and casual information, across ve popular social media technologies: social
networking sites, micro-blogging sites, wikis, online forums, and online blogs. One hundred and fourteen
active users of social media technologies participated in the study. The exploratory analysis conducted in
this study revealed that information producers use different cues to indicate credibility of the information they share on different social media sites. Organizations can leverage ndings from this study to
improve targeted engagement with their customers. The operationalization of how information credibility is codied by information producers contributes to knowledge in social media research.
2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Social media technologies such as social networking sites, blogs,
forums, wikis and microblogging tools are becoming a reliable
platform for sharing information to target audiences in a timely
manner. This is a result of the wide user base and the rapid spread
of information it affords to subscribed users. Organizations are
increasingly using social media technologies to interact with their
customers (Sjberg, 2010; Wu & Pinsonneault, 2011). For example,
some organizations conduct polls on social media sites to seek customers opinion on ways to improve a particular product or service
that they provide (Pingitore, Li, Gigliotti, & Eckert, 2012; Wilkinson
& Thelwall, 2012). The government sector is also exploring ways to
utilize social media technologies to reach their citizens (Asuni &
Farris, 2011; Mungiu-Pippidi, 2009).
Although the use of social media sites for sharing information
and engaging target audiences have been shown to have positive
outcomes (Erickson, 2011; Lewis, 2010; Mergel, 2010), there are
a number of uncertainties associated with their use. The most
important uncertainty associated with the use of social media is
the credibility of both the information shared and that of the information source, which is referred to in this paper as the dual information credibility problem. In a study conducted by Santana and
Wood (2009), the issue of the credibility of the information source
was raised as a non-trivial factor that may be responsible for the
effective utilization of the information shared on social media
technologies. Information credibility is conceptualized in this
Tel.: +1 956 6653353; fax: +1 862 234 0256.
E-mail address: osatuyib@utpa.edu
0747-5632/$ - see front matter 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2013.07.001

study as the ability to verify or conrm pieces of information

shared on social media sites. This paper explores the issue of the
credibility of the information shared in the context of computermediated communication. An understanding of how information
producers codify information shared on social media sites in order
to convey its credibility will benet information seekers that will
consume the information.
The study described in this paper details a descriptive account
of how different types of information are shared on ve popular social media sites. During this investigation, the author also explored
cues that are included in messages shared to ascertain the credibility of the information for the intended audience. In order to understand how to effectively utilize social media technologies for
individuals and organizations, there is a need to identify how people tend to use them to share different types of information. The
results from this study will contribute to the understanding of
the credibility indicators of information shared on social media
technologies, and ultimately the domain of computer-mediated
communication technology.
Social media technologies are computer-mediated communication technologies that are typically used to connect people, as well
as to produce and share user-generated content (Lewis, 2010).
Generally, social media technologies are referred to as social networking sites, microblogging sites, wikis, forums, and blogs (Osatuyi, 2012). Social media technologies have been intuitively
categorized based on how users interact with them. For instance,
social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, FourSquare, and LinkedIn, are mainly used to share updates on users
daily encounter, as they occur, especially photos. Some popular social networking sites include, Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn.

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B. Osatuyi / Computers in Human Behavior 29 (2013) 26222631

Microblogging sites allow users to create and share short messages

with the public or a targeted audience. Wikis are typically websites
created to provide educational information. Permissions may be given to users based on their status, to modify content on the website. Online forums are discussion sites where participants hold
conversations that are posted to a discussion board. Forums are
usually focused on a specic topic, product or event. For example,
online retailers such as Amazon and eBay, have forums for customers to discuss their transactional experiences. Online blogs are personal journals published on the Internet. Blogs are often created
and maintained by an individual or occasionally by a small group
with the goal of propagating an agenda centered on a specic topical area. Traditional media companies are increasingly keeping
blogs to continue interaction with customers that subscribe to
their publications (Chung, Kim, Trammell, & Porter, 2007).

2. Information characteristics framework

Information is construed in this study as an entity that is either
produced or consumed. In addition, this study characterizes information along two dimensions, dynamism and source. Information
is considered dynamic when it generates multiple conversations
among its consumers. Otherwise, information is considered static
when its sole intent is to provide information without an opportunity to gather response or reactions to the information shared.
Examples of static information may include announcements,
reminders and deadlines.
From an epistemology standpoint, there are three main information sources namely, primary, secondary and tertiary information. This classication is based on the perspective of the
information provider. Primary information comprises of original
materials that are created rst hand without been ltered though
interpretation such as tweets about an event, diary entries, telephone conversations, and text messages. Secondary information
refers to accounts documented after the fact with the benet of
hindsight such as published books, commentaries, journal articles
and biographies. It embodies the interpretations and evaluations
of primary information. Tertiary information refers to the collection and aggregation of primary and secondary information such
as encyclopedias, calendars and fact books. Information shared
on social technologies can be generally classied as primary, secondary or tertiary based on the dynamism associated with the
information shared. Table 1 below provides a framework for classifying information shared on social technologies.
Taken together, based on the information sharing behavior of
humans described above, the dynamism of the information to be
shared and the structural differences of the social media sites,
users will tend to interact with their social groups differently based
on the type of information they intend to share. This study examines types of information shared on social media sites explored in a
recent study (Osatuyi, 2012). Studies on online information credibility have focused on news or political information to the exclusion of other types of information (Flanagin & Metzger, 2000).
Flanagin explored classied information types as commercial,
entertainment, news and reference (factual and non-news) information, see (Flanagin & Metzger, 2000) for the classication deTable 1
Information Characteristics Framework.
Information
source

Social media technology; information dynamism

[(D)ynamic or (S)tatic]

Primary

Microblogs (e.g., Tweets)[D], Social Network posts[D],

photo sharing[D]
Forums [D/S]
Wikis [S], Blogs [D/S]

Secondary
Tertiary

Table 2
Information classication framework on social media sites.
Information
source

Social media technology; information

dynamism [(D)ynamic or (S)tatic]

Information
type

Primary

Microblogs (e.g., Tweets)[D], Social

Network posts[D], Photo sharing[D]

Secondary
Tertiary

Forums[D/S]
Wikis[S], Blogs[D/S]

Political,
sensational,
Casual
Personal
Political
(history)

tails. The types of information explored in this study include

personal (or sensitive) information (Lewis, 2010), sensational information (Dahlstrom, Campbell, & Hewitt, 2012), political information (Asuni & Farris, 2011; Mungiu-Pippidi, 2009), and casual
information (Lewis, 2010). The information types explored in this
study are exemplary of the information produced and consumed
on social media technologies. Personal information are those that
are considered private to the information sharer such as health
conditions, relationship status and family details that are only typically shared with people considered close or people that may be
experiencing a similar situation. Sensational information refers to
breaking news, typically discussed by a great population of people
over a short period of time, such as celebrity gossips and red carpet
fashion talks during the Grammys award. Political information refers to those that pertain to discussions about government-related
events and news such as discussion of electoral campaigns and rulings of the Supreme Court. Finally, casual information refers to
information shared among friends, colleagues or even business
partners such as the discussion of a good restaurant to have lunch
or a great resort to go for vacation. The author reckons that the
types of information explored in this study are by no means
exhaustive. However, this list can be used as a foundation for a
framework to describe a taxonomy of information types that is
shared on social media sites. Hence we formulate the research
questions for this study:
RQ1: Does the codication of information credibility vary across
different social media sites?
RQ2: Does the type of information shared vary on different social
media sites?
Table 2 below depicts the comprehensive framework that is
used in this study to classify information shared on social technologies based on the source, the social media technology used and
the type of information shared.
This study makes the following contributions: (a) formulation
of the dual information credibility phenomena; (b) building a
framework for describing types of information shared on social
media sites; and (c) indicators of information credibility on social
media communication.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. The next section
presents a review of related studies and theories that provide the
context for the use of social media technologies for sharing information and social exchange theory. Next, the results of the exploratory analysis are presented. The research design and procedure
are then briey described. The paper concludes with the discussion
of the results and their implications to practice and research.

3. Background
3.1. The use of social media for information sharing
The use of social media to share information is gradually replacing the traditional media outlets such as television, newspaper, and
radio. Social media has become a catchphrase that managers across

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B. Osatuyi / Computers in Human Behavior 29 (2013) 26222631

several domains are using to actively communicate with their customers in order to maintain a competitive edge (Sjberg, 2010).
While the advantages are becoming obvious, the knowledge on
how to effectively share information on social media sites is crucial
in order to actively engage the target audience.
Liu et al. (2012) proposed a conceptual model to investigate the
determinants of information retweeting in microblogging based on
Heuristic-Systematic Model, with an application area in emergency
events. The study found that source trustworthiness, source expertise, source attractiveness, and the number of multimedia have signicant effects on the information retweeting. In addition, source
expertise moderates the effects of user trustworthiness and content objectivity on the information retweeting in microblogging.
Liu et al.s (2012) study provides an in-depth understanding of
what makes information about emergency events in microblogging
diffuse so rapidly.
The use of social media for responding to emergencies and creating situational awareness has risen in recent years (Qu, Huang,
Zhang, & Zhang, 2011; Starbird & Palen, 2012). Social networking
sites have been actively used to solicit support for resources to
aid affected victims during disasters (Vieweg, Hughes, Starbird, &
Palen, 2010). In addition to providing situational awareness and
soliciting support, social networking sites have also been utilized
as a means of publicizing the picture, names and addresses of missing persons so that relatives, friends or anyone that nds them can
easily help with reuniting them to their loved ones. For instance,
after the Hurricane Katrina event, victims were found to continually use social media technologies to share personal information
about their status, which helped to rebuild a sense of community
in the recovery stages (Shklovski, Burke, Kiesler, & Kraut, 2008).
In the case of the instance described sharing personal information
was not exclusive as it will help, more than harm the information
producer for the purpose of seeking help and resources needed.
Social interaction is experiencing a new dynamics with the advent of social media technologies. People are able to share information such as updates about their experiences as it happens, with
minimal effort and time. A recent study reported that individuals
share information with their friends and the general public to
maintain a sense of connection, as well as build social capital
(Erickson, 2011). Chai et al. (Winter 201112) reported that the
use of blogs to share information positively correlates with the
bloggers trust, strength of social ties, reciprocity, and gender. That
study also found that ofine expected social norms also persist in
the online blogosphere. It is expected therefore that online blogs
will be a good candidate tool for sharing sensational information.
The use of social media to organize campaigns that lead to
changes in political leadership in the recent Arab springs revealed
some of the inherent capabilities of social media technologies
(Heverin & Zach, 2012). This has become a source of concern for
law enforcement agencies, as it calls for the need to curb possible
criminal conducts perpetrated via social sites on the Internet. Law
enforcement agencies are implementing policies that incorporate
social media for sharing information about their activities in order
to actively engage the citizens that are directly and indirectly concerned. For instance, the Police Force in Philadelphia in the state of
Pennsylvania, mandated ofcers to use Twitter to communicate
with residents and their colleagues. This is predicated on the need
to gain the trust of residents in order to identify prospective suspects during criminal investigations (Roy, 2012). The dynamic nature of such information would require social media technologies
that allow rapid information sharing such as microblogging and social networking sites.
Several studies have been conducted in the healthcare domain
to understand how people use social media for health-related purposes. Of note is a study conducted to give an updated report on
the use of social media in the healthcare domain. One study sought

to identify socio-demographic and health-related factors associated with adult social users in the United States. It was found that
approximately 69% of US adults reported having access to the
Internet in 2007 (Chou, Hunt, Beckjord, Moser, & Hesse, 2009).
Among Internet users, 5% participated in an online support group,
7% reported blogging, and 23% used a social networking site. Multivariate analysis found that younger age was the only signicant
predictor of blogging and social networking site participation; a
statistically signicant linear relationship was observed, with
younger categories reporting more frequent use. Younger age,
poorer subjective health, and a personal cancer experience predicted support group participation. The study concludes that social
media technologies are penetrating the US population independent
of education, race/ethnicity, or health care access (Chou et al.,
2009). Although healthcare information is considered private
information, the use of social technologies can potentially avail
users to an enormous amount of treatment ideas that may be benecial to the user.
3.2. Social exchange theory and information credibility
Research in behavioral psychology suggests that people have an
innate tendency to share information (Fehr, Bernhard, & Rockenbach, 2008; Warneken & Tomasello, 2006; Warneken & Tomasello,
2009). The propensity for people to cooperate and share resources
and information stems from the underlying cost-benet analysis
principle in economics (Boardman, Greenberg, Vining, & Weimer,
2006). While it has been reported that humans may not always
be rational, there is evidence that they tend to be cooperative by
nature (Olson & Spelke, 2008). This suggests that people are generally inclined to share information and cooperate whether or not explicit benets are involved. In the context of social information
sharing, the decision to share certain types of information may
be incumbent on the benets that will be derived from the sharing
process. For example, social recommendation mechanisms like
those used on Yahoo Answers! and Twitter are examples of how
users that provide information may improve their reputation
among members of their social network. On the other hand, feedback given on sites such as eBay and Amazon about each transactional experience is voluntary and particularly not benecial to the
customers.
Studies that have explored information sharing among individuals have come to the conclusion that the behavioral act of sharing
information is usually assumed to be benet-oriented (Bock,
Zmud, Kim, & Lee, 2005; Constant, Kiesler, & Sproull, 1994;
Kankanhalli, Tan, & Wei, 2005; Wasko & Faraj, 2000). Social exchange theory posits that people are assumed to evaluate the cost
and benet of the information they are about to share before making the decision to share it with others (Blau, 1964; Emerson, 1962;
Homans, 1958). Cost, during the social exchange process, refers to
the use of resources to accomplish the aim of the exchange (Molm,
1997). For instance, the time devoted to interacting with other
individuals is time taken away from working on the next best
alternative forgone (Markus, 2001). Due to the cost associated with
the exchange of information, individuals sometimes make the
decision to share based on the benets expected from the exchange process.
Benets expected by information providers during the exchange process have been found be intrinsic or extrinsic
(Vallerand, 1997). The act of sharing information with others has
been reported to instigate a reciprocity effect on the receiver
(Kankanhalli et al., 2005; Kollock, 1999; Wasko & Faraj, 2000). In
the social context, the provision of information entitles the provider to build social capital and reputation (Constant, Sproull, &
Kiesler, 1996). Sharing information socially also gives an intrinsic
benet to the provider by conrming their ability to provide

B. Osatuyi / Computers in Human Behavior 29 (2013) 26222631

information that is considered useful by the social network in

which they belong (Constant et al., 1996).
Information shared on social media sites face the dual information credibility problem, which relegates the benets of sharing
information on those sites. A recent study reported that about
85% of journalists indicated that information on social media sites
was much less or slightly less credible than traditional media due
in part to the lack of fact-checking, verication, and other reporting
standards (Cision and Bates, 2009). This nding suggests the need
to provide means of verifying information shared on social media
sites. In this study, the cost of sharing information is therefore
operationalized as the cues included in the information shared to
attract and engage the target audience, while the credibility of
information is operationalized as the ability to verify or conrm
pieces of information shared on social media sites.
The cues (or characteristics) of information shared used in this
study builds on a recent study that explored how individuals seek
information on social media sites (Osatuyi, 2012). The study reported ve properties that characterize credibility indicators for
information shared on social media sites (Osatuyi, 2012): link to
other sources, topic of interest, embedded video and/or audio
and familiarity with the post creator. Link to other sources refers
to a website address provided in the message posted for the reader
to obtain additional information. The topic of interest has been
identied as characteristic of the information shared that draws
the attention of social network members to messages posted. An
interesting topic is more likely to lead to lengthy discussions compared to an uninteresting topic that is only discussed by the information provider. Embedded video and/or embedded audio:
Information producers have been reported to embed video or audio
in their message to provide contextual perspective to the information that is shared. Embedding video and audio has been found to
increase the credibility of the entire message communicated on social media sites (Osatuyi, 2012). For instance, video postings of the
recent devastation caused by hurricane Sandy by victims provided
better context of the situation rather than mere text messages sent
to potential aid providers when seeking help. Lastly, familiarity
with the post creator was identied as a factor that contributes to
consuming information shared on social media sites. The last information characteristic is not explored in this study, as it is not an
objective measure of the credibility of the information shared on
social media sites.
4. Research methodology
The research study described in this paper used a survey instrument to gather users perceptions toward the use of ve social
media sites for sharing four different types of information. The research methodology described in this study is in the domain of
exploratory research, similar to what Stebbins (2001) refers to as
the region of little known phenomena. This region is a combination
of the report of descriptive statistics and generation of relationships between concepts based on existing data in order to contribute to the understanding of relevant existing prior related studies
(Stebbins, 2001). This study is thus exploratory as it builds on prior
research to investigate the types of information that people tend to
share on different social media sites. The main goal of exploratory
research is the production of empirically derived relationships
about the group, process, activity, or situation under study
(Stebbins, 2001).
4.1. Survey instrument
The survey instrument used for this study was pretested by 4
faculty members and 4 graduate students in the Information Sys-

2625

tems department at a northeastern technical university. Suggested

modications were incorporated and a second pretest conrmed
understandability of the questions and instructions provided to
complete the survey before it was made available to participants.
The survey consists of one item that seeks to understand how
information is codied on social media sites employed in (Osatuyi,
2012) and four items that seeks to develop an understanding of
how four information types are being shared across ve different
social media technologies. The information credibility measures
emerged from a debrieng session after an experiment conducted
to understand how users exchange information on computer mediated technologies (Osatuyi, 2012). Respondents were provided
with the denition of the types of information on the rst page
of the instrument. This information as well as examples in the
question statement was included in the instrument after the rst
pilot study was conducted where some respondents indicated that
they were unclear about the different types of information as well
as the use of information characteristics to codify credibility. Modications were made to the initial survey instrument to address
concerns such as clarifying the denitions of the types of information and the use of information characteristics to indicate credibility of information shared. Upon the second revision of the
instrument, the survey was administered for the study.
4.2. Procedure
The survey instrument was administered online via SurveyMonkey. The invitation was randomly sent out to 200 potential
participants via email. A link to the survey was provided in the
email invitations sent to potential participants. The survey was
open for data collection for 3 months.
4.3. Participants
Participants were college students in classes ranging from
freshman to senior levels. 79.8% of the participants were males,
and 20.2% were females. The gender ratio is indicative of the population of most engineering universities such as the one in which
this study was conducted and it is expected to have an inuence
on the study variables. Participants were awarded ve extra points
toward their nal grade, in exchange for their participation in the
study.
4.4. Data preparation and analysis
SPSS, version 20 was used to conduct all the analyses in this
study. Response frequencies were conducted, followed by a chisquare test to explore variations in users preferences for different
social media technologies for sharing different types of information
with a = 0.05 as a criterion for signicance.
Data for this study was collected via an online survey. There
were a total of 122 participants that started the survey, but only
114 completely answered all the questions on the survey. The response frequencies presented are those of the participants that
completed each question on the survey. Chi-square test was employed to examine the association of the usage of the ve social
media sites explored in this study for sharing different information
types. Chi-square is appropriate as it estimates if two variables are
independent.
A coding scheme, described in Table 3, was used to classify how
participants indicated the credibility of the information they share
on social media sites. For instance, a code of 1 means that the individual will include a link (L) to provide additional reference to the
information shared on social media sites. Some users use multiple
characteristics to indicate credibility of the information they share.
For instance, code 10 is assigned to a participant that indicates that

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B. Osatuyi / Computers in Human Behavior 29 (2013) 26222631

Table 3
Coding scheme.

Table 5
Participants credibility indicator results.

Credibility indicator

Code

Social media site

Mean (standard deviation)

Link to other sources (L)

Topic of interest (T)
Embedded video (EV)
Embedded audio (EA)
L+T
L + EV
L + EA
T + EV
T + EA
EV + EA
L + T + EV
L + T + EA
T + EV + EA
L + T + EV + EA

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14

Social networking sites

Microblogging site
Wikis
Forums
Blogs

8.40
5.01
4.36
5.32
5.31

(4.64)
(3.91)
(3.29)
(4.18)
(4.32)

s/he would use embedded video (EV) and embedded audio (EA) to
validate information shared on social media sites. In the attempt to
use objective measures of information credibility, familiarity with
the post creator is omitted from the coding scheme used in this
study.

most discussions. Discussions and inferences will be made based

on the other credibility indicators explored in this study: link to
other sources, embedded video and embedded audio.
Next to the topic of interest, link to other sources was indicated
as a means of indicating credibility of information shared on
majority (microblogging sites, wikis, forums and blogs) of the social media sites. The results indicate that embedded videos are
widely used as indicators of credibility on social networking sites.
This observation can be attributed to the social networking sites
that are based on video sharing such as Youtube, Blip and Vimeo.
Table 5 below illustrates the characteristics used by participants to codify credibility of the information they share on ve different social media sites by using the coding scheme in Table 3
above. The result shows that users, on the average (mean = 8.40),
tend to discuss topics that are of interest as well as embedded videos in the message they share, to indicate the credibility of the
information they share on social networking sites. On microblogging sites, online forums and online blogs, the results show that
the mean value of 5.01, 5.32, and 5.31 respectively, suggesting that
information producers codify the credibility of information they
share on these social media sites by including a link to other
sources in the message while discussing a topic of interest. Finally,
a mean value of 4.36 shows that information producers tend to
codify the credibility of information they share on wikis by embedding audio and/or video in the message. Wikis are typically text
based, used primarily as a tertiary source of information, however,
our result suggests that information producers would include
audio and video to gain the interest of their audience. This presents
a design opportunity to promote the use of audio and video capabilities on wikis.

5. Results

5.2. Information sharing

The results are presented in two sections. The rst set of results
presents the examination of how credibility of information is codied across different social media technologies. The analysis begins
by examining the distribution of use of information characteristics
to indicate credibility of information shared across ve different
types of social media sites. The second set of results present information sharing on the social media technologies studied in this
paper. The response frequencies of each question on the survey
are presented, followed by Pearson Chi-Square test to examine
the difference in the information characteristics used to codify
credibility in the message posted on different social media sites.

The next four questions (Questions 25), explore how users

share four different types of informationpersonal, sensational,
political and casual informationacross ve popular social media
sitessocial networking sites, microblogging sites, wikis, forums,
and blogusing a 7-point Likert response scale where 1 is very
unlikely and 7 is very likely.
The response frequencies for how social media sites are used for
sharing personal or sensitive information are presented in Table 6.
The result shows that participants are highly unlikely to share
information they consider personal on all of the social media sites
explored in this study. This result conrms the privacy norm,
which stipulates that private things will be kept private (Johnson,
1992). Considering the fact that no matter how secured the policies
are to protect information shared on social media sites, it tends to
end up in the hands of those it was not intended may be associated
with participants indication of their unlikelihood to share personal
information, which refutes the expected behavior stipulated by the
social exchange theory. This behavior suggests that the cost of
sharing certain types of information may inuence the information
producers decision to share it with others.
Question 2: What medium are you most likely to use to share
personal or sensitive information (e.g., health, relationship, family)
on the following social media sites (Check all that apply):

Table 4
Response frequencies for information sharing on social media sites.
Information characteristics
Link to other
sources

Topic

Embedded
video

Embedded
audio

Response
count

61.4% (70)

77.2%
(88)
84.8%
(96)
81.1%
(91)
85.6%
(96)
88.2%
(98)

70.2% (80)

38.6% (44)

114

25.9% (29)

16.1% (19)

114

13.5% (16)

9.9% (12)

114

30.6% (35)

17.1% (19)

114

27.3% (31)

19.1% (22)

114

53.6% (60)
71.2% (79)
58.6% (66)
56.4% (63)

5.1. Credibility of information

Question 1: Select the information characteristics you use to
indicate the credibility of the information you share on the following social media sites? (Check all that apply)
The result in Table 4, below shows that the most important
characteristic that is used to indicate the credibility of information
shared on all the social media sites explored in this study, is the topic of discussion. This behavior is consistent across all the social
media sites (shown in bold). This result is not the focus of analysis
in this study, since topic of interest is typically an antecedent of

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B. Osatuyi / Computers in Human Behavior 29 (2013) 26222631

Table 6
Response frequencies for sharing personal (sensitive) information on social media sites.
Percentage (frequency)

Response count

Social networking
M = 3.68, SD = 2.19
Microblogging site
M = 2.35, SD = 1.91
Wikis
M = 1.89, SD = 1.66
Forums
M = 2.42, SD = 1.83
Blogs
M = 2.32, SD = 1.83

26.3%
(30)
52.6%
60
66.7%
(76)
50.4%
(58)
52.6%
60

10.5%
(12)
15.8%
18
12.3%
(14)
13.0%
(14)
15.8%
(18)

11.4%
(13)
9.6%
11
6.1%
(7)
10.4%
(12)
7.9%
(9)

5.3%
(6)
0.9%
1
3.5%
(4)
9.6%
(11)
4.4%
(5)

20.2%
(23)
12.3%
14
4.4%
(5)
7.8%
(9)
11.4%
(13)

2.6%
(3)
2.6%
3
3.5%
(4)
4.3%
(5)
4.4%
(5)

6.1%
(7)
6.1%
(7)
3.5%
(4)
4.3%
(5)
3.5%
(4)

100%
114
100%
114
100%
114
100%
114
100%
114

Table 7
Chi-square test results: sharing personal (sensitive) information.
df = 36, N = 114

1
2
3
4
5

72.73
51.39
68.09
50.03

Social networking sites

Microblogging site
Wikis
Forums
Blogs

(.00)
(.05)
(.00)
(.00)

89.15 (.00)
96.09 (.00)
97.11 (.00)

164.79 (.00)
157.46 (.00)

181.36 (.00)

The next analysis seeks to further explore if there are differences

among ve social media technologies used for sharing personal
information. Table 7 below shows the chi-square test of independence of users preference between using different social media
technologies for sharing personal (or sensitive) information. The
values in the table indicate the chi-square test value and the 2-tailed
signicance value in parenthesis with degrees of freedom, df = 36
and N = 114 for all the measures. For instance, the test results in column labeled 1 in Table 7 shows that there is no statistically signicant difference in how people share personal information on social
networking sites compared to other social media sites; microblogging sites, wikis, forums and blogs. The results also show that there
is no statistically signicant difference between how personal information is shared on all social media technologies.
A higher average of the use of social networking sites for sharing personal information, as shown in Table 6, compared to the
other social media technologies conrms the observed tendency
that the propensity for people to share personal information with
those they consider close to themi.e., people that belong to their
social network, with exclusive privileges such as the ability to view
messages posted only to a selected group of friends. In reality however, friends on social networking sites are potentially connected
to the entire social network as a whole, which suggests that private
information shared on social networking sites may not be kept private for long. Another motivation for sharing personal information
on social networking sites relates to the desire for information producers to gain social status as a reward for sharing information
that gains readership among their target audience, which may be
more effective on a technology that promotes dynamic information
exchange compared to wikis that are mainly used to archive static
information. The signicant indifferences in how personal information is shared across the ve social media technologies can be
attributed to the nature in which such information is exchanged
on those sites. For instance, sharing of health information on
health-related forums tend to be exclusive that requires users permission to get to the content of the forum.
Table 8, shows the response frequencies for how social media
sites are used for sharing sensational information such as rapidly
breaking news, celebrity gossips and academy awards. Participants
indicated that they are more likely to share sensational information on social networking sites, microblogging sites, online forums
and online blogs, but highly unlikely to share it on wikis. This

result conrms a claim presented earlier in this paper with regards

to the likelihood for users to interact with different social media
technologies based on the type of information shared. The bias
against wikis is plausible, since they are mainly used to capture
static information as illustrated in Table 2.
Question 3: What medium are you most likely to use to share
sensational information (e.g., rapidly breaking news, sports, celebrity gossips, fashion) on the following social media sites (Check all
that apply):
The next analysis investigates the likelihood of differences in
how sensational information is shared on the social media sites explored in this study (as shown in Table 9 below). The results from
the chi-square test of independence indicate that there is no statistically signicant difference in how sensational information is
shared on social networking sites and microblogging sites, but
there is a statistically signicant difference in how sensational
information is shared on social networking sites compared to wikis, forums and blogs. For the comparison between wikis, forums
and blogs, there is no statistically signicant difference in how sensational information is shared on these social media sites. This can
be attributed to the static information dynamism property that
these social media sites share as described in Table 2. Consequently, it can be inferred that information producers are more
likely to use social networking sites and microblogging sites to
share sensational information.
The frequency distribution for the likelihood of sharing political
information on social media sites is summarized in Table 10 below.
Participants indicated that the most likely social media technologies for sharing political information are social networking sites
and microblogging sites. Social networking sites (M = 5.28,
SD = 1.91) are the top social media sites, followed by microblogging sites (M = 4.35, SD = 2.23), for sharing political information.
Interestingly, the results show that wikis, online forums and blogs
are highly unlikely social media technologies used to share political information.
Political information has been described as being dynamic, to
the extent that it attracts discussion among a large group of people
over a short period of time (Osatuyi, 2012). These results suggest
that information producers tend to share political information to
a wider audience, for example, on social networking sites, where
multiple viewpoints are more prevalent than exclusive discussion
boards that are only visible to a limited number of people.

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B. Osatuyi / Computers in Human Behavior 29 (2013) 26222631

Table 8
Response frequencies for sharing sensational information on social media sites.
Percentage (frequency)

Response count

Social networking sites

M = 5.96, SD = 1.42
Microblogging site
M = 4.91, SD = 2.23
Wikis
M = 3.11, SD = 2.12
Forums
M = 4.24, SD = 2.00
Blogs
M = 4.14, SD = 2.05

0.9%
(1)
14.3%
(16)
31.9%
(36)
14.9%
(17)
17.7%
(20)

1.8%
(2)
3.6%
(4)
18.6%
(21)
10.5%
(12)
7.1%
(9)

4.4%
(5)
4.5%
(5)
8.0%
(9)
7.0%
(8)
6.2%
(7)

2.6%
(3)
6.3%
(8)
11.5%
(13)
9.6%
(11)
15.0%
(17)

18.4%
(21)
15.2%
(17)
11.5%
(13)
29.8%
(35)
27.4%
(32)

21.1%
(24)
25.0%
(28)
8.8%
(10)
14.9%
(17)
13.3%
(15)

50.9%
(58)
31.3%
(36)
9.7%
(11)
13.2%
(15)
13.3%
(15)

100%
114
100%
114
100%
114
100%
114
100%
114

Table 9
Chi-square test results: sharing sensational information.
df = 36, N = 114

1
2
3
4
5

94.51
39.48
34.40
31.45

Social networking
Microblogging
Wikis
Forums
Blogs

(.00)
(.32)
(.54)
(.68)

46.26 (.12)
45.75 (.13)
69.69 (.00)

114.05 (.00)
97.57 (.00)

172.77 (.00)

Table 10
Response frequencies for sharing political information on social media sites.
Percentage (frequency)

Response count

Social networking sites

M = 5.28, SD = 1.91
Microblogging site
M = 4.35, SD = 2.23
Wikis
M = 3.24, SD = 2.14
Forums
M = 3.98, SD = 2.12
Blogs
M = 3.89, SD = 2.19

7.80%
(9)
20.20%
(23)
30.10%
(35)
21.90%
(25)
25.40%
(29)

5.20%
(6)
7.00%
(8)
15.90%
(18)
7.00%
8
6.10%
(7)

4.30%
(5)
7.90%
(9)
9.70%
(11)
10.50%
12
8.80%
(10)

9.60%
(11)
7.90%
(9)
12.40%
(14)
11.40%
(13)
14.00%
(16)

16.50%
(18)
14.90%
(17)
10.60%
(12)
18.40%
(21)
14.90%
(17)

20.00%
(23)
22.80%
(26)
11.50%
(13)
19.30%
(22)
18.40%
(21)

36.50%
(42)
19.30%
(22)
9.70%
(11)
11.40%
(13)
12.30%
(14)

100%
114
100%
114
100%
114
100%
114
100%
114

Table 11
Chi-square test results: sharing political information.
df = 36, N = 114

1
2
3
4
5

142.40 (.00)
41.76 (.23)
53.59 (.03)
55.27 (.02)

55.30 (.02)
71.95 (.00)
89.56 (.00)

149.69 (.00)
118.25 (.00)

216.64 (.00)

Social networking
Microblogging
Wikis
Forums
Blogs

Question 4: What medium are you most likely to use to share

political information (e.g., death of Gadha, US 2012 presidential
election) on the following social media sites (Check all that apply):
Table 11 below presents Pearson Chi-Square test results of the
relationship between users likelihood of sharing political information on different social media sites. The test results in the column
labeled 1 indicates that there is a statistically signicant relationship between how political information is shared on social networking sites compared to microblogging sites, forums and blogs
but not with wikis. This nding draws attention to the dual instantiation characteristic of political information. When political information is shared with the intent to create awareness on social
technologies such as social networking sites, microblogging sites,
blogs and forums, details are typically subjective and skewed to
the exposure of the author. However, political information acquired from multiple sources and vetted are typically presented

on an archival medium such as wikis, as a source of objective

knowledge that presents the existing rationale, critiques and
biases. This nding therefore validates the framework described
in Table 2.
A summary of the response frequencies for participants likelihood of sharing casual information on social media sites is described in Table 12 below. The results are similar to those of
political information, where social networking sites and microblogging sites were indicated as the highly likely social media technologies used for sharing casual information. Similarly, wikis,
online forums and blogs were indicated as highly unlikely social
media technologies used for sharing casual information. These results suggest that there are similarities in how social media technologies are used to share casual and political information. A
viable explanation for the similarity might be due to the intended
audience for both types of information. Casual information is

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B. Osatuyi / Computers in Human Behavior 29 (2013) 26222631

Table 12
Response frequencies for sharing casual information on social media sites.
Percentage (frequency)

Response count

Social networking sites

M = 6.27, SD = 1.27
Microblogging site
M = 5.37, SD = 2.06
Wikis
M = 3.00, SD = 2.05
Forums
M = 3.95, SD = 2.13
Blogs
M = 3.86, SD = 2.15

1.70%
(2)
11.40%
(13)
37.70%
(43)
21.90%
(25)
23.70%
(27)

0.90%
(1)
2.60%
(3)
11.40%
(13)
7.90%
(9)
8.80%
(10)

1.70%
(2)
4.40%
(5)
9.60%
(11)
8.80%
(10)
7.00%
(8)

4.30%
(5)
7.00%
(8)
16.70%
(19)
14.00%
(16)
14.90%
(17)

11.30%
(13)
7.90%
(9)
10.50%
(12)
18.40%
(21)
17.50%
(20)

15.70%
(18)
25.40%
(29)
5.30%
(6)
15.80%
(18)
14.00%
(16)

64.30%
(73)
41.20%
(47)
8.80%
(10)
13.20%
(15)
14.00%
(16)

100%
114
100%
114
100%
114
100%
114
100%
114

Table 13
Chi-square test results: sharing casual information.
df = 36, N = 114

1
2
3
4
5

109.09 (.00)
31.20 (.70)
58.53 (.01)
45.63 (.13)

41.13 (.26)
56.09 (.02)
77.68 (.00)

186.17 (.00)
141.74 (.00)

324.06 (.00)

Social networking
Microblogging
Wikis
Forums
Blogs

typically meant to stimulate discussions on mundane things that

do not require accurate specic details unlike political discussions
that must be well articulated and presented to convey reason behind the argument of the information producer.
Question 5: What medium will you most likely to use to share
casual information (e.g., interesting quote from a book or TV show,
fun hangout location) on the following social media sites (Check all
that apply):
Table 13 below shows the Pearson Chi-Square test result of
users preference between social media sites for sharing casual
information. The test results indicate that there is no statistically
signicant relationship in the way casual information is shared between social networking sites and wikis, v2(36, N = 114) = 31.20,
p = 0.70 as well as between microblogging sites and wikis v2(36,
N = 114) = 41.13, p = 0.26. The consistent lack of relationship between the use wikis to share casual information compared to social
networking sites and microblogging sites points to the characteristic of the information type that is typically shared on wikis. This result also validates the information characteristic framework
presented earlier in this paper. It is also noted from the results that
there is a statistically signicant relationship between how casual
information is shared on wikis, online blogs and forums. This
observation can be attributed to the dynamism of casual information. Online forums and blogs are exclusively created to discuss
information that is particular to subscribed members. For instance,
health and wellness discussion boards used to encourage subscribed group members to eat well and live well will contain contents that are mainly related to that topic. Social networking sites
and microblogging sites on the other hand, welcome contributions
from anyone to discuss a wide variety of casual information. Additional research will be invaluable to explore similarities between
causal and political information types and how that may contribute to our understanding of how best to share certain information
that may be important to target audiences.
Given that there is gender asymmetry in the population of participants in this study, an analysis was conducted to explore gender differences in the overall information sharing behavior of
individuals on social media sites. A chi-squared test conducted to
examine the association between gender and information sharing
behaviors showed a test statistic of 47.16, p < 0.0001, which indicates that there is a difference in the information sharing behavior
of males 82.3% compared to females 17.7%.

6. Discussion and conclusions

This study reported a descriptive analysis of information sharing behavior of information producers on social media sites. Particularly, this paper examined how credibility of information
produced is codied on social media sites, with the aim of gaining
an understanding of how best to provide information that is useful
to information seekers. The exploratory analysis conducted in this
study revealed that information producers use different cues to
indicate credibility of information they share on different social
media sites, providing the answer to the rst research question
posed to guide this study.
To answer the second research question, a series of exploratory
analyses conducted revealed differences as well as similarities in
how social media sites are used to share different types of information. It is noteworthy to mention the high unlikelihood indicated
by information producers sampled in this study to share private
information on social media sites. This result presents an alternate
view of the nding from a recent study (Osatuyi, 2012) that shows
that information seekers tend to consult social networking sites for
private information. This shows that there is a need for further
investigation into the use of social media technologies for sharing
personal information, as well as other information types, in order
to utilize them effectively.
A difference in the use of social media technologies to share
information due to the type of information shared, suggests that
there are other contextual factors that contribute to the decision
to share information with social technologies. New theories may
be developed and existing theories may be extended to address
these contextual factors that inuence the sharing of information
in the computer-mediated communication context. For instance,
future studies will device hypotheses that extend social exchange
theory to explain the propensity for sharing different types of
information, using social media technologies.
Overall, there was a consistent signicant difference between
how social networking sites are used to share information compared to other social media sites. This result provides evidence to
support the claim that social media technologies are structurally
different; hence they are used differently to convey different types
of information. But more importantly, the ndings from this study
suggest that social networking sites hold the greatest potential for
sharing information.

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B. Osatuyi / Computers in Human Behavior 29 (2013) 26222631

Using the information characteristics framework illustrated in

Table 2, there was a consistent relationship between the dynamism
of the information shared and the social technology used. In particular, across the four information types explored in this study, the
results presents evidence of the use of online forums, online blogs
and wikis as it relates to the dynamism of the information shared.
Due to the accommodation for both dynamic and static information on online forums and blogs, the results show that there is often a difference between how information is shared on them
compared to social networking sites and microblogging sites that
are predominantly used for sharing dynamic information. For instance, although casual information was considered a dynamic
type of information, and no difference was statistically inferred
from how it is shared on online forums, online blogs and wikis,
there was a difference on how it was shared between wikis (a static
information sharing social technology) compared to social networking sites and microblogging sites.
6.1. Implications and future work
There are a number of implications from this study for practice.
The information features revealed in this study to indicate credibility of shared information provide a mechanism for identifying
quality cues in social media communications. System designers
can improve existing algorithms built to analyze the quality of contents in social media (Agichtein, Castillo, Donato, Gionis, & Mishne,
2008). Data analyst, as well as managers, can pay attention to the
features of information that this study reveals, as a means of indicating credibility of information shared on social media sites, to
better understand how to engage their customers.
Future research directions will include conducting an ethnographic study to get a deeper understanding of the thought process
behind how information producers craft the information they
share, as well as how they come up with the choice of social media
site on which to share different types of information. Understanding why and under what conditions people choose one social media site over another to share different types of information and how
they codify credibility of the information shared can be invaluable
to building information sharing models. Overall, such a study will
contribute to our understanding of how to share and decode valuable information on computer mediated communication systems.
This paper identied two sources of uncertainties associated
with the slow adoption of social media as the reliability of both
the information shared and the provider of the information. Only
the type of information shared was explored in the current study.
Future studies will explore how to validate the information shared
on social media technologies. Such a study will explore how this
credibility is computed in social media technologies.
Another contribution of this study is in the examination of the
different types of information shared in social media sites. Future
work will extend the information characteristics framework introduced in this study and evaluate it using social media sites that are
being used in different contexts, such as in formal and non-formal
settings.
6.2. Limitations
It is reckoned that the results of exploratory research are not
usually generalizable to the population at large. However, the
results provide signicant insight into how information producers
interact with different types of social media technologies, which
could lead to the formulation of theories to model information sharing on social media. Another limitation to this study is that it was
conducted in an environment with unbalanced gender population,
in favor of men. However, studies have shown that women
constitute an important part of the users of social media technolo-

gies and the behavior of information sharing may be genderspecic.

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