Date of Completion

10-19-2016

Embargo Period

10-17-2016

Keywords

Government Online Surveillance, Privacy Concern, Uses and Gratifications, Switching Intention, Social Network Service

Major Advisor

David Atkin

Associate Advisor

Carolyn Lin

Associate Advisor

Diana Rios

Field of Study

Communication Sciences

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy

Open Access

Open Access

Abstract

Government Surveillance systems have been expanded in the new media environment. Surveillance of online public spheres could pose a serious threat to online social network service providers. The present study integrates previous research on government surveillance, researching findings from privacy studies and ‘uses and gratifications’ (U&G) research regarding social network service use motivations, in order to understand the factors influencing the use of the online social network services in a high surveillance environment. The research data was collected in South Korea in March, 2016. The research results show, first, that privacy concern is the mediator between governmental online surveillance and social network service switching intention. Second, SNS switching intention is predicted positively by interaction motivation and negatively by convenience motivation. Last, the research found that people with higher levels of privacy management efficacy are more likely to respond to governmental online surveillance by increasing their intention to switch to alternative social network services.

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