Mendelson Andrew, & Zizi Papacharissi

Users vs. manipulators: Investigating two approaches to internet activity

Abstract

Audience activity is a key issue for mass communication researchers, with different theoretical perspectives assigning the audience varying autonomy in the processing and interpretation of media messages. In this study, we examine how audience activity translates to the Internet. Researchers have distinguished between instrumental and ritualized uses of a mass media, defining instrumental media use as active and purposive, often having to do with information seeking, and ritualized media use as one that suggests utility but an otherwise less active or less goal-directed state (e.g. Rubin, 1994). Alternatively viewed, ritualized media use can help sustain social relations over time, in that the meaning of ritual communication is frequently more ambiguous and latent, and can be communicated through symbols made available by the culture (e.g. Carey, 1975; McQuail, 1994). Previous conceptualizations of audience activity tend to be television-specific, and do not take the interactive nature of Internet use into consideration. We propose distinguishing between 2 different types of orientation toward the medium, the technology user approach and the technology manipulator approach. Users and manipulators could both like the technology equally and could engage in both informational and social uses of the medium. The user approach, however, focuses on the consumption of the technology, whereas the manipulator approach emphasizes both consumption and production of media content. A user writes e-mail to friends and family or shops online; a manipulator creates a personal homepage to keep in touch with friends and family or to post a resume online. Building on previous Internet use studies, we create a measuring instrument that distinguishes between these two types of uses and consider how they are related to socio-demographic background and personality traits. Previous Internet-Paradox research (e.g. Kraut et al., Katz & Aspden, Nie & Erbring) has focused on time spent online and Internet effects; this research should help us understand how different types of uses and orientations towards the medium contribute to Internet social consequences.

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