Managing the Online Crowd: Motivations for Engagement in User-Generated Content

This article addresses the question of why Internet users participate in and actively generate content for online communities. We asked users who actively produce online content and those who are passive recipients of mainstream community Web sites that feature user-generated content about their behavior and motivations. We aimed to identify the differences between active and passive users and the motivations behind content production. Using a structural equation modeling approach, our results indicate that social status is the main motivational driver of time exposure, while involvement in the community is driven by stimulus avoidance, social relations, and social identity.