Applying Niche Theory to Measure Uses and Gratifications of Social Media in Malaysia

2.1 Basic Concepts of Niche Theory

The niche theory explains how various media compete each other and coexist in limited resource environments (Dimmick, 2003, Baek, Heon, Ha Jin Hwang 2014) by measuring uses and gratification of media. The niche of a medium is derived from its pattern of uses, represents its strategy for competitiveness and growth, and determines its position in a social media market. Measuring uses and gratification of social media allows users to deal with time and space constraints and, in effect, provides a framework to assess the ability to derive satisfaction from a social media. The gratification niche of a social media can be defined by its breadth on the gratification and gratification opportunities dimensions, the degree of overlap with other media, and its superiority in satisfying needs over other media under the same criteria. Three characteristics to understand a medium’s niche can be summarized as follows. (Baek Heon et al., 2014, Hossain, 2019, Li Shu Chu et al., 2017)

• 1)

  Niche breadth: This is the degree to which a medium satisfies a relatively broad or relatively narrow spectrum of media-related needs. Niche breadth can be interpreted as relatively special media or relatively general media. Special media gratify a relatively narrow set of needs, and general media satisfy a broader spectrum.

• 2)

  Niche overlap: This is the extent to which social media are perceived as similar, indicated by the distance between their gratification niches. In another words, niche overlap is an index of the substitutability or complementarity of two media. High overlap indicates that two media can be substituted each other by serving the same needs. Low overlap indicates that two social media can serve different needs. Thus, low overlap indicates the complementarity of the media while high overlap indicates strong similarity or competition.

• 3)

  Competitive superiority: This is the extent to which one or the other of a pair of media provide greater gratification. Indices of superiority for gratification measures are defined as arithmetic means, and differences between two means on a dimension can be examined for significance using a t test. If the test results in a significant result, it is interpreted that the social media with the higher superiority score is better at providing gratification utility to users than the other social media.