Blogging Motivations for Latin American Bloggers: A Uses and Gratifications Approach

Blogging Motivations for Latin American Bloggers: A Uses and Gratifications Approach

Jenny Bronstein
Copyright: © 2012 |Pages: 16
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60960-744-9.ch012
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Abstract

The author of this chapter investigated the motivations that drive bloggers in Spanish-speaking Latin American countries to write personal blogs. The conceptual framework drew on the uses and gratifications theoretical perspective as a means for exploring such motivation. Different types of motivation for blogging were analyzed. The motivations included self-documentation, improving writing skills, self-expression, information sharing, passing time, and socialization. An online survey was designed, and 90 bloggers from six Latin American countries participated in the study. Results of both quantitative and qualitative analyses indicate that the three most-cited reasons for blogging were the opportunity that blogs provided for participants to freely express their thoughts and feelings, the facility for publishing information in their areas of interest, and the chance to practice their writing skills.
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Motivations For Blogging

The concept of motivation has been described as “a directing force over behavior and that motivation can act to begin the behavior as well as influence its continuation” (Brady, 2006, p. 4). The reasons and motivations for authoring a blog have been at the center of blog research in recent years and different motivations for blogging have been found. Individually authored blogs give their authors a personal space on the Web by allowing them to publish their subjective views, feelings and statements easily and for free. Self-expression in a free and unrestricted environment has been revealed as an important motivation for blogging (Lenhart & Fox, 2006; Nardi et al., 2004; Trammell et al., 2006; Yu, 2007). Blogs have also been described as “protected spaces” that allow bloggers to share the feelings that they would not share otherwise and tell their story or relate their thoughts without interruption (Gumbrecht, 2004).

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