We're all stars now: reality television, web 2.0, and mediated identities

Abstract

Social cognitive theory suggests a likely relationship between the rising popularity of both reality television and social networking sites. This research utilized a survey (N=456) of young adults to determine the extent to which reality television consumption explains user behavior in the context of social network sites. Results show a consistent relationship between reality television consumption on the length of time spent logged on to these sites, the size of user's networks, the proportion of friends not actually met face to face, and photo sharing frequency while controlling for age, gender and education. Other categories of television viewing like news, fiction, and educational programming were not related to user's online behavior.