Drab to Fab: Examining the Effects of Perceived Coolness on News Consumption on Social Media

Abstract

This study surveyed college students to gauge whether coolness influences intention to consume news on four social networking platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat. Results indicate that news consumption on Twitter and on Facebook are generally rated as more useful and easier to use than on Instagram and Snapchat. However, consuming news on Twitter and Snapchat is perceived as the coolest overall, whereas news use on Facebook is rated as the least cool across all three coolness sub-dimensions. Because coolness, with attractiveness and subculture being two appeals that had unique contribution, explains a significant amount of variance in individuals’ behavioural intentions to consume news on each of the platforms, this study suggests that, in addition to utilitarian aspects, coolness motivates news consumption on social networking sites and should be incorporated into future studies on technology adoption.