Trending Now: Implicit Factors Influence Users’ Online Audiovisual Media Motivations and Engagement

People have access to varied entertainment choices through online audiovisual media. Uses and Gratification Theory postulates viewers as active participants in their entertainment selection who watch media for a variety of reasons. Both hedonic and eudaimonic motivations drive user engagement. This paper focuses on how users’ implicit psychological factors (e.g., curiosity, need for affect) influence their motivations for watching online audiovisual media (n = 339). We employed multiple regression to examine predictors of eudaimonic and hedonic motivations alongside information, social interaction, and entertainment uses. The results indicate (1) people's awareness of AI recommender systems does not influence their media engagement, (2) people's need for affect underlies all types of media engagement, and (3) the effect of people's curiosity on their media engagement motivations were dimension-specific (i.e., dependent on the subtype). Our findings are in line with entertainment gratification models and reveal curiosity's unique role in people's motivations for audiovisual entertainment.