| The media environment in recent years has undergone dramatic changes. Online users can be and are involved in social information networks, easily sharing or promoting information. Hence, in this dissertation, I am interested in how technologies that have been developed to promote convenient Internet participation, e.g., the sharing function in social media, play a role in media users' engagement with news content in online setting. Specifically, I demonstrate that perceived social norms, inferred from the social signals conveyed in an online environment, can affect users' information processing and engagement with news content about a controversial social issue.;In the preliminary study, I investigate the degree to which Twitter users share information pertaining to nuclear energy. My findings indicate that after the 2011 nuclear disaster at Fukushima Daiichi, the amount of nuclear energy-related tweets that were linked to outside information (by providing external links in tweets) far outnumbered tweets containing no external link. Results also indicate that the predominant tone in these tweets was one of pessimism about nuclear energy. Interestingly, when people "tweeted" about nuclear energy and included an external link, they tended to express a more slanted opinion (either positive or negative) on the issue.;Using an experiment-embedded survey data, my main study explores the direct and moderating effects of normative social cues within online content on (1) news processing and (2) engagement with news content. My results indicate a positive effect of normative social cues on news processing in the online space. As expected, the online content with a high numbers of likes and shares (i.e., normative social cues) show significant direct and interactive effects on respondents' news consumption intention, presumed different levels of others' engagement with news content, and news evaluation. Furthermore, normative social cues play a significant role in online news content engagement intention. Findings suggest that normative social cues can play a role in the process of online news consumption and participation, but that this influence can differ depending on individual circumstances or attributes of the message itself. |
