• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.117-144
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• 2008

Lots of virtual communities and online businesses presently derive their primary sources of revenues through advertising, but nevertheless are plagued with marginal profitability though they might possess a significant user base. In the light of the need for an efficacious business model, there have been recent insights of an online community in particular reaping profits through an innovative and lucrative revenue generation method that earns by selling digital items. There have been some obvious evidences (e.g., Cyworld, SecondLife, Habo Hotel, etc.) that online communities can be profitable through their unique business model of selling digital items. However, there is lack of understanding about the motivation of purchasing digital items. This study tries to identify the main motivators of digital item purchases based on social/individual identity theory and self-presentation theory. "Digital items", otherwise known as "virtual assets", may include online avatars, accessories for the avatars, decorative ornaments like furniture, digital wallpapers, skins, background music and virtual weapons used for Internet games. These digital items are employed by users for representation and articulation in the online space, especially to create and enhance their online profiles in web pages and games. Prices for digital items typically range from a few cents to a few dollars each. Based on the theoretical framework like social identity theory and self-presentation theory, we developed the research model and proposed seven hypotheses. An analysis of 225 members of Cyworld found that digital item purchase intention in virtual world is affected by both members' need for self-presentation and need for affiliation. We also found that the need for self-presentation is significantly increased by innovativeness of members, community group norm, and community involvement. We concluded that the need for self-presentation could be a key variable for profitable business model in online community service industry. However, neither individual self-efficacy nor the need for affiliation significantly influenced the need for self-presentation which triggers purchase intention of digital items. In term of the theoretical and practical contribution, this study can be a pioneering empirical research that investigates the purchase intention of digital items based on social identity theory and self-presentation theory in the online context. Also, the findings of our study are valuable and practical for practitioners in the market who wish to adopt or improve the business model of selling digital items in an online community. From the findings, it can be seen that innovativeness of users, community group norm, and community involvement are three significant factors that influence need for self-presentation of users which ultimately leads to their intentions to buy digital items. These findings put forth that virtual community providers and online businesses selling digital items should prioritize their efforts and focus on these three factors if they want to increase the sales of these digital items and generate greater revenues. This study provides important implications for academic researchers and practitioners to understand why the community members pay money for their digital items in virtual world and how the practitioners can increase the sales of digital items in an online community. A couple of limitations of the study and future research directions are also discussed.

• The Journal of Information Systems
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.79-109
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• 2008

Cyworld was successful where others have foiled because of its unique and profitable business model that relies on the purchase of digital items and its ability to mimic and recreate aspects of face-to-face interpersonal relationships among the members of the online community. The purpose of this study is to understand how the needs for self-presentation and needs for affiliation influence digital item purchase intention, and to analyze the moderating roles of gender and purchase experience in those relationships. Based on the theoretical framework including self-presentation theory and theory of affiliation, we developed the research model and proposed ten hypotheses. A survey was conducted with 225 members of Cyworld. The research model and the related hypotheses were tested using Amos. As the result of the analysis, eight hypotheses out of ten hypotheses were supported. In particular, digital item purchase intention in virtual world was found to be affected by both members' needs for self-presentation and needs for affiliation. We also found that the needs for self-presentation is significantly influenced by innovativeness of members, self-efficacy, and group norm. Also, needs for affiliation is significantly affected by self-efficacy, group norm and perceived value. Furthermore, the results indicate that 1) moderating effects of gender on those relationship is supported; and 2) moderating effects of purchase experience is partially identified. This study provides several implications for academic community and practitioners to understand why the community members pay real money for their digital items as well as how the sales of digital items can be increased in online communities. Some study limitations and future research directions are also discussed.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.17 no.7
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• pp.317-329
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• 2019

Instagram, a photo and image centered social networking service, has received increasing attention these days, from scholars and practitioners. However, little is known about the social and psychological factors that lead consumers to use this service. To provide a baseline understanding on Instagram users, the current study was conducted to discover perfectionistic self-presentation tendency expressed by the Instagram users and explore the relationships between identified perfectionistic self-presentation and intention to use Instagram variables with 250 participants. In addition, this study tried to determine the moderator effect of self-efficacy and self-construal. A comprehensive survey was directed and a total of 380 participants were recruited to verify anticipated hypotheses and research questions. The research results suggest that perfectionistic self-presentation has five sub factors: others conscious self-presentation, subjective self-presentation, environmental adaptation self-presentation, self-expansion self-presentation, and social self-presentation. The implications of this research findings are discussed.

• Journal of Digital Contents Society
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.503-512
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• 2015

The purpose of this study is to examine facebook users' self-presentation on facebook in terms of narcissism and the relationship of narcissistic self-presentation and variables of self-esteem, using patterns, and information types. The results showed that facebook users' self-presentation were not likely to be narcissistic. In self-presenting on facebook users were likely to be exhibition but they are not likely to be ingratiating and competent. And this study failed to support the association of narcissistic self-presentation and self-esteem. But results suggested that facebook using patterns including frequency and period of use affected narcissistic self-presentation. Finally, profile information, but not posting information was correlated with narcissistic self-presentation.

• The Research Journal of the Costume Culture
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.719-740
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• 2017

Sociocultural and demographic shifts have resulted in a changing perception of older age. Older women, historically subjected to age-ordering rules of dress, have increasingly refused to be marginalized fashion consumers and have been striving to construct a more positive age identity. Although studies have examined consumers' negotiation of marginalized identities, age identity has not received much attention as a type of marginalized identity. This study argues that Pinterest acts as a platform for identity work by allowing older women to creatively reconstruct their sense of self by saving images and organizing them into thematic boards. Drawing on symbolic interactionism theory and notions of digital self-presentation, this paper seeks to explore the discursive practices that older women employ on Pinterest to resist ageist fashion discourses. The sample consisted of 15 fashion-oriented Pinterest profiles of older women. Netnographic inquiry was employed first to examine what images were saved and what thematic boards were created. Three analytical frameworks for visual data analysis were integrated to further scrutinize the visual texts within the thematic boards. The analyses revealed three main themes-rejecting age, accepting age, and consuming age. The themes that emerged formed the basis for an age identity reconstruction process whereby women attempted to bridge the existing gap between older age and mainstream fashion discourse.

• Korean Institute of Interior Design Journal
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.79-91
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• 2012

In the Digital Convergence era, the center of social networking is moving into on-line space. This means also that space for public is moving into the on-line space. Along with this, spaces in commercial area, offered as attraction factors, are taking a role as a public space. So, this paper defines these spaces mentioned above as public space and the like. Liberal and affluent communication of Digital Convergence has caused in new spatial cognitions such like, constant social space, flowing space, temporary space, and multiple space. This means the hybridization of on-line and off-line space and the advent of public convergent space. However, it is on-line-centered convergence and has positive effects and negative effects on relationship. This paper suggests the optimization of public convergent space to solve the problems and make better a public space for relationship. For achieving this, social disclosure is grasped as the common way to start relationship both off-line and on-line, and it is proved that social disclosure has three characters such as self-presentation, corporeality, and subjectivity. Subsequently, the differences of the roles of off-line and on-line space are separated by each individual character. These are self-presentation of performance vs. storytelling, corporeality of embodiment vs. disembodiment, and self-subjectivity vs. inter-subjectivity. By recognizing that there are multilevel spectrums between the formers and the latters, this paper presents the direction of the spatial configuration of public convergent space which offers the right of manipulation of self-disclosure. It will be used for presenting the prototype of public convergent space.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.18 no.7
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• pp.149-156
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• 2020

This study investigated the key factors affecting online relational intimacy in the context of SNS. Based on the use and gratification theory, self-presentation, relationship formation and information searching were identified as the main needs of SNS usage. These needs were expected to influence online relational intimacy through user satisfaction, subjective well-being, and disclosing information behaviors. The theoretical framework was validated by a longitudinal method. Hypotheses were tested by using the partial least squares to data from 199 Facebook users. Self-presentation and information searching had a significant impact on both user satisfaction and subjective well-being. However, relationship formation did not significantly affect both user satisfaction and subjective well-being. User satisfaction had a significant direct effect only on online relational intimacy. Subjective well-beings played a significant role in enhancing both disclosing information behaviors and online relational intimacy. Finally, it has been found that disclosing information behaviors are a key factor in enhancing online relational intimacy. The results of this study are expected to provide academic and practical implications for the key antecedents of online relational intimacy.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.11 no.12
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• pp.387-392
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• 2013

The purpose of this study investigate the main factors of the diffusion of digital contents and consumer's participation behavior, consumption culture and examine the experiential perspective to consumer's information selection behavior. In digital network, the social presence, challenge, self-presentation, arousal and emotional feeling were significant variables to flow experience. Experiential perspectives focused on the search of identity and self-determination were main basic perspective to explain the diffusion of digital contents, consumer participation. This research result applied to media and device strategy to up-coming digital convergence and adapted to product planning and development, user friendly navigation and emotional human-centered service module.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Computer Information Conference
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• 2020.07a
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• pp.395-396
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• 2020

본 논문에서는 디지털 콘텐츠의 유통과정의 복잡함과 창작자에 대한 권리를 보장하기 위하여 블록체인 기반 플랫폼을 통하여 투명하고 무결성이 보장된 자기권한 관리가 가능하도록 DID(Decentralized Identity)의 적용을 연구하였다. DID의 효율적 적용을 위하여 DID문서와 Verifiable Credential과 presentation의 관리상 특징을 고려하고 DID를 통한 인증과정에서 발생하는 다양한 메타데이터에 대하여 차별화된 암호화 기법적용이 가능하도록 하였다. 본 논문의 연구를 통하여 디지털 콘텐츠에 대한 자기권한 관리가 보다 간단해지고 권리인증 과정 시 안정된 성능 제공이 가능할 것으로 사료된다.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.101-123
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• 2012

Currently, Social Media, it has widely a renown keyword and its related social trends and businesses have been fastly applied into various contexts. Social media has become an important research area for scholars interested in online technologies and cyber space and their social impacts. Social media is not only including web-based services but also mobile-based application services that allow people to share various style information and knowledge through online connection. Social media users have tendency to common identity- and bond-attachment through interactions such as 'thumbs up', 'reply note', 'forwarding', which may have driven from various factors and may result in delivering information, sharing knowledge, and specific experiences et al. Even further, almost of all social media sites provide and connect unknown strangers depending on shared interests, political views, or enjoyable activities, and other stuffs incorporating the creation of contents, which provides benefits to users. As fast developing digital devices including smartphone, tablet PC, internet based blogging, and photo and video clips, scholars desperately have began to study regarding diverse issues connecting human beings' motivations and the behavioral results which may be articulated by the format of antecedents as well as consequences related to contents that people create via social media. Social media such as Facebook, Twitter, or Cyworld users are more and more getting close each other and build up their relationships by a different style. In this sense, people use social media as tools for maintain pre-existing network, creating new people socially, and at the same time, explicitly find some business opportunities using personal and unlimited public networks. In terms of theory in explaining this phenomenon, social capital is a concept that describes the benefits one receives from one's relationship with others. Thereby, social media use is closely related to the form and connected of people, which is a bridge that can be able to achieve informational benefits of a heterogeneous network of people and common identity- and bonding-attachment which emphasizes emotional benefits from community members or friend group. Social capital would be resources accumulated through the relationships among people, which can be considered as an investment in social relations with expected returns and may achieve benefits from the greater access to and use of resources embedded in social networks. Social media using for their social capital has vastly been adopted in a cyber world, however, there has been little explaining the phenomenon theoretically how people may take advantages or opportunities through interaction among people, why people may interactively give willingness to help or their answers. The individual consciously express themselves in an online space, so called, common identity- or bonding-attachments. Common-identity attachment is the focus of the weak ties, which are loose connections between individuals who may provide useful information or new perspectives for one another but typically not emotional support, whereas common-bonding attachment is explained that between individuals in tightly-knit, emotionally close relationship such as family and close friends. The common identify- and bonding-attachment are mainly studying on-offline setting, which individual convey an impression to others that are expressed to own interest to others. Thus, individuals expect to meet other people and are trying to behave self-presentation engaging in opposite partners accordingly. As developing social media, individuals are motivated to disclose self-disclosures of open and honest using diverse cues such as verbal and nonverbal and pictorial and video files to their friends as well as passing strangers. Social media context, common identity- and bond-attachment for self-presentation seems different compared with face-to-face context. In the realm of social media, social users look for self-impression by posting text messages, pictures, video files. Under the digital environments, people interact to work, shop, learn, entertain, and be played. Social media provides increasingly the kinds of intention and behavior in online. Typically, identity and bond social capital through self-presentation is the intentional and tangible component of identity. At social media, people try to engage in others via a desired impression, which can maintain through performing coherent and complementary communications including displaying signs, symbols, brands made of digital stuffs(information, interest, pictures, etc,). In marketing area, consumers traditionally show common-identity as they select clothes, hairstyles, automobiles, logos, and so on, to impress others in any given context in a shopping mall or opera. To examine these social capital and attachment, we combined a social capital theory with an attachment theory into our research model. Our research model focuses on the common identity- and bond-attachment how they are formulated through social capitals: cognitive capital, structural capital, relational capital, and individual characteristics. Thus, we examined that individual online kindness, self-rated expertise, and social relation influence to build common identity- and bond-attachment, and the attachment effects make an impact on both the willingness to help, however, common bond seems not to show directly impact on information sharing. As a result, we discover that the social capital and attachment theories are mainly applicable to the context of social media and usage in the individual networks. We collected sample data of 256 who are using social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and Cyworld and analyzed the suggested hypotheses through the Structural Equation Model by AMOS. This study analyzes the direct and indirect relationship between the social network service usage and outcomes. Antecedents of kindness, confidence of knowledge, social relations are significantly affected to the mediators common identity-and bond attachments, however, interestingly, network externality does not impact, which we assumed that a size of network was a negative because group members would not significantly contribute if the members do not intend to actively interact with each other. The mediating variables had a positive effect on toward willingness to help. Further, common identity attachment has stronger significant on shared information.