• The Journal of Information Systems
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.267-287
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• 2020

Purpose Online platform companies can increase the spread of content by communicating with users who have diverse preferences through social networks. Previous studies show the mixed effect on the network overlap, and there was a limited examinations for the underlying mechanism. This study expects high academic and practical implications that can be provided by studying on the user's viewership network. The purpose of this research is to examine the effects of network overlap on the users' viewership for creators of user-generated content in YouTube. We explain the direct and in-direct effects through the content sharing and the valence of user ratings. Design/methodology/approach The data contains 45 channels and 4,085 video clips from YouTube. We control the effect of the categories, channel characteristics, and vide clip characteristics on the viewership. PROCESS macro were used to analyze the direct and in-direct effects of network overlap. Findings The analysis results showed that the network overlap directly affect on the users' viewership. The variable decreases the moderators (i.e., content sharing and the valence of user ratings). This result implies that the users can not satisfy their need for uniqueness which is achieved by content sharing and rating in the overlapped network.