THE IMPACT OF SOCIAL NETWORK SITES ON THE

CONSUMPTION OF CULTURAL GOODS

Sheila O'Riordan, Joseph Feller, Tadhg Nagle

Abstract

Social Media has altered the way in which people interact, collaborate and communicate. In particular, social network sites (SNS) have grown tremendously popular and are creating new forms of Web use. The social interactive nature of SNS enables people to share cultural tastes and content across the Web. Cultural goods are hedonic experiential goods and are used in SNS as a means of acquiring and maintaining friendship networks amongst other purposes. Music, in particular, is discussed, shared, and sampled across SNS. The objective of this research is to understand the impact of social networking software on the consumption of cultural goods. Specifically we investigate the affect the functional affordances of SNS have on the consumption tasks for discovering cultural goods (music). This research-in-progress paper defines SNS, outlines the key affordances of SNS, and describes the nature of cultural goods consumption. This is followed by a description of the research objectives, proposed research model, and planned activities for the next stage of the research project. Keywords: social media, social network sites, Web 2.0, cultural goods, digital goods, consumer behaviour, media consumption, music.