New Research Article: “The Why We Retweet Scale”

The following article was published on October 18, 2018 by PLoS One.
Title

The Why We Retweet Scale

Authors
Anuja Majmundar
Keck School of Medicine of USC
Jon-Patrick Allem
Keck School of Medicine of USC
Tess Boley Cruz
Keck School of Medicine of USC
Jennifer Beth Unger
Keck School of Medicine of USC

Source

PLoS ONE
13(10): e0206076
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0206076
Abstract

Background
Twitter offers a platform for rapid diffusion of information and its users’ attitudes and behaviors. Insights about information propagation via retweets (the message forwarding function) offer observable explanations of ways in which modern human interactions get organized in the form of online networks, and contextualized in the form of public health, policy decisions, disaster management, and civic participation. This study conceptualized and validated the Why We Retweet Scale to contextualize retweeting behavior.
Objective
Twitter users were identified using clustering algorithms that consider a users’ position in their network and invited for an online survey. Participants (N = 1433) responded to 19 questions about why they retweet. Exploratory factor Analysis (EFA) was conducted on a scale development sample (70% of original sample), which informed the Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) on a scale testing sample (30% of the original sample). Varimax rotation was used to obtain a rotated factor solution, which resulted in interpretable factors. Demographic differences among scale factors were analyzed using one-way ANOVA or independent samples t-tests.
Results
The final model (χ²₂₁ = 28, RMSEA = .03 [90% CI, 0.00–0.06], CFA = .99, TLI = 0.99) represented a parsimonious solution with 4 factors, measured by 2–3 items each, creating a final scale consisting of 9 items. Factor labels and definitions were: (1) Show approval, “Show support to the tweeter”; (2) Argue, “To argue against a tweet that I disagree with”; (3) Gain attention, “Add followers or gain attention”; and (4) Entertain, “Create humor/amusement”. Demographic differences were also reported.
Conclusions
The Why We Retweet Scale offers a useful conceptualization and assessment of motivations for retweeting. In the future, communication strategists might consider the factors associated with information propagation when designing campaign messages to maximize message reach and engagement on Twitter.

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