ECREA16-Abstract

Friday, November 11

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PP 300

Two-Step Flow Reloaded: Youtubers as Opinion Leaders for Their Adolescent Fans

C. Meißner

, N. Podschuweit

, C. Wilhelm

University of Erfurt, Department of Media and Communication, Erfurt, Germany

YouTube is the most popular online service among 12- to 19-year-olds in Germany (MPFS, 2014). According to adolescents, videos on YouTube are more

appropriate to their interests and humor than the conventional television program and independent from specific broadcast times (Kupferschmitt, 2015).

Furthermore, the high numbers of subscribers and the high ranks of YouTuber’ videos certainly do contribute to YouTube’s popularity among adolescents

(Mahrt, 2015). Against this background, this study raises the question if YouTubers such as Y-Titty, Dagi Bee or DNER serve as opinion leaders for their

adolescent fans and if the latter even increase YouTubers’ influence by passing their messages to their peers and thus initiate a new form of two-step flow

of communication (Lazarsfeld, Berelson, & Gaudet, 1944).To answer our research question, we conducted 238 face-to-face interviews with 12- to 18-years-

old YouTube fans at Europe’s biggest YouTuber-Fan-meeting, the 'VideoDays 2015” in Cologne. The quota sample (n=238) consisted of 52% female and

48% male participants with a mean age of 14.7 years (SD=1.66). Opinion leadership was measured by self-assessment (with regard to adolescents) and

external assessment (with regard to their favorite YouTubers). In addition to the personality strength scale (Schenk & Rössler, 1997), opinion leadership was

operationalized by the following question which was asked for different topics, e.g. gaming, beauty or politics: 'Do you rather give advice to others or do

you rather seek advice from others?”Advice seekers were then asked in which areas they seek a YouTuber’s advice, respectively family and friends’advice. As

most of adolescents’favorite YouTubers (64%) upload 'let’s-play videos” it was hardly surprising that 74% of the adolescents who reported seeking advice

on gaming would prefer a YouTuber as adviser to friends and family (22%; Χ²(2)=8,569; p=.014). Moreover, adolescent YouTube users perceive themselves

as advisers in games and music for friends and family. In contrast, 52% of the adolescents preferred YouTubers when seeking advice on news and politics,

although only 4% of adolescents’favorite YouTubers talk about corresponding issues in their videos. Another empirical evidence for a two-step flow of com‑

munication on YouTube is that 40% of the interviewed adolescents considered that 'what my favorite YouTuber says is helpful for discussions with others”

(‘fully applies’or ‘applies’; bipolar five-point-scale). Within our sample, the share of advisers varied depending on the topic. Whereas adolescents primarily

reported seeking others advice on e.g. news and politics (70%), education (59%) or sports/fitness (57%), many of them stated giving advice in e.g. ques‑

tions of music (68%) and gaming (60%). To sum up, our findings indicate a new form of two-step flow on YouTube at least in particular areas of interest as

gaming and news/politics. YouTubers are opinion leaders for their adolescent users and even substitute opinion leaders such as close friends and family.

PP 301

Coping Strategies of German Adolescents in Dealing with WhatsApp

N. Zaynel

University of Muenster, Communication Science, Muenster, Germany

WhatsApp is the most used chat app in Germany in 2015. Almost 92 percent of adolescents own a smartphone and 90 percent use WhatsApp to stay con‑

nected with their families and friends (mpfs 2015). The average German adolescent uses WhatsApp 26 times a day. Although WhatsApp is widely spread

among adolescents and used frequently, 58 percent of the young users state thatWhatsApp sometimes is annoying because they receive so many messages

and 64 percent realize that they sometimes waste a lot of time using apps and social communities (mpfs 2014, Przybylski et al. 2013). Furthermore there

are more factors that can cause stress and pressure as WhatsApp offers some functions that allow users to see if their message was read or when their chat

partner was last online This often leads to arguments among young users, because they speculate about what the other person was doing the last time on‑

line or they get angry at each other when the other one does not answer quickly (Church & de Oliveira 2013, O’Hara et al. 2014). Also 27 percent of German

adolescents face the so called “Fear of Missing Out” if they forget their smartphone at home or it is turned off (mpfs 2014). We assumed that adolescents

would develop strategies to cope with all these factors that can cause stress and wanted to know how they dealt with the stress and pressure they face re‑

gardingWhatsApp. In a qualitative research we therefore interviewed 20 students aged 13 to 15 and combined the interviews with three group discussions.

The main research question was what kind of pressure do adolescents face regardingWhatsApp and which coping strategies do they develop to cope with

this pressure. Summarizing the results of the study so far, not every student is aware of the pressure and stress that is caused byWhatsApp but nearly every

student mentioned a situation that seemed stressful to them. The majority views group chats as most stressful, because the amount of meaningless mes‑

sages is very high. Mostly they do not read all the messages but scan important messages. They consider messages to be important depending on the per‑

son who wrote the message, the length of the message or they read the beginning of the message. When they do not want someone to see that they read

their message they use the pull-down menu or push-messages to at least read a preview of the message. Furthermore we found that they consider insults

viaWhatsApp less hurtful, because they feel that digital insults have less impact as in the physical world. All in all the study shows that almost every student

is stressed by WhatsApp by different factors, but in most cases they were not aware of WhatsApp as a stress factor. Instead of renouncing WhatsApp they

develop a wide range of coping strategies to deal with the stress caused by chat apps likeWhatsApp, because all their friends and families are onWhatsApp.