A research on the use of the social media of the students of the faculty of theology in the context of the uses and the grati̇fi̇cati̇ons approach: A sample of İstanbul Universty

The social media has become a communication tool used by billions of people today. Naturally, communication research has begun to focus on the internet and social media. Such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Whatsapp etc. The social media platforms provides some gratifications to users. In this study, the uses and gratifications approach was employed to determine the factors motivating İstanbul University Faculty of Thelogy students to use social media. In this research, the survey method was processed; the prepared scale questions were asked to 460 users who were participated the survey. The obtained data was interpreted by coding. The factor analysis has identified 6 uses and gratifications. These factors can be listed as follow; Social Escape Motivation, Surveillance and Expression Motivation, Economical Benefit Motivation, Information Motivation, Spare Time/Entertainment Motivation and Social Interaction Motivation. Some of users demographics specialities and social media usage patterns have associated different uses and gratifications. Key Words: Social Media, Theory of Uses and Gratifications Approach, Student, Motivations