The mediating role of social recommendation in the relationship between concern over expression and social media news participation: a comparative study of six Asian societies

ABSTRACT Although social media afford users the possibility of sharing and discussing news, some users may have much concern over how others view these expressive behaviors. The recommendation features of social media indeed offer cues about others’ opinions and possible references to engage with news. We investigate the mediating role of reliance on two social recommendation features, i.e. social filtering and popularity indicators, for news selection in the relationship between concern over online expression and social media news participation in six Asian societies (Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Malaysia), using representative online survey data. Compared with Western countries, Asian societies share a more collectivistic culture and show a greater acceptance towards reticent behaviors than expressive ones. The results show a positive indirect effect of concern over expression on news participation through the reliance on social filtering across all the samples. Similarly, a positive indirect effect through the reliance on popularity indicators is observed for five of the six samples. The significant indirect effects indicate that users with much concern over expression have a greater reliance on social recommendation features, which in turn facilitates their news participation. Implications of the findings are discussed.