An Exploratory Factor Analysis on the Collaborative Information Behaviors of an Online Community Responding to the MV Sewol Tragedy

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This research attempts to identify how members of an online community collaboratively engaged with particular social information behaviors and accomplished a defined collective action. While responding to the Sewol Ferry tragedy, MissyUSA members quickly communicated and mobilized a collective action, a full-page ad campaign in The New York Times. As a follow up study, this secondary analysis quantitatively analyzes the primary data from a previous study to explore potential relationships or underlying factors among the various identified information behaviors. In this study, nineteen of the previously identified information behaviors were analyzed using exploratory factor analysis, yielding a total of eight factors. The two major factors of shared representation/collective identification and mobilizing resources verified the findings of the previous study and are in line with the findings typical of political science. The three factors of collaborative decision-making, reaction to tension, and brainstorming were factors that maximized communication and mobilization online, without any face-to-face communication or physical organization. Three emergent factors of outburst of dissent, boycott, and planning explained how members used negative emotions of anger, referential information for boycott, and incubated next collective actions. Through exploratory factor analysis, this study verifies and expands on the findings of the previous study by identifying several emergent factors that relate to the collaborative information behaviors of an online community engaged in a collective action.