Controversial Content Sharing Behavior on Facebook of Undergraduates in Bangkok

Abstract

Communication through social media has become an integral part of daily life, especially Facebook, which is highly popular, with Bangkok having the highest number of users worldwide. Sharing news on Facebook is easy and fast, often involving controversial topics, or "drama," which Thai people generally enjoy reading about. However, encountering such content regularly may negatively impact mental health. Therefore, researchers are interested in studying the sharing behavior of undergraduate students in Bangkok and the emotions they experience when encountering controversial content.

The research aimed to: 1) Investigate controversial content-sharing behavior on Facebook and media literacy skills; 2) Compare controversial content-sharing behavior on Facebook of various gender, lengths of time on Facebook, media literacy skills, and emotional levels of controversial content.

The quantitative research had a sample of 400 undergraduate students in Bangkok. Researcher collected questionnaires via an online system. Analyze data from frequency, percentage, mean and t-test.

The study revealed that the sample group had considerable media literacy skills. Most of the samples exhibited moderate levels of controversial content sharing behavior on Facebook. Males shared more than females, and undergraduates with controversial content-sharing behavior on Facebook had higher emotional mood levels than the opposite group. The sample group with different levels of sadness, anger, relaxation, energy, needing support, and disgust exhibited different sharing behaviors. However, if there were different levels of fear and anxiety, the sharing behavior would not differ. From the group discussions, participants became emotional when they encountered controversial content and subsequently shared it on Facebook.