A Study on the Factors Influencing the Intention of Blog Usage: A Case of UUM Postgraduate Students

Nowadays, there has been a dramatic proliferation in the number of blogs and several social networks; however, little is published about what factor (s) motivates universities students to participate in blog activities. The remarkable growth and use of a social networking website such as "Facebook", "Hi5", and "Friendster" among UUM international postgraduate students is more challenging for a researcher to investigate the extent to which a new media channel affects people’s lives, relationships, and wellbeing, how and why it is used, and who is using it. Based on the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA), a model was developed relating technology acceptance (TAM) and social influences. a combination of convenience and purposive sampling was used to collect the data from UUM Postgraduate students that used different blogs and Facebook regularly. A survey of 112 of UUM postgraduate students found strong support for the model. One of the major finding of this research illustrated that perceived usefulness, ease of use and social norms were positively related to attitude toward blogging and accounted for a higher variance. On the other hand, perceived enjoyment and attitude toward blogging did not significantly influence UUM postgraduate students’ intention to continue to use Facebook as their favorite blogging site.