Utilitarian Use of Social Media Services : A Study on Twitter

Abstract

This paper applies structuration theory (ST) and service dominant logic (SDL) as lenses to study different uses of information systems (IS). We argue that resources provided by IS may be combined and reproduced by appropriating them for different purposes than the design purposes of the IS. The study provides empirical data and analysis to showcase the use of resources for utilitarian purposes in the context of social media services (SMS). Through an analysis of sponsored tweets on Twitter, we show that users employ implicit and explicit resources for utilitarian outcomes. Our findings imply that users create their own service through appropriation of resources available in the social context of service use; hence, they induce different adaptations of the information system.