Motivations of use of social networks in students of journalists of Latin America and Spain

© 2017 Universidade Federal de Campina Grande. All rights reserved. Different studies have classified the use of social networks based on a series of typologies based on personal, psychological, social, communicational or professional elements. However, the question about the motivations that specific user groups have for using social networks is a subject that can be analyzed in depth based on the segmentation of stakeholders. The article explores the original interests and the reasons for the use of social networks by communication and journalism students from 13 countries in Latin America and Spain. The study seeks, in this way, to identify trends of young users who participate in the study and who share a common professional training. Through the implementation of a questionnaire with closed and open questions, the article performs a content analysis on the responses of 1,065 students to examine their main motivations for using these platforms. The study concludes that the students that make up the sample use social networks mainly because they allow them to easily communicate with their friends and family and because they need to join the fashion of using the networks to guarantee their own social status within a specific group.