Abstract
The social media becomes the popular way of communication in the digital era. Among the top social networks as of October 2023, Facebook is the front runner with 3.03 million monthly active users globally (Dixon, 2023). Studies have established reasons why and how people use Facebook as their social media platform to exchange information and knowledge, and to connect with various people in this modern world. Like many different users, college students also take part in this platform. Purposely, this study determined the genre of Facebook posts shared by college students, and analyze the media forms of posts among them. The information posted and shared on the 45 Facebook accounts of undergraduate secondary education students of a state university in Western Visayas were observed and classified as to content and media forms. The content categories of social media posts were categorized as information, entertainment, social interaction, and marketing. Further, these categories are classified as to types: photo, text, video, and link. Results showed that the four genres of Facebook posts were prevalent on the students’ accounts with entertainment as top ranked followed by information, social interaction, and marketing. Further, participants enjoy posting and sharing amusing content, such as memes, presented in photos, text, and videos, in that order of preference. The college students’ desire to use Facebook for entertainment could be a combination of their previous gratifying experiences with general Facebook use and their views about the replication of these experiences through sharing posts that are relevant to them.
Keywords: social media, Facebook, genre, content analysis, social interaction, college students
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