Does Exposure to Pornography Influence Posting Sexualized User-Generated Content on Social Media?

Does Exposure to Pornography Influence Posting Sexualized User-Generated Content on Social Media?

Zhenxiang Hu

The University of Amsterdam

Graduate School of Communication Master’s Program Communication Science Entertainment Communication

Student ID: 12155179

Email: zhenxiang.hu@student.uva.nl

Abstract

The aims of this study were to investigate (a) the relationship between exposure to pornography and posting sexualized user-generated content (UGC) on social media, (b) the mechanism behind the relationship that mediated by attitude, subjective norm and normalization of posting sexualized UGC on social media, and (c) the role of gender playing in the relationship differentiates the relationship. The study used survey as data collection method using a sample of 479 participants. Moreover, this study used plan behavior theory to predict posting sexualized UGC on social media by measuring the intention to post sexualized UGC on social media. Findings showed that exposure to pornography positively predicts the intention to post sexualized UGC on social media. The relationship positively was mediated by attitude, subjective norm and normalization of posting sexualized UGC. In addition, women are more likely to be influenced by pornography on the intention to post sexualized UGC on social media.

Introduction

Thanks to powerful information and communication technologies (ICT), Internet connects users and information providers closer compared with mass media era and contributes to a digital era with huge amount of information, diverse forms of media content and efficient interactions among users and content producers.

Internet pornography, as a form of sextually explicit media content, is becoming easier to access to these years. According to Price, Patterson, Regnerus and Walley (2016), around 60% of men and 35% women had experience of watching

pornography in 2015. Lavish research has been studied about effect of pornography exposure on sexual attitude and sexual behavior (Watson & Smith, 2012; Harris & Scott, 2002); however, there exists limited research about pornography viewing effect on social behavior, for instance, social media posting behavior.

User-generated content (UGC), as a crucial outcome of the development of ICT as well, has been playing a significant role in creating online information since 2005. Social network sites (SNSs) have become a paramount online platform for posting UGC, such as YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Weibo, WeChat, etc. Moreover, sexualized media culture is more visible in Western mainstream media industry (Attwood, 2001), and Baumgartner, Sumter, Peter, and Valkenburg (2015) later pointed out that SNSs have also become a notable online platform for media users to produce and post their sexualized self-presentation content, mainly as pictures including sexy or sexually suggestive dressing or poses. Besides, self-sexualization by posting pictures through user-generated media is apparent in SNSs

especially among young adult women (Daniels & Zurbriggen, 2016). Although research on the prevalence of posting sexualized pictures presenting users themselves through user-generated media has accumulated, little is known on what factor might predict this prevalence (Baumgartner, Sumter, Peter, & Valkenburg 2015).

Against this background, researchers have observed that the prevalence of sexualized presentations on social media might be related to the prevalence of sexual messages embedded in media content (Hall, West, & McIntyre 2012). Furthermore, Doornwaard, van Den Eijnden, Johnson and ter Bogt (2014) applied priming theory to investigate the factor of using and producing sexualized media content. And it

suggested that frequent exposure to sexual message embedded in media content could accelerate the process of reading sexual schemas in memory, and thus activate later decision making involving sexual cues. However, the majority of previous research focuses on sexual message in mainstream mass media, little is investigated on explicit sexual materials. To address this gap, the current study is aimed to investigate the relationship between exposure to sexually explicit material, pornography, and an online way of sexualized presentation, posting sexualized user-generated content on social media.

To date, only a few studies have focused on the relationship between

pornography exposure and posting sexualized content on social media. For instance, Vandenbosch, van Oosten and Peter (2015) found that pornography is not a predictor for posting pictures of sexualized self-presentation on social media among

on users’ posting sexualized content through user-generated media, research on posting sexualized user-generated content and its behind mechanism are still lacking. Moreover, most previous research about sexualized content on social media merely focuses on images but tends to neglect text and videos. According to Attwood (2001), ICT also allows home made sexual videos to spread on virtual space, and

user-generated video has become a main form of media content on SNSs nowadays. Therefore, the current study is going to take images, text and videos into considerations as sexualized user-generated content.

Exposure to Pornography

The discussions of pornography in academia still remains controversial from different perspectives, especially about the definition and the effect of pornography. From defining pornography perspective, academia hasn’t reached a consensus on what pornography is, and the definitions are various based on its purpose, its content and its forms. For instance, from purpose perspective, pornography was defined as ‘material predominantly sexually explicit intended for purpose of sexual arousal’ (Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography, 1986, pp. 228-229). Peter and Valkenburg (2016) defined pornography from the perspective of its display form, which is sexually professional or home-made images or videos to intentionally and sexually arouse the viewers. As for the perspective of the effect of pornography, some researchers agree with the positive effects of pornography, such as feeling more comfortable with sexuality and being better sexually educated (Watson & Smith, 2012), while others hold negative opinions on the effects of exposure to pornography,

and they insist pornography leads to inappropriate sexual attitudes and sexual

behaviors, such as sexual violence (Harris & Scott, 2002). Although researchers hold abovementioned different opinions toward pornography, most discussions are about sexuality. And fruitful research admitted the basic functions of pornography, which is for sexual arousal and sexual pleasure, and also focuses on sexuality related outcomes which are sexual attitudes and sexual behaviors. An essential theory that has been applied to sexual research in pornography context is sexual script theory (Stulhofer, Busko, & Landripet, 2008), and this theory suggests that audience might perceive the sexual cues or guidelines embedded in the pornography and then write down these scripts in their minds applying to their own sexual behavior (Wrights 2018). It seems that previous research had more interests on the effect of pornography usage on sexuality related outcomes, and they somehow tend to neglect the effect of

pornography usage on social behaviors. Although Weinberg, Williams, Kleiner, and Irizarry (2010) questioned that whether sexual scripts derived from pornography could export socializing effects on viewers, there is still limited research about the effect of pornography usage on social behaviors.

User-generated content (UGC)

Although the concept of UGC hasn’t reached a recognized definition in academia, UGC generally refers to users’ publishing their own created content on Internet (Valcke & Lenaerts, 2010). The forms of UGC could be text based (websites and blogs), graphic based (photos and illustrations), audios and videos, and the purposes of publishing UGC could also be various from each other, it could be for

entertaining, social interaction, supporting a certain political view, sharing interests, emotional arousal, or even for making profit, etc., and they can be interwoven (George & Scerri, 2007; Leung, 2009). For instance, a great number of YouTubers initially releasing their homemade videos on YouTube sharing their interests and later use their channels to make profits as key opinion leaders (KOLs). More importantly, posting UGC on social media nowadays has become a vital way to engage in self-presentation among young media users (van Oosten, de Vries, & Peter, 2018). Similar to pornography, there exists an everlasting discussion about the pros and cons of UGC since the term was invented. UGC for one thing diversifies the Internet content and connect both users and agencies closer, but for another, it also lowers the threshold of producing various media content, and opens a door for immoral and illegal content to come inside to users’ online activity sphere, for instance, hateful or seditious speech and child sexually explicit material (Valcke & Lenaerts, 2010). Speaking of negative consequences of UGC, researchers tend to look this topic in sexual landscape and treat homemade pornographic materials as negative side of UGC without concrete argumentations (Valcke & Lenaerts, 2010; Van Dijck, 2009). Moreover, only a few studies have been found about sexualized UGC from neutral perspective

(Vandenbosch et al., 2015; van Oosten et al., 2018). ‘sexualization of culture’

‘sexualization of culture’ has been popularly discussed in media and

communication related realm during in the recent decade year, and its idea is about empowerment (Gill, 2012). Pornography and UGC are both involved with

empowerment as well. Weinberg, Williams, Kleiner and Irizarry (2010) indicated that pornography has the function of erotic empowerment and this could be interpreted by abovementioned sexual script theory. Pornography viewers might be inspired by the clues and guidelines embedded in pornography, and they later have autonomy of their sexual behaviors based on their re-wrote sexual scripts, and thus leads to more self-acceptance and self-empowerment toward sexual relationship (Klein, 2006). As for UGC, compared with web 1.0 (one-way direction between users and content providers), UGC, as a phenomenon of web 2.0, emphasizes a user-engaging and interacting community giving users publishing empowerment to create various pages according to their interests or other purposes (Valcke & Lenaerts, 2010). Although sexualized cultures are being heatly discussed in digital era, the studies of sexual empowerment that pornography brings merely focuses on sexual behaviors. Moreover, the studies about publishing empowerment that UGC confers tend to neglect sexualized UGC while sexualized new media content is pervasive nowadays (Daniels, & Zurbriggen, 2016; van Oosten et al., 2018). And this enlighten us to ask whether the empowerment users gain from pornography could be reflected on posting sexualized UGC, since UGC also give users content-creating autonomy including sexist.

Sexualized culture is becoming popular among social media, and the discussion about highly sexualized social media nowadays is empowerment as well. Linz and Malamuth (1993) proposed normative theories to address pornography effect and identified three main normative theories underlying normative theories which are

authoritarian/conservative-moral theory, libertarian theory and feminist theory. Authoritarian/conservative-moral theory suggests that pornography’s explicit

depiction for sexual arousal triggers viewers’ disgusting and offensive response, and moralist holders think purely pursuing sexual self-interests could lead to a society with less decency (Conradie, 2001). In addition, feminist theory argues that

pornography’s depicting women enjoying sexual enslavement for men’s pleasure is harmful to society as well. These two theories tend to treat societal moral corruption as a main pornography effect (Linz & Malamuth, 1993). Nowadays, users have lowered the threshold of sharing sexualized content on their social media, since they are empowered to share information on their own social media platforms through user-generated media. And posting sexy body-shape images on social media has been becoming a trend, especially for female. ‘#Fitspiration#’ was one of the hottest hashtags on Instagram in recent years. The hashtag was initially popular for showing body’s functional capacity in training occasions, and the images of this hashtag later on evolved into objectifying female’s body looks instead of body functional capacity (Pichard, McLachlan, Lavis, & Tiggemann, 2018). Those images embedding sexually objectify ideology are in the line with feminist theory in pornography effect context that women are depicted for men’s sexual pleasure. However, those sexy body

depicted images on social media is in line with libertarian theory as well. Pichard et al (1993) applied libertarian theory into pornography effect as sexual explicitness is a consequence of human’s naturally sexual needs, and the individual might achieve to their high potential by the help of sexual presentation. Additionally, libertarian theory

also implied that the individual has right to disagree with the conventions, and the pros and cons are culturally defined, and the truth is not timeless and immutable (Conradie, 2001). Instagram users can be empowered to produce and post images by using ‘#Fitspiration#’ to interpret their sexual posing representing body functioning. The above discussion inspired us to ask whether the empowerment of posting

sexualized UGC on social media not only because of ICT but also by the pornography effect that can be interpreted by libertarian and feminist theory?

Moreover, previous studies have revealed that online sexualized presentation through user-generated media is related to sexual objectification internalized from sexual media content. Peter and Valkenburg (2016) suggested that Internet

pornography is link to sexual self-objectification. And Ward (2016) further pointed out that the greater self-objectification is associated with greater sexist belief and thus lead to higher possibility to online sexualized presentation. Moreover, a study (van Oosten et al., 2018) argued that viewers exposed to media content with emphasis of certain attributes could internalized these attributes as their own self-concepts later. The abovementioned findings enlighten us to testified whether exposure to

pornography could be a potential predictor for posing sexualized UGC on social media, since pornography usually depicts ideal sexy bodies, and viewers might internalize the ideal sexy body as an attractive attribute and present themselves sexually on social media later.

The above discussion question us is posting sexualized content on social media embedding sexually objectified ideology was derived from pornography exposure,

and also inspired by libertarian ideology through user-generated digital era? Thus, the current study is going to answer the research question:

RQ: Does exposure to pornography influence posing sexualized user-generated content on social media?

Theoretical Considerations Theory of Plan Behavior

Due to the sensitivity of investigating users’ posting sexualized content on Internet, and some countries might have restraints on virtual space posting content of sexualization, it is more rational and realistic to ask users’ intention towards posting sexualized content on social media. Therefore, theory of plan behavior (TPB) is introduced into the current study. According to TPB (Ajzen, 1991), the more intention a person hold towards a behavior, the more possibilities that person would perform that behavior, and thus, the currently study is going to investigate posting sexualized UGC by asking the intention of posting sexualized UGC. There are three determinants in TPB model, attitude toward performing the behavior, subjective norm and

perceived behavior control regarding performing the behavior, and therefore, attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavior control could be three credible predictors to predict posting sexualized UGC on social media in this study based on individual’s intention. Since there have been already some cyber regulations on posting behavior online in the countries, perceived behavior control will not be investigated in the current study. TPB (Ajzen, 1991) suggests that the more positive attitude an

perform that behavior. Similarly, the more subjective norm an individual feels that he or she should perform that behavior, the stronger intention he or she will have. No study has been found about the relationship between exposure to pornography and the attitude towards posting sexualized UGC on social media. As for subjective norm, although the study (Vandenbosch et al., 2015) showed that pornography viewers, especially for female, are more or less afraid of being criticized as ‘slutty’, and thus try to avoid self-presentation in a sexualized way on social media, no study use the specific concept, posting sexualized UGC on social media, as a outcome of exposure to pornography through checking subjective norm. Thus, two hypotheses are

formulated based on TPB model:

H1: Exposure to pornography will positively predict attitude towards posting sexual UGC on social media, and thus leads to the higher intention to post sexualized UGC on social media.

H2: Exposure to pornography will positively predict subjective norm towards posting sexualized UGC on social media, and thus leads to the higher intention to post sexualized UGC on social media.

Normalization

Normalization is another theoretical framework that has been often used to look into pornography effect. Weinberg, Williams, Kleiner and Irizarry (2010) suggested that the more frequently a viewer enter into the pornography world, the less shock or offend he/she can feel when he/she comes to various sexual context due to their expanding boundary of acceptable sexual behavior and treating sexual behavior as

being normal. However, no study questioned that whether this normalization perception could also happen on sexualized social media space, such as posting sexualized UGC on social media when after pornography viewing. Therefore, this study is going to testify this theoretical framework into context of posting sexualized UGC on social media after viewing pornography, and the hypothesis proposed as:

H3: Exposure to pornography will positively predict the normalization of posting sexualized UGC on social media, and thus leads to intention to post sexualized UGC on social media.

Gender Difference

When come to sexualization on social media, the majority of previous studies were inclined to focus on women, for sexualization derived from the idea of objectification (Hell et al, 2012; Daniels & Zurbriggen, 2016; Ward, 2016).

Objectification theory implied that media’s frequent portray of sexy women’s’ body objectifies women, and Western societies’ scrutiny on women’s body was reflected on sexual presentation of women in the media (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997; Ward, 2016). And objectification theory has been continually explained on women’s body when study body perception related topics (Knauss, Paxton, & Alasker, 2008). However, a content analysis showed that depiction of muscular men in shirtless or sexually suggestive dance is apparent in media content nowadays (Aubrey & Frisby, 2011). Another content analysis also revealed the prevalence of concerns about appearance image among young men (Olivardia, Pope JR, Borowiecki III, & Cohane, 2004). Thus, current evidence suggests to research target group should be extended to

men. Moreover, gender socialization theory points out that men and women perceive differently to sexuality (Tolman, Striepe, & Harmon, 2003). And in the context of media usage, men are inclined to seek sexual attractiveness while women tend to search for sexual validation (Vandenbosch et al., 2015). Due to the social difference in media usage among men and women and the necessity to extend the sexualization to men, this study is going ask whether gender could moderate pornography viewers’ sexualized presentation on social media. Thus, the hypothesis proposed as:

H4: Exposure to pornography will positively predict the intention to post

sexualized UGC on social media, and this relationship differs from men: women have higher intention to post sexualized UGC than men.

Conceptual Model

Method Data collection and sample and procedure

An online questionnaire-survey was conducted in the current study, and the reason of using survey as data collection method in this study was because of the

topic’s characteristic from ethical perspective. Since pornography, as a controversial and sensitive theme, might bring uncomfortable feelings to some participants, and survey provides participant an easy way to quit the study after they know the theme if they want to stop the study. Moreover, online distribution of survey can reach broad and sizeable participants, and the participants can fill out the survey alone in

anywhere as they want to with less pressure to answer the survey or quit the survey. A convenience sampling was used in the study for the low budget supporting and limited time. This study is a graduation project of the programme MSc.

Communication Science supervised by the faculty of communication science,

University of Amsterdam, and all works should be done by the student his own. Thus, considering the massive workload and limited financial support, a convenience sampling has been used. However, this sampling method could lower the result validity, especially population validity, for the participants are less diverse and representative.

The online questionnaire was designed and generated in the software of Qualtrics, and then it shared among various social platforms and applications, for instance, WeChat, Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat, etc., Besides, survey was also distributed on commercial participants-recruiting website, MTurk. And the survey usually took 10-15 minutes to finish this survey.

Data preparation and participants

There are total 479 participants reached in this study. However, to clean up the data from the survey in order to obtain valid samples, several steps have been done

before the data analysis.

First, 34 participants who above 50 years old were removed from the data set, for older adults are not considered as valid sample in this study. Although older adult is a growing group using SNSs, they are mainly using SNSs as a communicative tool to keep touch with their relatives, and for utility functions, such as checking news and information, booking restaurants. And they tend to have physical difficulties to access to social media as well (Bell et al., 2013). More importantly, it is shown that older adults do not feel safe and comfortable to post anything they created on social media (Lehtinen, Näsänen, & Sarvas, 2009). This implied that older adults tend to have strong and apparent resistance towards user-generated content, so they are not considered as a target group to post user-generated content on social media. Then, in order to make sure that the participants knew what sexualized UGC as an essential concept refers to when they answerer sexualized UGC related questions, a mandatory question was asked after a brief explanation of the definition of sexualized UGC in the survey. Total 100 participants failed to correctly answer the comprehension-check question in the survey and thus were exclusive out of the study, since their answers of sexualized UGC are invalid. Additionally, 2 participants were removed from the data set, for they didn’t agree with the consent form, or they clicked ‘not to continue’ when they saw the notifications of pornography theme.

Finally, 343 participants were treated as valid data recourse with 159 men, 182 women and 2 participants who were not willing to say their age. The age of the participants ranges from 18 to 50 (M = 30.41, SD = 7.58).

Measures

Exposure to pornography. The independent variable, exposure to pornography, was in the line with the measurement of pornography usage created by Carroll et al. (2008). And it was measured by asking questions: ‘how do you score yourself about your frequency of exposure to pornographic material?’ and the source from

magazines, movies and internet sites were defined , and the provided answers were from 1 (never watch it) to 7 (every day/almost every day). Mean and SD were Mean = 2.76, SD = 1.26.

Intention to post sexualized UGC on social media. Inspired by the definition of sexualization that presenting appearance and body in a sexualizing way

(Vandenbosch & Eggermont, 2013), the intention to post sexualized UGC was integrated from Vandenbosch et al.’s (2015) measurement of sexualized body display and Hall et al.’s (2012) measurement of sexy appearance. A explanation of sexualized UGC was provided before the question, and the intention to post sexualized UGC was divided into two dimensions based on the integration: intention to post sexualized dressing display (a. swimwear; b. lingerie, bra, or underpants; c. nudity (partial or implied); d. revealing clothing) and intention to post sexualized body display (a. sexy gaze; b. sexy gesture; c. sexy posture). According to TPB, the intention to post sexualized dressing display was measure by three items ‘I want to post sexualized dressing display’, ‘I plan to post sexualized dressing display’ and ‘I intend to post sexualized dressing display’, and the answers ranged from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) (M = 1.81, SD = .98, Cronbach’s alpha = .95). Similarly, the intention

to post sexualized body display was also asked by three items ‘I want to post

sexualized body display’, ‘I plan to post sexualized body display’ and ‘I intend to post sexualized body display’, and the answers ranged from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) (M = 1.76, SD = .94, Cronbach’s alpha = .95). The two dimensions were strongly correlated (r = .89, p < .001) and all six items formed a unidimensional scale as intention to post sexualized UGC (M = 1.78, SD = .93), with an explained variance of 86% and good reliability (Cronbach’s alpha = .97). Thus, these two dimensions were collapsed into a single evaluation score in the analyses.

Attitude towards posting sexualized UGC on social media. Inspired by Wang et al.’s (2018) measurement of attitude towards selfie-posting behavior, the attitude towards posting sexualized UGC on social media in this study was asked to answer a seven-point semantic scale by eight paired items: ‘unpleasant - pleasant’,

‘unenjoyable - enjoyable’, ‘worthless - valuable’, ‘harmful - beneficial’. ‘bad - good’, ‘unimportant - important’, ‘useless - useful’ and ‘unsatisfactory - satisfactory’. Factor analysis showed all eight items measured Factor1 and it explained 73% variance in the eight items. And these eight paired items were averagely formed as one index representing attitude towards posting sexualized UGC on social media, with a good reliability (M = 2.49, SD = .99, Cronbach’s alpha = .95).

Subjective norm towards posting sexualized UGC on social media. Based on Ajzen’s (1991) TPB and Harakeh et al. (2004)’s application of TPB measuring subjective norm towards ‘smoking’ , two items were adapted to measure subjective norm towards posting sexual UGC on social media by asking participants: ‘The

persons who important to me would be happy if I post sexual UGC on social media’, and ‘The persons who important to me would approve me post sexual UGC on social media.' All the answers were provided from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) to express participants’ agreement level. The average score of the two items was calculated, with good reliability (Cronbach’s alpha = .88). And the mean and SD of subjective norm towards posting sexualized UGC on social media were M = 1.98, SD = 1.05.

Normalization of posting sexualized UGC on social media. Inspired by Weinberg et.al (2010), the normalization of posting sexualized UGC on social media was measured by asking ‘I think posting sexualized UGC on social media is a normal behavior’ using a five-point Likert scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). And the mean and SD of normalization towards posting sexualized UGC on social media were M = 2.85, SD = 1.14.

Willingness of being exposed to sexualized UGC on social media. The willingness of being exposed to sexualized UGC on social media was measured by asking the agreement of the statement ‘I am willing to be exposed to sexualized UGC posted by other on social media’. The answer was provided by a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). The mean and SD were

M = 2.71, SD = 1.27.

Analytical Strategy

PROCESS by Andrew F. Hayes (v3.4) was used in SPSS (version 25) to conduct regression models to test mediation effects. Besides, In the line with previous studied

about sexual content media usage, baseline values of sexual orientation and religion were entered as control variables in every model (Calzo & Ward, 2009; Vandenbosch et al., 2015).

Results Descriptive

The majority of participants in this study reported that they have experience of viewing pornographic material (83%). More than half of the participants expressed that they were viewing pornography weekly (53%), with 13% daily pornography viewing. As for posting history of sexualized UGC, below one-fourth of the

participants think they have posted sexualized dressing display (16%) and sexualized body display (13%).

Test of hypotheses

To investigate the relationships between pornography exposure and posting sexualized UGC on social media mediated by attitude, subjective norm and

normalization toward the posting, and to test H1, H2, and H3, three multiple linear regression models through PROCESS v3.4 were conducted, with pornography exposure as independent variable, attitude towards posting sexualized UGC, subjective norm towards posting sexualized UGC and normalization of posting sexualized UGC as three mediators, sexual orientation (1 = exclusively heterosexual, 0 = not exclusively heterosexual) and religion (1= have religion, 0 = no religion) as two control variables. To test H4, a linear multiple regression was also conducted adding gender as the moderator (1 = female, 0 = not female).

For the first mediation model, the regression of the independent variable (exposure to pornography) on the dependent variable (intention to post sexualized UGC on social media), ignoring the mediator of attitude towards posting sexualized UGC, was significant, b = .14, t(323) = 3.56, p < .001. The regression of the

independent variable (exposure to pornography) on the mediator, attitude towards posting sexualized UGC on social media, was significant as well, b = .22, t(323) = 5.23, p < .001. The mediation process showed that the mediator (attitude towards posting sexualized UGC on social media), controlling for exposure to pornography, was significant, b = .52, t(322) = 11.58, p < .001. And controlling for the mediator (attitude towards posting sexualized UGC on social media), exposure to pornography was not a significant predictor of intention to post sexualized UGC on social media, b = .03, t(322) = .83, p = .406. In this model, while exposure to pornography was a significant predictor for both attitude towards posting sexualized UGC and intention to post sexualized UGC, it is no longer significant in the presence of the mediator, attitude towards sexualized UGC; confirming the full mediation effect. Therefore, the H1 was fully supported that exposure to pornography will positively predict attitude towards posting sexual UGC on social media, and thus leads to the higher intention to post sexualized UGC on social media.

As for the second mediation model, the regression of the independent variable (exposure to pornography) on the dependent variable (intention to post sexualized UGC) on social media when ignoring the mediator of subjective norm towards

mediation model before, b = .14, t(323) = 3.56, p < .001. The regression of exposure to pornography on the mediator, the subjective norm towards posting, was significant as well, b = .09, t(323) = 2.03, p = .043. The mediation process showed that the mediator, subjective norm towards posting sexualized UGC on social media, was significant when controlling exposure to pornography, b = .51, t (322) = 12.85, p < .001. However, the regression showed that controlling the mediator (subjective norm towards posting sexualized UGC on social media), exposure to pornography was still a significant predictor of intention to post sexualized UGC on social media. It was found that subjective norm towards posting sexualized UGC on social media partially mediated the relationship between exposure to pornography and intention to post sexualized UGC on social media. Although the model showed partially

mediation, the mediation effect was still significant, and thus the H2 was fully supported that exposure to pornography will positively predict subjective norm towards posting sexualized UGC on social media, and thus leads to the higher intention to post sexualized UGC on social media.

In the third media model, H3 was tested as exposure to pornography will positively predict the normalization of posting sexualized UGC on social media, and thus leads to intention to post sexualized UGC on social media. The results showed that pornography exposure significantly influenced normalization of posting sexualized UGC on social media, b = .14, t(323) = 2.93, p = .004. Moreover, when controlling exposure to pornography, there was a significant relationship between the mediator (normalization of posting sexualized UGC) and the outcome variable

(intention to post sexualized UGC), b = .27, t(322) = 6.20, p < .001. Controlling for the mediator (normalization of posting sexualized UGC on social media), exposure to pornography was still a significant predictor of intention to post sexualized UGC on social media; confirming a partial mediation, b = .10, t(322) = 2.72, p = .007. In this case, the independent variable, exposure to pornography, was a predictor for both dependent variable and mediator (intention to post sexualized UGC and normalization of posting sexualized UGC on social media), and it was still significant in the

presence of the mediator, confirming a partial mediation. Therefore, H3 was fully confirmed.

The regression model with exposure to pornography, religion and sexual orientation as independent variables, intention to post sexualized UGC on social media as dependent variable, was significant, F(4, 321) = 7.75, p = < .001. With gender controlled, exposure to pornography positively predicts intention to post sexualized UGC on social media, b = .21, t = 4.67, p < .001. Being women

significantly positively predicts the intention to post sexualized UGC on social media,

b = .37, t = 3.36, p = .001. Therefore, H4 was fully supported.

Additional analysis

An additional analysis was conducted for checking the mean difference between intention to post sexualized UGC and willingness being exposed to sexualized UGC on social media. A dependent t-test revealed that willingness to be posed to sexualized UGC were significantly higher than intention to post sexualized UGC on social media, t(342) = 12.95, p < .001, d = .70.

Discussion

User-generated media provides a platform for social media users to post various media messages, including sexualized images, text and videos. Pornography

emphasizing sexual explicitness has become much easier to access to on Internet. However, the investigation between posting sexualized UGC social media and the sexually explicit media content was limited. The present study contributes to existing research on the effect of exposure to pornography by conducting a survey to examine how pornography viewing influences the posting sexualized UGC behavior through three determinants, attitude, subjective norm and normalization. The exposure to pornography was measured by viewing frequency. And the intention to post sexualized UGC was measured in two dimensions, posting sexualized dressing display and posting sexualized body display. The current study points out the

significant role of exposure to pornography in media users’ posting sexualized content through user-generated media.

Overall, participants in this study reported wide usage of pornography, but low level of intention to post sexualized UGC, subjective norm, medium level of

normalization of posting sexualized UGC and slightly negative attitudes toward posting sexualized UGC. The majority participants have the experience of being exposed to pornography, and half of the participants was weekly using pornography. This shows pornography usage is a common media content using behavior proving the pornography research cannot be taken lightly as an important genre of entertaining media. In contrast, the intention of posting sexualized UGC was feeble. And the

descriptives of weak subjective norm and slightly negative attitude toward posting sexualized UGC on social media could explain the low intention to post sexualized UGC. However, there was still more than one in ten of participants responding they have posting history of sexualized UGC, and this in the line with previous research that that posting sexualized content through user-generated media minor but cannot be neglected on social media (Baumgartner et al., 2015; Hall et al., 2012). Furthermore, a test was conducted to compare the mean difference between the intention to post sexualized UGC and the willingness to be exposed to sexualized UGC on social media. The result suggests that social media users have significant difference towards actively post and passively see sexualized UGC on social media. This finding is in the line with Daniels and Zurbriggen (2016) that it is uncommon for media users to post sexualized content on their own, but with less pressure to see sexualized content on social media.

There were always significant main effects between exposure to pornography and the intention to post sexualized UGC in all regression analyses. This is consistent with previous research that the effect of media internalization (van Oosten et al., 2018). Internalization in the context of media effect argues that media message’s emphasis of certain attributes could enhance into recipients’ perception and they might internalize the attributes as their self-concepts later. This study argues that pornography viewers could internalized sexy appearance and ideal body in

pornography as their sexual self-concept, and thus present content on social media in a sexualized way. However, the finding contradicts a previous study about the effect

of exposure to pornography on online sexualized self-presentation, Vandenbosch et al. (2005) showed that exposure to pornography didn’t predict sexualized

self-presentation. There are two alternative explanations of this difference between the previous study and the current study. One is the previous study (Vandenbosch et al. (2005) was conducted by using adolescents ranging from 13-17 years old as the sample, and some participants in that study might not have accesses to pornographic materials due to the illegality of presenting pornography under 18 years old in some countries. That means the previous study couldn’t fully check participants’

pornography viewing habits. Second, the previous study (Vandenbosch et al. (2005) asked participants’ actual sexualized presentation posting as dependent variable instead of asking intention to post sexualized presentation. Participants might have pressure to disclose about what they had done in the survey, and participants might have less pressure to express intention to do a certain behavior, especially for uncommon behaviors. However, further research is needed to examine this relationship.

As for mediation effect, the mediators, attitude, subjective norm and

normalization of posting sexualized UGC on social media all explain the relationship between exposure to pornography and the intention to post sexualized UGC on social media. However, full mediation was only confirmed in H1 indicating that attitude towards posting sexualized UGC is the best third variable to explain the relationship between exposure to pornography and the intention to post sexualized UGC on social media among other two other mediators. This finding again proves the internalization

of media effect (van Oosten et al., 2018). Attitude is one’s sentimental self-value towards certain behavior, and pornography viewers might internalize sexy appearance and body as their self-value and thus leads to sexualization on social media. Although subjective norm and normalization of posting sexualized UGC could partially explain the reason why exposure to pornography influence the intention to post sexualized UGC, the influences from people around pornography viewers on intention to post sexualized UGC are less strong compared with viewers’ own attitude towards posting sexualized UGC on social media. However, more potential mediators to explain the relationship are need in further research.

For the gender as the moderator, the finding shows women are more susceptible to sexist in pornography. This is in the line with gender socialization theory that women in the sexual context are more possible to use sexy attractiveness to seek validation from men, and this could be an explanation of women are more likely to be sexualized on social media compared with men affected by exposure to pornography (Vandenbosch et al., 2015).

The current study at least had two limitations. One is the conceptual model in this study couldn’t fully check how gender, as a mediator, differentiates the mediation effect, since the gender was only checked for main effect. Moderated mediation effect could be tested on this relationship in the future. Second, the sample in this study was rather broad. Although the participants above 50 years old were remove from the data set, the rest of participants still ranges from 18 to 50 years old. Emerging adults and older adults have different social media using habits and content preference, and thus

the age difference was not strictly considered in this study. Speaking for individual difference, the current study didn’t consider more potential factors that might affect the relationship between exposure to pornography and the intention to post sexualized UGC, for instance, body surveillance and self-worth.

All in all, exposure to pornography positively predicts the intention to post sexualized UGC on social media. According to TPB (Ajzen, 1991), the more intention a person holds towards a behavior, the more possibilities that person would perform that behavior. Therefore, the current study concludes that more frequent exposure to pornography leads to posting more sexualized UGC on social media.

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Appendix

Does Exposure to Pornography Influence Posing Sexualized User-Generated Content on Social Media?

Start of Block: Block1 Inform Dear Participant,

Thank you for your interest in this research study!

With this letter, I would like to invite you to participate in this research study to be conducted by Zhenxiang Hu, as his final graduation project of MSc Entertainment Communication Science. This study is under the auspices of the Graduate School of Communication, a part of the University of Amsterdam. This study will take you approximately 10 minutes.

This study is aimed to investigate pornography exposure effect, and to examine the relationship between pornography viewing and social media posting behavior. As this research is being carried out under the responsibility of the ASCoR, University of Amsterdam, we can guarantee that:

1) Your anonymity will be safeguarded, and that your personal information will not be passed on to third parties under any conditions.

2) You can refuse to participate in the research or cut short your participation without having to give a reason for doing so. You also have up to 24 hours after participating to withdraw your permission to allow your answers or data to be used in the research.

3) The researcher(s) will not deliberately mislead you, and you will not be exposed to any explicitly offensive material.

Should you have any complaints or comments about the course of the research and the procedures it involves as a consequence of your participation in this research, you can contact the designated member of the Ethics Committee representing ASCoR, at the following address:

ASCoR Secretariat, Ethics Committee, University of Amsterdam, Postbus 15793, 1001 NG Amsterdam; 020‐525 3680; ascor‐secr‐fmg@uva.nl.

End of Block: Block1

Start of Block: Block 2

Consent I hereby declare that I have been informed in a clear manner about the nature and method of the research, as described before. I agree, fully and voluntarily, to participate in this research study. With this, I retain the right to withdraw my consent, without having to give a reason for doing so. I am aware that I may halt my participation in the experiment at any time. If my research results are used in scientific publications or are made public in another way, this will be done such a way that my anonymity is completely safeguarded. My personal data will not be passed on to third parties without my express permission. If I wish to receive more information about the research, either now or in future, I can contact Zhenxiang Hu (zhenxiang.hu@student.uva.nl). Should I have any complaints about this research, I can contact the designated member of the Ethics Committee representing the ASCoR, at the following address: ASCoR secretariat, Ethics Committee, University of Amsterdam, Postbus 15793, 1001 NG Amsterdam; 020‐ 525 3680; ascor‐secr‐fmg@uva.nl.

I understand the text above, and I agree to participate in the research study.

o

Yes (1)

o

No (2)

Skip To: End of Survey If I hereby declare that I have been informed in a clear manner about the nature and method of the r... = No

End of Block: Block 2

Start of Block: Block 3

Notification This study will contain the topic of pornography, several things you might need to know before the actual questions: (1) This survey will NOT show any sexually explicit material to you. But there will be some questions related pornography watching habit. If you feel uncomfortable and offensive to be asked, please feel free to quit the survey anytime if you want to. (2) This study is only conducted for academic purpose, and your participation would be total anonymity. No personal information (name, address, email, IP, ID, etc.) will not be asked in this survey, So, NO One will know who answered in this

survey! And please FEEL FREE to answer your actual thoughts and situations. Would you like to begin the survey?

o

Yes, and I am above 18. Begin the survey. (1)

o

No, I'd rather not continue. (2)

Skip To: End of Survey If This study will contain the topic of pornography, several things you might need to know before th... = No, I'd rather not continue.

End of Block: Block 3

Start of Block: Block 3 Q1 What's your age?

(Please fill in a number below)

________________________________________________________________

Q2 What's your country of nationality? (Please fill in the name of nation(s) below)

________________________________________________________________ End of Block: Block 3

Start of Block: Block 4 Q3 What's your gender?

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Man (1)

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Woman (2)

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None-binary (3)

Q4 What's your sexual orientation?

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Heterosexuality (1)

o

Homosexuality (2)

o

Bisexuality (3)

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I prefer not to say (4) End of Block: Block 4

Start of Block: Block 5 Q5 Do you have religion? If you have it, please specify.

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Yes. Please specify below. (1) ________________________________________________

o

No (2)

Q6 What's your highest education level?

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Primary school or lower (1)

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High school (2)

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College/Bachelor's degree (3)

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Master's degree (4)

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Doctoral or professional degree (5) End of Block: Block 5

Start of Block: Block 6 Q7 Do you understand English?

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Yes (1)

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No (2) End of Block: Block 6

Start of Block: Block 7

explicit materials including magazines, movies, and/or Internet sites)

o

0-none (1)

o

below 3 times a month (2)

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1-2 times a week (3)

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3-5 times a week (4)

o

everyday or almost everyday (5) End of Block: Block 7

Start of Block: Block 8

Definition Brief Introduction of sexualized user-generated content (UGC) on social media:Sexualized user-generated content on social media in this study refers to publicly posting self-created content on users' personal social media accounts (including Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, WeChat, Weibo, etc.) if the cyber regulation is possible, AND it has to be the presentation of individuals or characters in a sexualized way emphasizing sexual appearance and body, physical beauty and fitness, and sexual appeal to others.

Sexualized user-generated content on social media in this study's context could be clarified into two dimensions:1. Sexualized dressing display Self-created photos, videos and texts on social media including you and/or others with (1) swimwear; (2) lingerie, bra, or underpants; (3) nudity (partial or implied); (4) revealing clothing.

2. Sexualized body displaySelf-created photos, videos and texts on social media including you and/or others with (1) sexy gaze; (2) sexy gesture; (3) sexy posture.

They are ALL sexualized user-generated content on social media!

Q9 Based on the information given above, what do you think of sexualized user-generated content (UGC)?

o

Sexualized user-generated content on social media refers to publicly posting self-created content on users' personal social media accounts. (1)

o

Sexualized user-generated content on social media refers to publicly posting self-created content on users' personal social media accounts, and it depicts individuals or characters in a

sexualized way emphasizing sexual appearance and body, physical beauty and fitness, and sexual appeal to others. (2)

Q10 Have you ever posted sexualized user-generated content (UGC) including you and/or others with sexualized dressing display?

o

Yes (1)

o

No (2)

Q11 Have you ever posted sexualized user-generated content (UGC) including you and/or others with sexualized body display?

o

Yes (1)

o

No (2)

content (UGC) in terms of sexualized dressing display on social media? Strongly disagree (1) Disagree (2) Neither agree nor disagree (3) Agree (4) Strongly Agree (5) I want to post sexualized dressing display on social media. (1)

o

o

o

o

o

I plan to post sexualized dressing on social media. (2)

o

o

o

o

o

I intend to post sexualized dressing on social media. (3)

o

o

o

o

o

content (UGC) in terms of sexualized body display on social media? Strongly disagree (1) Disagree (2) Neither agree nor disagree (3) Agree (4) Strongly agree (5) I want to post sexualized body display on social media. (1)

o

o

o

o

o

I plan to post sexualized body display on social media. (2)

o

o

o

o

o

I intend to post sexualized body display on social media. (3)

o

o

o

o

o

End of Block: Block 8

Q14 I think posting sexualized user-generated content (UGC) on social media is: 1 (1) 2 (2) 3 (3) 4 (4) 5 (5) Unpleasant

o

o

o

o

o

Pleasant Unenjoyable

o

o

o

o

o

Enjoyable Worthless

o

o

o

o

o

Valuable Harmful

o

o

o

o

o

Beneficial Bad

o

o

o

o

o

Good Unimportant

o

o

o

o

o

Important Useless

o

o

o

o

o

Useful Unsatisfactory

o

o

o

o

o

Satisfactory

End of Block: Block 9

Start of Block: Block 10

content (UGC) on social media? Strongly disagree (1) Disagree (2) Neither agree nor disagree (3) Agree (4) Strongly agree (5) The persons who important to me would be happy if I post sexualized UGC on social media. (1)

o

o

o

o

o

The persons who important to me would approve me post sexualized UGC on social media (2)

o

o

o

o

o

End of Block: Block 10

Start of Block: Block 11

Q16 How do you agree or disagree with following statements about posing sexualized user-generated content (UGC) on social media?

Strongly disagree (1) Disagree (2) Neither agree nor disagree (3) Agree (4) Strongly agree (5) I think posting sexualized UGC on social media is a normal behavior (1)

o

o

o

o

o

Start of Block: Block 12

Q17 How do you agree or disagree with following statements about posing sexualized user-generated content (UGC) on social media?

Strongly disagree (1) Disagree (2) Neither agree nor disagree (3) Agree (4) Strongly agree (5) I am willing to be exposed to sexualized UGC posted by others on social media. (1)

o

o

o

o

o