Media branding and value co-creation: effect of user participation in social media of newsmedia on attitudinal and behavioural loyalty

Co-creation of value has become a major trend in the media industry. News media organisations are one of the sectors that are significantly influenced by user participation via blogs, citizen journalism and user-generated content. This study investigates the effect of value co-creation on the loyalty of media consumers, by a survey of users of social media of Press-TV. The research model proposes that the user participation associates with three different types of values, including relational, economic and emotional values, to media brand enforcement, while this itself associates with two types of loyalties: attitudinal and behavioural loyalties. 274 users responded to a researcher-made questionnaire. FIMIX was used to measure the unobserved heterogeneity of the sample. The results showed that the users' participation in the value co-creation significantly affects their loyalty to the media brand. The results also showed that media enforcement is the most important variable in media consumer's loyalty.