Emoji as a Social Presence Tool Among Arab Digital Media Users: Do the Demographic Variables of the Sender Play a Role?

Abstract

To contribute to the current knowledge, this research was conducted, perhaps for the first time, among 1354 Arab users of digital media platforms to investigate emoji as a social presence tool and how the variables of the gender, generation, and the sender’s relationship to the receiver affect the usage and interpretation of the appropriateness of these graphical icons. Among the significant results of this study, generation and gender explained a significant amount of the variance in the frequency and motivation index. Interestingly, there was a significant, three-way interaction among senders’ gender, raters’ gender, and salience. The analysis also showed that the generation and relationship of the sender had a statistically significant effect on appropriateness ratings.