Toward a Differential Understanding of Social Media Usage and Participation Benefits: A Cross-Cultural Comparison Between Eastern and Western Users

Abstract

Today, activities in social media captivate people around the world, and community platforms (e.g., Facebook, QQ, Renren, Twitter) are becoming increasingly important for the marketing strategies of businesses worldwide. Community platforms offer participants a variety of possibilities to promote their own ideas, to communicate with others, and to make use of online content or interactive applications, resulting in completely new consumer behavior (Hennig-Thurau et al., 2010). Because of new media characteristics (e.g., digital, low cost, ubiquity), online communities have become rapidly spreading global phenomena that now attract individuals around the world. For instance, China is becoming a giant Internet and online community market. According to the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC, 2013), in December 2012, there were 538 million Internet users in China, and 318 million of them used online communities. Thus, China has already double the number of online community members as in the United States, which manifests China’s importance for online community research. Although online communities are a global phenomenon, most empirical research has been conducted in Western countriesthat are significantly and culturally distinct from Asian countries. Due to these cultural differences, it is not clear whether the results from Western countries also hold true in the Eastern context. Prior research generally has focused on overall online community behavior (Dholakia, Bagozzi, and Pearo, 2004; Foster, Francescucci, and West, 2010; Jahn and Kunz, 2012; Raacke and Bonds-Raacke, 2008), without considering the potential for cultural differences.