Chinese Social Networking Sites Research Articles

Exploring disclaimers on Chinese social networking sites from a metapragmatic perspective

This study explores the employment of disclaimers as metapragmatic devices in online interpersonal interaction on a Chinese social networking site, Weibo. Previous studies discussed meta-negation disclaimers and meta-prohibition disclaimers. This study establishes a new type of disclaimer: meta-condition disclaimers. It examines the forms and functions of the three types of disclaimers. Prior studies explained disclaimers as either prospective moves or retrospective moves. This study further introduces disclaimers as conjunctive moves, which bridge the speaker’s ongoing communicative behaviour. Also, it investigates the communicative purposes of using disclaimers, revealing that disclaimers are mainly employed by Chinese netizens to convey criticism. Furthermore, this research probes into the underlying cultural factors of employing disclaimers. It uncovers certain values ingrained in Chinese culture, such as ren (kindheartedness), yi (righteousness) and li (politeness). The study contributes to a global understanding of disclaimers and could provide some insights into online rapport management.

‘I am very emo’

The contemporary expansion of English is becoming remarkably rapid and exceptionally global (Ostler, 2011). In present-day China, English has gained unprecedented popularity, fueled by the nation's current political and social development (Bolton & Graddol, 2012). There is a notable trend of bilingual education using English as a medium of instruction in Chinese schools (Wei, 2013). Therefore, an increasing number of Chinese are enthusiastic about learning and using English in communication. With the active participation of youths, ‘Internet English’ has been used widely in social networking spaces. The practice of ‘English mixing’ in various Chinese homegrown social networking sites has become the most remarkable intranational use of English in today's mainland China (Zhang, 2012). Interestingly, youngsters1 often create novel meanings when using languages on the Internet as ‘teenagers are well-known for introducing innovations into language, and indeed are generally regarded as prime agents of language change’ (Palacios Martínez, 2018: 363). Many linguistic studies have dealt with the mechanisms of the evolution of word meanings in past decades (Kachru, 1983; Qin & Guo, 2020; Tan, 2009; Yang, 2005). Much evidence indicates that meanings and usages of words are variable and composite, and may turn out differently depending on how words are used in contexts.

‘Versailles literature’ on WeChat Moments – humblebragging with digital technologies

Versailles literature is a newly emerged phenomenon on Chinese social networking sites. It is in essence an indirect form of self-praise. Despite its popularity on social media, there is little research on this phenomenon. This study investigates the pragmatic strategies for performing VL on WeChat Moments. The results showed that Versailles literature often includes strategies such as implicit self-praise, modified explicit self-praise, and self-praise through comments and replies, among which the tactics that have not been observed before, such as bragging in a foreign language, creating false ‘question–answer’ or ‘compliment–response’ interactions and commenting to the adverts. These strategies are implemented in various ways by virtue of the technological affordance of WeChat Moments, in order to balance the disclosure and the dissimulation of the object of praise. The study also discusses the distinctive features of VL and explains the absence of some frequent strategies of self-praising in Versailles literature.

The “Kuakua” fever: Proactively requesting praise on Chinese social networking sites

In recent years, Kuakua has gained great popularity on Chinese social networking sites. It is a popular phenomenon in which young Chinese netizens proactively request praise from others in praising groups. However, this speech act seems unconventional as it flouts Leech's (1983) modesty maxim of politeness principle and Gu's (1990) self-denigration maxim. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the self-presentation strategies employed by Kuakua users on Douban and the underlying motivation of Kuakua by analyzing 400 posts quantitatively and qualitatively. These posts were collected using netnography and analyzed via grounded theory. We found that young Chinese netizens tend to use three pragmatic strategies when proactively requesting others' praise, namely, self-praise, self-disclosure, and self-denigration, in order of decreasing frequency. The result indicates a changing perception and attitude towards Chinese politeness among young Chinese netizens. In addition, the popularity of Kuakua in China also suggests an underlying yet intense conflict between the traditional values of politeness and the growing desire of young Chinese for recognition and affection.

Online Peer Advice: Giving Advice on Chinese Social Networking Sites

This study investigates advice-giving in peer-to-peer comment sections on Chinese social networking sites. The results show that advice, explanation, experience, and assessment are the four most frequent discursive moves in Chinese advice given by peers on social networking sites. Involvement, mitigation, and face-threatening strategies are also utilized frequently by those peers to give directives and express empathy and solidarity on Chinese online sites, thereby building supportive relationships among them in online communities. The online peer advice-giving in this study is influenced by multiple aspects of the platform, participants, and language use, presenting distinctive characteristics that differ from other studies.

Self-Praise on Chinese Social Network Sites

Self-Praise on Chinese Social Network Sites

Social support and reputational defense strategies of Chinese social networking site users in Sun Yang’s controversy

This study examines the online expression of Chinese social networking site (SNS) users in a human brand crisis. Using the case of Sun Yang’s doping allegations controversy, the research employed content analysis to examine how Chinese users rendered social support and acted as surrogate crisis responders for Sun in a collectivist Chinese culture. The results indicate that (1) Sun’s supporters were most likely to display emotional support, and this pattern continued over time, (2) Chinese SNS users were inclined to implement the reputational defense strategies of attacking the accuser, denial, and reminding in response to their hero’s case, and (3) the prevalence of the three defense strategies varied over time. Theoretical and managerial implications are provided regarding how parasocial relationship with the accused human brand and in-group/out-group differentiation affect SNS users’ online expressions of social support and reputational defense in the Chinese culture.

What is “Versailles Literature”?: Humblebrags on Chinese social networking sites

Versailles Literature has gone viral on Chinese social networking sites. It is a popular online phenomenon in which netizens present their accomplishments or their privileged lifestyle. However, the term is difficult to understand for people who are not familiar with this linguistic practice. This study investigates the pragmatic strategies of Versailles Literature on Chinese social networking sites, in a quantitative and qualitative analysis of 200 authentic blogs collected from Weibo. It was found that Chinese Versailles Literature often includes strategies such as comparison, complaint, narration, praise from a third party, and showing humility. When bragging occurs, it has to be used together with mitigating strategies. Based on the findings, we argue that the Chinese Versailles Literature is in essence a type of humblebrag. The study also discusses why the phenomenon has gained so much popularity, and the possible reasons for Chinese netizens to deploy such social practices and use the hashtag #VersaillesLiterature.

Toward street vending in post COVID-19 China: Social networking services information overload and switching intention

With the progress of epidemic containment, the Chinese government has relaxed its regulatory policies on street vending, hoping to help people who have lost their livelihoods and to assist in the restoration of social and economic order. In response, Chinese people poured into the stall economy, especially individual peddlers, with great expectations for street vending. Street vending has become a hot topic on Chinese social network sites (SNSs). Based on the push-pull-mooring framework, SNS information overload theory was introduced and combined with the actual situations of street vending in China, and a structural equation model was established to study factors affecting individual Chinese peddlers' intention to engage in street vending and the effects of SNS information overload on these factors. Results revealed that perceived policy benefits, subjective norms, and switching cost perceptions of individual peddlers were positive factors affecting their intention to engage in street vending. SNS information overload positively affected individual peddlers' dissatisfaction with their original business model, anxieties over their livings, perception of policy benefits, and subjective norms but negatively affected individual peddlers’ perception of switching costs.

Excessive SNS use at work, technological conflicts and employee performance: A social-cognitive-behavioral perspective

Pervasive Social Networking Site (SNS) access has deeply penetrated workers' daily life, inducing excessive usage that can lead to negative consequences. Despite the danger, few studies have examined the dark side of social media from the performance perspective of workers. This paper explores how excessive use of SNSs impacts work performance, considering the underlying mechanisms by using the cognitive-behavioral model and social-cognitive theory (SCT) as the foundations of the model. We propose that excessive usage of SNSs positively influences the cognitive emotional preoccupation and thereby leads to three types of conflicts: task conflict, process conflict, and relationship conflict (TPR conflicts). TPR conflicts, in turn, diminish the work performance. A sample of 386 Chinese SNS user responses were empirically tested to validate the proposed model, and our hypotheses were confirmed except for one: the results reveal that relationship conflict has no significant correlation to work performance. This study contributes to mitigating the destructive nature of social media by identifying its drivers and consequences, considering a comprehensive classification of SNS-related conflicts in the working environment. It also provides theoretical and important practical insights that help organizations to improve their workers’ performance.

Identifiability, Risk, and Information Credibility in Discussions on Moral/Ethical Violation Topics on Chinese Social Networking Sites.

One heated argument in recent years concerns whether requiring real name supervision on social media will inhibit users’ participation in discoursing online speech. The current study explores the impact of identification, perceived anonymity, perceived risk, and information credibility on participating in discussions on moral/ethical violation events on social network sites (SNS) in China. In this study, we constructed a model based on the literature and tested it on a sample of 218 frequent SNS users. The results demonstrate the influence of identification and perception of anonymity: although the relationship between the two factors is negative, both are conducive to participation in discussion on moral/ethical violation topics, and information credibility also has a positive impact. The results confirmed the significance of risk perception on comments posted about moral/ethical violation. Our results have reference value for identity management and internet governance. Policies regarding users’ real names on the internet need to take into account the reliability of the identity authentication mechanism, as well as netizens’ perceptions of privacy about their identity and the necessity of guaranteeing content and information reliability online. We also offer some suggestions for future research, with a special emphasis on applicability to different cultures, contexts, and social networking sites.

Self-praise on Chinese social networking sites

Self-praise involves disclosing positive content about oneself, and such disclosures can be treated as self-elevating acts. This study adds to the growing literature on self-praise, especially in online contexts, by analysing pragmatic strategies in Chinese online self-praise from a dataset of 300 user-generated microblogs on Weibo. This study analyses the frequency and percentage of each self-praise strategy deployed by Chinese users, supplemented by a qualitative analysis of individual strategies with examples. It was found that three main pragmatic strategy categories are employed for self-praise in Chinese microblogs, namely explicit self-praise without modification, modified explicit self-praise, and implicit self-praise, in decreasing order of frequency. This study also generates hypotheses to discuss self-praising on microblogs and provides insights for research on self-praise.

The concept of ‘sharing’ in Chinese social media: origins, transformations and implications

ABSTRACT In this article we present an analysis of the concepts of fenxiang and gongxiang – the Mandarin words for ‘sharing’– in the context of Chinese social media. We do so through an interrogation of the words fenxiang and gongxiang as used by Chinese social media companies. Using the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, we created screenshots of 32 Chinese social network sites between 2000 and 2018 and tracked changes in the usage of fenxiang and gongxiang over time. The Mandarin translations in some ways operate like the English word, ‘sharing’. Fenxiang has the meaning of participating in social media, and gongxiang refers to technological aspects of sharing, while also conveying a sense of harmony. However, the interpersonal relations implied by fenxiang, and the political order implied by gongxiang, are quite different from those conveyed by ‘sharing’. Together, fenxiang and gongxiang construct a convergence of micro-level interpersonal harmony and macro-level social harmony. Thus, the language of sharing becomes the lens through which to observe the subtlety, complexity and idiosyncrasies of the Chinese internet. This article offers a new heuristic for understanding Chinese social media, while also pointing to an important facet of the discursive construction of Chinese social media. This implies a continuing need to de-westernize research into the internet and to identify cultural-specific meanings of social media.

Peer-to-peer interactions in the sharing economy: Exploring the role of reciprocity within a Chinese social network

Peer-to-peer interactions play an important role in the sharing economy and more specifically within Internet social networking sites (SNSs). However, little is known about the nature of these interactions and the role of reciprocity in the peer-to-peer exchanges facilitated by SNSs. We use the context of the Chinese Weibo SNS to explore this issue. Our research develops a conceptual model and hypotheses to examine the effects of reputation and emotion on reciprocal behaviours in the Chinese Weibo SNS. We conduct a study to test the influence of reputation on reciprocity and emotion in these peer-to-peer interactions. Our study shows that bridging behaviours, which create social status across heterogeneous groups, generate increased reciprocation as a direct effect. A second indicator of reputation, bonding behaviours that promote social resources within homogenous groups, do not have significant direct effects on intention to reciprocate. Both bridging and bonding behaviors create direct effects on evoked emotions, and emotions in turn have significant effects on the intention to reciprocate. We found that evoked emotions are an important mediator between bridging and bonding actions by one party in the sharing economy and the resulting intention to reciprocate by another party. Our findings contribute to developing a theoretical understanding of the role of reciprocity in peer-to-peer interactions in the sharing economy and more specifically in virtual environments. We show the functioning and appeal in the Chinese Weibo SNS depend heavily on reciprocal user behaviors including the exchange of emotional support, information and knowledge. Our findings show peer-to-peer interaction in SNSs create emotional responses, and these emotions mediate reciprocation. Actions by users with stronger reputations and higher status have stronger effects, which is consistent with the importance of social standing in China for fostering reciprocity in non-virtual business interactions. This suggests that offline habits are being emulated on the Internet.

Personalized Recommendation Model: An Online Comment Sentiment Based Analysis

Traditional recommendation algorithms measure users’ online ratings of goods and services but ignore the information contained in written reviews, resulting in lowered personalized recommendation accuracy. Users’ reviews express opinions and reflect implicit preferences and emotions towards the features of products or services. This paper proposes a model for the fine-grained analysis of emotions expressed in users’ online written reviews, using film reviews on the Chinese social networking site Douban.com as an example. The model extracts feature-sentiment word pairs in user reviews according to four syntactic dependencies, examines film features, and scores the sentiment values of film features according to user preferences. User group personalized recommendations are realized through user clustering and user similarity calculation. Experiments show that the extraction of user feature-sentiment word pairs based on four syntactic dependencies can better identify the implicit preferences of users, apply them to recommendations and thereby increase recommendation accuracy.

THE CONCEPT OF ‘SHARING’ IN CHINESE SOCIAL MEDIA

In this paper we analyze the concepts of fenxiang and gongxiang—the Mandarin words for ‘sharing’—in the context of Chinese social media. Drawing on earlier work on ‘sharing’, and based on analyses of four corpuses and changes over time to the homepages of 32 Chinese social network sites (accessed through the Wayback Machine), we find that the concepts of fenxiang and gongxiang offer a heuristic for understanding Chinese social media, while also pointing to an important facet of the discursive construction of Chinese social media. Although seeming to refer to the same activities as ‘sharing’, analysis of the language of fenxiang and gongxiang in Chinese social media reveals the entanglement of a new individualistic self with a self that remains socially embedded in pre-existing relationships; it shows how micro-level harmony (fenxiang) and macro-level harmony (gongxiang) cohere with each other; while also reflecting the interplay among social media platforms, users, and the state.

Let us Meet Online! Examining the Factors Influencing Older Chinese’s Social Networking Site Use

This paper aims to examine the factors influencing older Chinese's social networking site (SNS) use and to help older people live a better life in this technology-oriented world. A proposed model composed of eight hypotheses was built according to Diffusion of Innovation Theory and was tested via 726 valid data points. The empirical results show that technical compatibility and relative advantages as technical factors and Internet self-efficacy as a personal cognitive factor promote older people's SNS use. Technical complexity as a technical factor and Internet anxiety as a personal cognitive factor hinder older people's SNS use. Social support as a facilitating condition alleviates the negative effects of technical complexity and Internet anxiety and enhances the positive effect of Internet self-efficacy. Gender differences and health status differences are significant. Older men are more likely to use SNSs than older women; older adults in poor physical health condition are more likely to use SNSs compared with those in good health. Compared with older people in Western countries, older Chinese's SNS use does show some differences: 1) gender differences are significant with males having a stronger intention to use SNSs; 2) older people face severe digital divide because technical factors show stronger power in predicting their SNS use; 3) older people need social support to assist their SNS use, but their social support mainly comes from age peers rather than young people.

Chinese-English bilinguals’ online compliment response patterns in American (Facebook) and Chinese (Renren) social networking sites

Prior research has documented cross-cultural differences in Western and East Asian societies as reflected in their language use patterns. Research also shows that people with bilingual and bicultural competency can flexibly change their language use patterns in response to different cultural contexts (Canagarajah, 2013). In this paper, we studied compliment response patterns of the same Chinese-English bilinguals in two highly popular social networking platforms (Facebook and Renren). Results showed that while Renren and Facebook are two technically similar platforms, Chinese-English bilingual users who are members of both online cultures flexibly switched and adapted their compliment response patterns in response to the online community in which they were participating. The Chinese-English bilinguals’ compliment response patterns were aligned with modesty principles more when they participated in Renren community, and less so when they participated in the Facebook community. Conversely, their compliment response patterns on Facebook were aligned with agreement principle more, and less so when they participated in Renren community. Our findings support that the linkage between language and culture are immutable even in a virtual context, and that bilinguals, who are members of both Renren and Facebook, change their compliment response patterns in response to the online community in which they are participating. The study has both theoretical and methodological significance.

Understanding Relationship Overlapping on Social Network Sites

Nowadays people have many overlapping relationships across different social network sites. Will the communication frequency of a relationship on a focal SNS increase or decrease after the corresponding parties begin interacting with each other on a new SNS? What kinds of relationships and parties on the focal SNS are more robust to relationship overlapping across different sites? We conducted a case study on two Chinese popular social network sites (Weibo and Douban). Our results indicate that relationships' interactions on a new SNS have negative effect on the parties' communication frequency on the focal SNS. The communication frequency of older relationships on the focal SNS is more susceptible to the influence of the interacting on the new SNS, while relationships with more common groups and more extensive posts are less likely to be influenced. Our findings imply opportunities for SNS designers to strengthen their existing fragile ties and help users to build much more robust relationships.

Understanding the determinants and dynamic process of user exodus in social networking sites: Evidence from Kaixin001

Understanding the factors and mechanism that affect the users’ abandon behaviors is necessary for the sustained use of Social Networking Sites (SNSs). This study focuses on a special SNS discontinuance phenomenon—user exodus. Compared to individual discontinuance behavior studied in prior research, the SNS user exodus possesses its own characteristics: a huge magnitude of users abandon a given SNS product in a very short time. Given the fatal blow of exodus to SNS providers, this exploratory research seeks to unravel why and how the SNS user exodus occurs. Specifically, we conducted a mixed‐method research combining laddering interview and network analysis. Drawing on the means‐end chain theory, laddering interviews were first used to collect data from discontinuers of a Chinese SNS, Kaixin001, which has experienced a severe user dropout. Then we identified various factors triggering user exodus by content analysis. Last, network analysis was employed to establish the connections between various attributes, consequences, and values. The results showed that user exodus in SNS is strongly related to three types of value: functional, affective, and social value. More important, we also emphasized the dynamics process of exodus by highlighting the role of lurking. Possible contributions and implications of our findings are discussed.