Abstract
Social media has experienced great changes in recent years. Various social media platforms emerge and develop significantly. Why users choose to use some particular social media becomes a major concern. Through adopting uses and gratifications theory, this study aims to explore gratifications sought from using two popular social media: Weibo and Weixin. Data was collected by eighteen in-depth interviews and content analysis was conducted for data analysis. Results show that, seven gratifications could be sought from using Weibo: information seeking, social interaction, entertainment, pass time, self-expression, information sharing and social networking, while five gratifications from Weixin usage: private social networking, social interaction, convenient communication, high-quality information provided and information sharing. In addition, three general gratifications for usage of both Weibo and Weixin were identified: information sharing, social networking and social interaction. Implications of this study are also discussed.
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Gan, C., Wang, W. (2014). Weibo or Weixin? Gratifications for Using Different Social Media. In: Li, H., Mäntymäki, M., Zhang, X. (eds) Digital Services and Information Intelligence. I3E 2014. IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology, vol 445. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-45526-5_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-45526-5_2
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