Psychology and Micro-blogging: Self-presentation ... - IEEE Xplore

Psychology and Micro-blogging: Self-presentation, Social Interaction and Social Culture

Hu Xiaomeng School of Psychology, Beijing Normal University [email protected]

Chen Yue Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences [email protected]

Abstract

pattern shifts from primarily face-to-face communication to significantly on-line computer-mediated communication. Among these on-line platforms, blog is regarded as a new media in 21st century. In China, since the blogosphere’s ‘Year of Birth’ in 2005, major mainstream websites such as Sina.com, Sohu.com and Net Ease have all introduced blog services. It is estimated that China’s blogging population rocketed from just 1 million in 2004 to 162 million by December 2008 [1]. Weblog and micro-blog are the two main subtypes. To be absorbing, Micro-blog, a relatively new form of internet communication became rapidly prevalent among Chinese netizens. Micro-blogging refers to the activity in which users to broadcast brief text updates about small little things happening in their daily life and work activities, such as what they are reading, thinking, and experiencing [2]. Twitter is now the most popular micro-blog platform in United States. With its dramatic growth above 1400% per year [3], Twitter has reached over 50 million unique visitors worldwide in July 2009 [4]. Twitter was firstly founded in March 2006 in San Francisco, California and became world-famous due to its remarkable contribution to Obama’s president election of American in 2008. Without doubt, micro-blog is creating a distinctive new media platform. The prominent characteristics of micro-blog are its brevity (the 140-character limit) and speed (the instant dissemination of messages) [4]. Scholars proposed that micro-blog provided both personal and relational benefits such as gaining valuable information and feeling interconnectedness [2]. Micro-blog derives from weblog. On the one hand, they have a lot in common. They both are credited with the potential to be socially transformative and democratizing [5], on the other hand, micro-blog generates new characteristics and communication pattern which are distinctive from weblog.

Micro-blogging is becoming increasingly prevalent in global world, so is it in China. Researches concerning self-presentational behavior on micro-blog, and how micro-blogging influences social interaction on-line, have found some interesting results. However, existing findings are limited to an unsystematic theoretical background and plain understanding of the interaction between psychology and micro-blogging. This article attempts to review the extant literatures aiming at introducing the research findings, summarizing the contributions, indicating the limitations and proposing the future directions, especially in Chinese context. Keywords: Micro-blogging, Self-presentation, Social interaction, Social culture

1. Internet innovation and micro-blogging Nowadays, as new technologies, such as the cell phone, Email, homepage, weblog, micro-blog and other online services continuously emerging at an unprecedented speed, rapid and dramatic changes are occurring broadly in human communications and relations. As the saying goes, the future is no longer tomorrow but within the next 10 minutes. The transform of communication tools influences people’s daily life in a tremendous ways and these new innovations have various social psychological implications. Consequently, people’s social communication

*Correspondence to : Hu Xiaomeng Email: [email protected]

___________________________________ 978-1-4244-6359-6/10/$26.00 ©2010 IEEE

643

Specifically,, weblogs may look like on-line diaries or personal journals, providing an ideal setting for self-presentational behaviors while micro-blogs might contribute to instant information exchange and active virtual community interaction. Though micro-blog has gained much attention by various groups and some tentative studies and interesting findings have been initially established. Considering its important social psychological implications, researches concerning psychology and micro-blog are far from not abundant. Literature focusing on the interaction between psychology and micro-blog in particular is a sparse. The present paper takes a step to review the extant literatures mainly concerning the potential psychological impact of micro-blogging and discuss its social psychological implications. In addition, we attempt to summarize their contributions, point out the shortcomings, as well as propose future directions within modern Chinese context.

people micro-blogging. Another aspect of psychological mechanisms of micro-blogging is identity formation. Besides family, on-line communication tools like micro-blog is the most important environment for shaping attitudes and beliefs especially for young generation who were raised in internet era. Due to Internet, young children today are widely exposed to more diverse role models, cultural values, ways of thinking, and choices than ever before [6]. Researchers found that preadolescent and adolescent use of personal blog are in relation to mastery and identity formation [9]. Following this research line, another research by analyzing 124 blogs indicated that most young person wrote emotionally toned entries; focused on their daily activities, friends, and romantic relationships; and described themselves, but less frequently to mention their experiences in positive perspective [8]. Though how micro-blog influences identity is not directive examined, we could suppose that micro-blogging might shape one’s self-identity, social identity in some extent by playing the part of social micro-environment they perceived since users are excessively exposed in on-line contexts. Furthermore, micro-blogging has impact on people’s social interaction. One qualitative study helped us gain an in-depth understanding of how and why people use Twitter by semi-structured interview method. The study found that micro-blogging has potential influence on informal communication at work. Specifically, the act of micro-blogging was beneficial for increasing awareness of what is on each others’ mind which may help generate more common ground that can be used to support future real-life cooperation among co-workers. By analyzing 653 tweets that include the word “public relations” (or the acronym “PR”), a study demonstrated how Twitter contributes to the development of the theory and practice of public relations [3]. Besides, the real-time personal updates found in Twitter may help sustain a virtual feeling of proximity facilitating social connectedness (i.e., being there, still there) [6]. Micro-blog has also been seen as a representation of social interactions that can be used to study the propagation of ideas, social bond dynamics [10]. Interestingly, a study of social interactions within Twitter discovered that the linked structures of social networks in micro-blog do not disclose actual interactions among people in real-life situations. It revealed that the driver of usage is a sparse and hidden network of connections underlying the “declared” set of friends and followers [10]. The influence of micro-blogging on social interaction seems inconsistent. It can both facilitate real-time communication and exhibit dissimilarities between on-line and offline interactions. However, one thing for certain is the influential power and shared nature of

2. Psychology and micro-blogging: researches and findings Micro-blogging increasingly grows in popularity in many countries, such as Twitter in Unites states and Sina in China. Some literatures put forward that micro-blogging may have effect on one’s identity, cognitive, affective processes, and social interaction [6]. It is also noteworthy that in order to study the influence of micro-blogging on people’s mind, it would be beneficial to focus on ordinary micro-blog users who currently involve in diverse settings rather than those in power. Recent researches suggested that impression management (or self presentation) was a major driven for actively participating in social networking sites [7]. Users of blog could have more control over their self-presentational behavior than in face-to-face communication since the total paragraph is less than 140 characteristics. Therefore, micro-blog provides an ideal setting for precise impression management on words and tones, even potential audiences. Another research concluded that blogs written by adolescents and young emerging adults are less about direct interaction with others than about careful self-presentation [8]. Study also showed that there was positive relationship between extraversion and self-efficacy and they are both related to self-presentation of online blog by conducting questionnaire [7]. These results indicate that individual differences like personality, self-related capability correlate with micro-blogging behavior. Psychological traits should be considered in examining how and why

644

micro-blogging. According to the record, Twitter is the earliest broadcast when 5•12 China earthquakes occurred. More importantly, everyone who has access to internet is possible to become the poster of influential information and the mobile key nodes. Micro-blog enlarged the common space for all members in the society, reducing the obstacles of communication, causing plenty of small interconnected worlds. In this way, the communication through micro-blogging facilitates the formation of group consensus, the interconnectedness of group members as well as eliminating group polarization [11] What’s more, micro-blogging is a mirror of people’s social cultural construction. Analyzing press coverage of Twitter can tell us specifically about how the phenomenon of micro-blogging is being currently presented to the public. It also showed that micro-blog offers insight into the euphoria, confusion, skepticism and contested process of technological adoption that greet all new forms of media [4]. How and what people micro-blogging are closely related to how they perceive, comprehend and construct the world. Therefore, micro-blog is we-media which may exhibit users’ social mind and their social cultural construction by browsing and displaying short information. The popularity of micro-blogging in China may well representative the rise of a participatory and self-expressive culture. People feel more individualistic and free. Emotional topics regarding personal life were also common on these blogs, Social interaction rates as the second key motive for micro-blogging by Chinese youth, with interaction between the bloggers and the visitors occurring mainly through comments and replies, interlinking and mentioning [12]. Micro-blogs appear more superior to email and IM since they allow micro-bloggers to simultaneously publish for an unlimited audience. Taking a look at Chinese context, China’s ‘Generation Y’ (the members of Generation Y were born anywhere from 1979 to 1995) are the first generation who grow up with computer technology and the Internet. This generation is considered to be more affluent and better educated than their parents, and often the only child in the family. A study elucidated how China’s youth use blogs in their own symbolic identity construction and self-presentation based around notions of individualism and consumerism – key features of China’s current age – and probes the motivations behind their blogging practices [12]. The findings could be concluded that they give individuality absolutely priority, which has given rise to a “me culture” primarily concerned with self-expression and identity exhibition.

3. Comments and discussion on existing literatures 3.1 Contributions Contrasting traditional weblog, micro-blog has caught increasing attention both by users and scholars, and is becoming one of the mainstream media in the global world. As mentioned above, literatures offer us basic understanding and some interesting research findings, which provide us foundation and enlightenment for future exploration. Specific contents will be discussed in the following section. Micro-blog is on-line platform which could form extensive communication network which could generate new social communication pattern. Current researches on how micro-blog influences people’ social interaction unfolded our thinking on the process mechanism of micro-blogging such as people’s inconsistent perception between “true” friends and “declared" friends. These findings enlighten us to think about what essential influence micro-blogging has on social interaction. One possible explanation is that micro-blog may contribute to shape the social presentation of social structure from collectivism to networked individualism [13]. Many networks of micro-blog become new divided groups which are representative of certain attitudes, beliefs, while every group member still own their free speak right and uniqueness. 3.2 limitations Extant researches have some limitations. First of all, the topics discussing the psychological effects of micro-blog need to be richened in order to substantiate how micro-blogging influence people’s cognitive, affective and behavioral process. Moreover, internet behavior could also lead to negative effects such as abandoning people’s privacy and certain negative emotions induced by inappropriate feedback. A systematic research exploration should be depicted. In addition, it’s also valuable to compare whether there are significant discrepancies on certain psychological response between online and offline. Furthermore, the methodologies of micro-blog studies are partial. Most of the methods are qualitative including interview, content analysis and discourse analysis, leading the researches into descriptive approach rather than explanatory or prediction. We suggest that quantitative method like well-designed questionnaire and research paradigm such as situational priming, or presenting micro-blog contents to participants could be applied to examine they

645

influence their attitude or interpersonal interaction. Finally, we indicate that so far there is no well-established theory interpreting micro-blog psychology. On the basis of internet psychology, we learn some theories such as media richness theory, social construction theory etc. By both referencing the common ideas and revealing the uniqueness of micro-blog, the interplay of psychology and micro-blogging could be better appreciated and achieving the goal of mature theory construction.

social circle is expanding in an unbelievable way, finally forming a huge communication network [14]. The popularity of micro-blog advances a society of social translucence in some extent, in which social members feel free to propose and share personal and social information they intend to. This has significant implications on social interaction in modern China such as egalitarian on right of speech. Instead of western perspective, Chinese context should be considered when it comes to evaluate the impact of micro-blog in China. Given to Chinese current cultural system and internet regulation policy, Chinese micro-blog is in a relatively different media environment from Twitter in United States. Micro-blog of China will not be simply duplicating Twitter. It must include context-specific characteristics. The issues the scholars may be interested in are also different. For example, Chinese micro-blog may not become that important in disseminating big news or historical events,. The users may show great interest on non-mainstream topics and implicit theories which could not be expressed publicly. Yet Twitter play important part in American scientists’ life. They use it to collect useful information and report on interesting presentations [15]. To sum up, the prevalence of micro-blog will advance important progress on free expression of ordinary people’s personal opinions. It will be more inviting and meaningful to investigate the deep cultural psychological implications of micro-blogging in China.

4. Future directions and prospects 4.1 Extending Research questions As the Internet is a ubiquitous medium with a rising number of Web 2.0 users, the importance of the research questions we focused will only increase. There are numerous open questions concerning the personal, interpersonal and social impact of micro-blog. Following questions could be paid attention to: – Which specific aspects of self-presentation do micro-blogging influence? (Contents, objects or styles) – What other psychological factors are impacted on by micro-blogging? (Concepts of privacy, views of social relationships) – What are the specific cultural differences between Twitter and Chinese micro-blog? To explore this topic, both quantitative and qualitative methods are indispensible. Deep and comprehensive understanding can be got by qualitative researches, theories may be formed. And then, in quantitative ways, the initial theories might be confirmed or adjusted. – Micro-blogging has the potential to substantially impact personal traits such as self concept and interpersonal interactions. However, whether there exist any differences between on-line and offline respectively is still open to further examination. – How do their micro-blogging experiences reverberate in everyday life, will they be able to model the truly interactive nature on-line? The comparison and correlation on personality traits, self-related capacities and interpersonal relationship between on-line and offline could be investigated.

References [1] CNNIC Report, January 2009, pp. 3-4. [2] D.J. Zhao, M.B. Rosson, “How and Why People Twitter: The Role that Micro-blogging plays in Informal Communication at Work”, Proceedings of the ACM 2009 international conference on Supporting group work. Sanibel Island, Florida, USA 2009, pp. 243-252. [3] J.Xifra, F.Graub, “Nanoblogging PR: The discourse on public relations in Twitter”, Public Relations Review, 2010, Vol. 36, pp. 171–174. [4] N.Arceneaux, A.S. Weiss, “Seems Stupid Until You Try It: Press Coverage of Twitter”, New Media & Society, 2006, pp. 1-18. [5] S. C. Herring, L. A. Scheidt, S. Bonus, & E. Wright, “Bridging the gap: A genre analysis of weblogs”, Proceedings of the 37th Hawai'i International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS-37). Los Alamitos: IEEE Computer Society Press, 2004. [6] “How Technology Changes Everything (and Nothing) in Psychology”, American Psychologist (2008 Annual Report of the APA Policy and Planning Board) 2009, Vol. 64, No. 5, pp. 454–463. [7] N.C. Krämer, S.Winter, “Impression Management 2.0: The Relationship of Self-Esteem, Extraversion, Self-Efficacy,

4.2 Future trends of Micro-blogging in China According to the statistics by psychologists, a person could know maximally 150 people in the whole life. However, this number has been enormously augmented since we entered the period of web 2.0. At the era of micro-blogging, personal connections matter most, naming “small is big”. Every single person’s

646

and Self-Presentation within Social Networking Sites”, Journal of Media Psychology, 2008, Vol. 20(3):106–116. [8] E.Mazur, L. Kozarian, “Self-Presentation and Interaction in Blogs of Adolescents and Young Emerging Adults”, Journal of Adolescent Research, 2010, pp. 124-144. [9] K.L. Schmitt, S.Dayanim, S.Matthias, “Personal Homepage Construction as an Expression of Social Development”, Developmental Psychology, 2008, Vol. 44, No. 2, pp. 496–506. [10] B.A. Huberman1, D. M. Romero, F. Wu, “Social networks that matter: Twitter under the microscope”, 2008, [11] G.M. Yu, “The influential power of micro-blog (in Chinese)”, Public Relations, March 2010. [12] Y.Sima, P. C Pugsley, “The Rise of A 'Me Culture' in Postsocialist China : Youth, Individualism and Identity Creation in the Blogosphere”, International Communication Gazette, 2010, 72, pp. 287-206. [13] B.Wellman, "The Rise of Networked Individualism." in Community Informatics: Shaping Computer-Mediated Social Networks, edited by Leigh Keeble and Brian Loader. London: Routledge, 2001, pp. 17-42. [14] X.F. Yan, “The sociology of micro-blog (in Chinese)”, Youth Journalist, March 2010. [15] L.Bonetta, “Should You Be Tweeting”, cell, 2009, Vol.139, Issue 3, pp. 452-453.

647