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BABEL OR GREAT WALL: SOCIAL MEDIA USE IN AN ACCULTURATION CONTEXT
ABSTRACT
The era of globalization is marked by communications penetrating national or cultural boundaries in all sorts of areas. Unprecedented levels of mobilization or migration, and the boom of information communication technologies (ICTs) such as social media, which free people from the limitations of space and time, have been two highly salient features that are rapidly and irrevocably changing the world. They brought many new opportunities for learning and exchange as well as social problems and challenges.
In the dissertation, I explored social media use in an acculturation context: Chinese students living in the United States. From an interview study of 20 participants, I collected 329 social media use activities. Based on these activities and existing use and gratification theories I developed a two-layer coding system of social media use, which evolved as the interview study went on. Furthermore, I explored these social media uses for acculturation processes. I identified two kinds of acculturation strategies: the Babel strategy, which refers to American identification efforts to get assimilated into new culture, and the Great Wall strategy, which refers to Chinese identification efforts to maintain their original self. I found that while social media helped students adapt to new culture through the uses such as maintaining weak tie and information surveillance, students extensively used Chinese social media to maintain their original self, through uses such as social bonding and social participation.
Based on a questionnaire study of 253 Chinese students in America, I compared the use patterns among four kinds of social media: American SNS (e.g. Facebook), Chinese SNS (e.g. Renren), American microblogs (e.g. Twitter), and Chinese microblogs (e.g. Weibo). I further conducted a SEM model to explore how social media use would help cope with culture shock through different acculturation strategies: American identification, Chinese identification, and bicultural identity integration.
This study expands existing HCI work on inter-cultural communication and collaboration activities toward consideration of acculturation strategies, online support for identity, and designing for individual development. The social media use work refines use and gratification theories in the context of different kinds of social media, which provide design representations for new media.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF FIGURES …………………………………………………………………………. vii
LIST OF TABLES ……………………………………………………………………………. viii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………………………………….. x
Chapter 1
Introduction………………………………………………………………………………… 1
Chapter 2
Acculturation Problems…………………………………………………………………… 3
Expatriation and Culture Shock ………………………………………………………… 3
Acculturation ………………………………………………………………………………… 4
Acculturation Strategies and Identity Structure ……………………………………….. 6
Chapter3
In light of Identity Theories………………………………………………………… 9
Identity and Self-Concept………………………………………………………………. 9
Identity Theory …………………………………………………………………….. 11
Social Identity Theory…………………………………………………………….. 12
Identity and Identification…………………………………………………………….. 14
National and Cultural Identity ……………………………………………………….. 17
Measurement of National and Cultural Identity……………………………………..18
Chapter 4
In the Context of Social Media ………………………………………………….. 20
Social Media Use …………………………………………………………………….. 21
Uses and Gratifications Theories ………………………………………………… 21
Uses and Gratifications of Social Media ………………………………………… 23
Dynamics of Online Community ……………………………………………………27
Social Identities in Social Media ……………………………………….. 28
Social ties in Social Media ………………………………………………. 30
Social participation in Social Media ……………………………………………….. 32
Mutually Reinforcing and Cultivating………………………………………………. 34
Landscape of Chinese Social Media………………………………………………… 34
Chapter 5
Interview Study ………………………………………………………………….. 36
Method …………………………………………………………………………………. 36
Procedures and Questions ………………………………………………………. 36
Participants ………………………………………………………………….. 38
General Use of Social Media ……………………………………………………….. 39
Social Media Use: Building the Coding System……………………………………. 40
Information as Cognitive Resource for Acculturation …………………………… 42
Self-discovery……………………………………………………………………..43
Self-disclosure ………………………………………………………………………43
Surveillance (Friends) ……………………………………………………………. 48
Surveillance (Social News) ………………………………………………………. 50
Information searching ……………………………………………………………. 53
Information sharing ……………………………………………………………….. 56
Social Ties: Bridging and Bonding for Acculturation…………………………. 58
Bonding ………………………………………………………………………………… 59
Maintaining existing tie…………………………………………………………….. 61
Bridging New Tie ……………………………………………………………………. 62
Social Participation for Acculturation ……………………………………………. 63
Public opinion …………………………………………………………………………. 63
Social groups…………………………………………………………………………… 64
Social events and social games ……………………………………………………. 65
Social Media and Acculturation Strategies ……………………………………….. 66
SNS: Maintaining Social Ties of American and Chinese ……………………… 68
Microblogs: Surveillance on Chinese Ties and News ………………………….. 70
News Portals and Wikis: to Understand the Cultures…………………………. 72
Online Forums: Scaffolding, and Bridging ………………………………….. 72
Instant Messaging: for Social Bonding……………………………………………. 73
Social Media Use and Acculturation Strategies………………………………………… 74
Social Media Use for American Identification ………………………………….. 75
Social Media Use for Chinese Identification ……………………………………… 77
The Context of Social Media Use: Temporarity of Social Media use…………… 80
Social Media Migration: Changing landscape …………………………………… 80
Adoption and Decay of Media Use along Acculturation……………………….. 80
Discussion ……………………………………………………………………………….. 82
The Acculturation Process…………………………………………………………….. 82
Use Social Media to Support Identity Development……………………………. 83
Some Underlying Mechanisms…………………………………………………… 84
Summary and the Next Step …………………………………………………….. 86
Chapter 6 Questionnaire Study……………………………………………………. 87
Hypotheses………………………………………………………………………………. 87
Chinese Identification………………………………………………………………… 88
American Identification …………………………………………………………….. 90
Bicultural Identity Integration …………………………………………………….. 91
Culture Shock …………………………………………………………………………. 93
Method……………………………………………………………………………….94
Questionnaires …………………………………………………………………… 95
Recruitment and Participants………………………………………………………. 97
Descriptive Statistics …………………………………………………………………. 98
Descriptive Statistics for Social Media Use ……………………………………. 98
Descriptive Statistics for Identification Measurements …………………….. 101
Structural Equation Modeling………………………………………………………. 102
Preliminary Analysis ………………………………………………………………… 102
Measurement Portion of the Model……………………………………………… 103
Testing the Hypothesized M……………………………………………………… 105
Summary of the Finding………………………………………………………….. 108
Chapter 7
Conclusion and Discussion …………………………………………………….. 110
Social Media for Acculturation……………………………………………………. 111
Chinese Identification and Social Media Use ……………………………………….. 111
American Identification and Social Media Use ……………………………………… 114
Acculturation Strategies …………………………………………………………………. 116
Culture Shock …………………………………………………………………………….. 117
Supporting Identity with Social Media …………………………………………….. 119
Theoretical Implications ……………………………………………………………….. 121
Design Implications……………………………………………………………………….. 123
Limitations and Future Study …………………………………………………………… 124
Chapter 8
References …………………………………………………………………………. 126
Appendix A
Informed Consent Form for the Interview Study…………………………. 140
Appendix B
Twenty-Statement Test………………………………………………………… 141
Appendix C
A List of Social Media for Reference ……………………………………….. 142
Appendix D
Questions for Media Use ………………………………………………………. 143
Appendix E
Informed Consent Form for the Questionnaire Study …………………… 144
Appendix F
Social Media Use Questionnaire (American SNS) …………………………. 145
Appendix G
Social Media Use Questionnaire (Chinese Microblogs) …………………… 146
Appendix H
Social Media Use Questionnaire (Chinese SNS) ………………………….. 147
Appendix I
Social Media Use Questionnaire (American Microblogs) …………………. 148
Appendix J
Chinese Identification Questionnaire: MEIM (CN)………………………… 149
Appendix K
American Identification Questionnaire: MEIM (US) ……………………… 150
Appendix L
Bicultural Identity Integration (BII) Questionnaire……………………….. 151
Appendix M
Cultural Shock Questionnaire………………………………………………… 152
Appendix N
Social Media General Questions …………………………………………….. 153
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 2-1.
Chinese Identification and American Identification That Drive Acculturation…. 8
Figure5-1.
A Temporary and Intermediate Coding System in the Early Phase of Interview…… 40
Figure 6-1
Hypothesized Model……………………………………………………………….. 94
Figure 6-2
Confirmatory Factor Analysis for the Test of Measurement Portion of the Model..104
Figure 6-3
The Final SEM Model with Standardized Path Coefficients………………… 107
LIST OF TABLES
Table 3-1.
Identity Theory and Social Identity Theory………………………………….. 10
Table 4-1:
Uses and Gratification Theories for Traditional Media……………………. 23
Table 4-2:
Uses and Gratification Theories for Social Media. …………………………… 27
Table 4-3
The counterparts of American and Chinese social media. ………………… 35
Table 5-1.
Demographic information of participants……………………………………… 38
Table 5-2.
Usage of different social media (in use frequency) …………………………. 39
Table5-3.
Coding system of social media use………………………………………….. 41
Table 5-4:
Self-discovery activities in social media. ………………………………………. 43
Table 5-5:
Self-disclosure activities in social media ………………………………………. 45
Table 5-6:
Surveillance (friends) activities in social media. …………………………….. 48
Table 5-7:
Surveillance (social news) activities in social media………………………… 50
Table 5-8:
Information-searching activities in social media……………………………… 53
Table 5-9:
Information-sharing activities in social media. ……………………………… 57
Table 5-10:
Bonding activities in social media. ………………………………………….. 59
Table 5-11:
Maintaining existing ties in social media. …………………………………… 62
Table 5-12:
Public opinion activities in social media. …………………………………….. 64
Table 5-13:
Social group activities in social media. ……………………………………….. 65
Table 5-14.
Numbers of social media use activities for American and Chinese Identification….67
Table 5-15.
Social media use for acculturation strategies……………………………….. 75
Table 6-1.
Use frequencies of different kinds of social media. …………………………. 99
Table 6-2.
Descriptive Statistics of Detailed Social Media Use…………………………. 100
Table 6-3.
Descriptive Statistics of Identification Measurements……………………… 101
Table 6-4.
Reliability and Zero-Order Correlations for the Measured Variables. …… 105
Table 6-5.
Estimates, S.E., and C.R. for the supported hypothesized path. ……….. 109
Chapter 1
Introduction
The era of globalization is marked by communications penetrating national or cultural boundaries in all sorts of areas. Unprecedented levels of mobilization or migration, and the boom of information communication technologies (ICTs) such as social media, which free people from the limitations of space and time, have been two highly salient features that are rapidly and irrevocably changing the world. While most of HCI work in this area has focused on intercultural communication and collaboration (usually with comparisons), in this dissertation, I explore how social media use is influencing the acculturation process (i.e. learning about, experiencing, and participating in a new culture) in an expatriate context: Chinese students living in the United States.
In chapter 2, I investigated the literature on acculturations, culture shock problems, and acculturation strategies. Based on an analysis of acculturation strategies, I suggested investigating the underlying cultural identification processes rather than merely acculturation outcomes such as merger, separation, or assimilation. Therefore, in chapter 3, I explored the identification processes in light of identity theory and social identity theory, focusing on national and cultural identity as a specific case.
Such endeavor provides an innovative perspective to operationalize and explore the acculturation dynamics rather than taking a static conception of acculturation strategies, avoiding the stereotyping problem. It also demonstrates an exploration on applying social identity theories in specific contexts both qualitatively (as in chapter 5) and quantitatively (as in chapter 6) studies.
In chapter 4, I investigated social media in the facilitation of acculturation. I first reviewed traditional uses and gratification theories in media effects research; then I reviewed existing studies that applied uses and gratification theories in social media contexts such as Wikipedia, Facebook, and Twitter. I further reviewed how social media can facilitate online community through three perspectives including social identity, social ties, and social participation. This study takes a developmental and social constructionist view of social media use in the investigation of social media use for personal development and community dynamics.
In chapter 5, I presented an exploratory interview study of social media use by Chinese students in the United States. I built coding system with 14 items of social media use, and categorized them into three groups: information use, social tie, and social participation. I described and analyzed each use with different kinds of social media. I further investigated how these social media uses facilitate the acculturation strategies, including American identification (i.e. the Babel strategy) and Chinese identification (i.e. the Great Wall strategy).
Based on the interview study, I conducted a questionnaire study of 248 Chinese students in America in chapter 6. I explored how acculturation strategies could predict their culture shock.
I specifically compared the use patterns among four kinds of social media: American SNS (e.g. Facebook), Chinese SNS (e.g. Renren), American microblogs (e.g. Twitter), and Chinese microblogs (e.g. Weibo). And I further explored how these social media uses could predict participants’ American identification, Chinese identifications, and bicultural identity integration, and culture shock through structural equation modeling.
I present a conclusions and discussion in chapter 7. Integrating the results from the interview study and the questionnaire study, I discussed issues such as dealing with culture shock, social media use for American identification, social media use for Chinese identification, and designing for identity development.
BABEL OR GREAT WALL: SOCIAL MEDIA USE IN AN ACCULTURATION CONTEXT