Masaryk university
Is Weibo Used Primarily as an Information Platform?
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- Weibo Use Motives
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Is Weibo Used Primarily as an Information Platform?Hypothesis 1 predicts that Weibo users are primarily driven by information purposes to use Weibo. The relationship between the motive for Weibo use and Weibo use frequency is examined to test the hypothesis. A core assumption of this study is that Weibo activists use Weibo as an information platform, and so they read and share messages related to collective action. Underlying this assumption is that, while internet activists may choose to use any type of media, Weibo is a brand new platform that allows them to post and share information more freely and to reach a wider audience. While there are many intentions behind Weibo use, informational use is one of the main factors that will influence Weibo activism use. The independent variable “Weibo use motive” is operationalized into two main categories: social motives and information motives. Social motives are operationalized as: have fun; be entertained; relax; see what others are up to; pass the time; express myself freely; keep in touch with friends or family; communicate more easily; and communicate with many people at the same time. Information motives are operationalized as: get information (facts, links, news, knowledge, ideas); give or receive advice; learn interesting things; meet new people; and share information with others (facts, links, news, knowledge, ideas). Figure 3 Motives for using Weibo As we can see from Figure 3-1, an equal percentage, 73.7 percent of respondents, choose “entertainment and relax” as choose “get information” as a major reason they use Weibo. There are four other reasons that also were chosen by over 45 percent of respondents, which are: learn new things, see what others are up to, express myself freely, and share information with others. From the descriptive data above, we can predict that the social motive might be as important as the information motive in driving people to use Weibo. To further explore whether or not the first hypothesis is supported by the data, the correlational relationship between Weibo use motive and Weibo use frequency is tested. Weibo use motivation variables are dichotomous variables, and Weibo use frequency variables are interval. According to Bryman (2008), Spearman’s correlation should be used to explore the relationship. Weibo Use Motives Table 3-4 shows the Spearman’s correlation coefficients for social motive and Weibo use. There are three social motive variables that were positively related to hours per week. The total hours per week spent using Weibo increases when the users are using Weibo to express themselves freely (rs = .164, p<.05), keep in touch with friends and family (rs=.172, p<.05), and communicate more easily (rs =.225, p<.01). Two out of seven social motive variables were positively related to days per week. The number of days per week that Weibo is used increases when Weibo users use it to keep in touch with friends and family (rs =.221, p<.01), and to communicate more easily (rs =.177, p<.01). Table 3 Spearman’s correlation coefficients for social motive and Weibo use variables
Table 3-5 shows the Spearman’s correlation coefficients for the information motives and Weibo use. There are four information motive variables positively related with hours per week. It shows that the total hours per week spent using Weibo increases when users have the purposes of getting information (rs=.280, p<.01), learning new things (rs=.237, p<.01), and sharing information with others (rs=.287, p<.01). The number of days per week was found to have positive relationship with five variables: get information (rs=.443, p<.01), give or receive advice (rs=.207, p<.01), learn new things (rs=.277, p<.01), share information with others (rs=419, p<.01), and participate in discussion (rs=.191, p<.01). It shows that the number of days per week using Weibo increases if Weibo users use it to get information or share information with others. Table 3 Spearman’s correlation coefficient for information motive and Weibo use variables
An important finding was revealed by the Spearman correlations above—the amount of Weibo use was related not only to information motives, but also to social motives. This finding is contrary to the results of research done with Twitter use and gratifications obtained, which suggest that there were no significant correlational relationships between the social gratifications (of using Twitter) and Twitter use (Johnson and Yang 2009). This difference might be caused by two reasons: (a) different measurement scales. The author who measured the relationship between Twitter use and gratifications obtained asked participants to rate their level of agreement or disagreement with each social and information motive on a 5-point scale, so that the variables obtained were ordinal variables. This study used a multiple response set to ask respondents what the main purpose(s) for which they use Weibo were, so the variables obtained were dichotomous variables. The data in this research might not be as precise as the data used for analyzing Twitter use and gratifications which yielded a different result. However, the difference could also be contributed to by (b) a genuine motivation difference between Weibo users and Twitter users. Since Weibo is a social media site, it makes sense that social characteristics also contribute to why people use it. In order to further explore whether Weibo is used as both an information platform and a socialization space, this research tested the relationships between using Weibo as a main source of information and Weibo use motives. Weibo as Main Source of Information Figure 3 Weibo users’ main source of information Figure 3-2 shows the percentages of Weibo users who rely on various information sources. Almost all of the Weibo users (94.4%) select websites as one of their main sources of information. The second most popular information source is Weibo, used by 69.4% of respondents. The third one is TV, a main information source for 30% of respondents. This result shows Weibo has become an important source of information among its users, second only to websites. This result is consistent with the findings from CNNIC (CNNIC 2012), demonstrating that Weibo is emerging as one of the most important information sources among its users, encroaching on the market share of online news websites. Yet questions still remain. Are there any Weibo use motive differences between people who select Weibo as their main source of information and people who do not? In other words, is it possible that the 69.4 percent of respondents who choose Weibo as one of their main sources of information are more likely to use Weibo as an information platform than as a social medium? In order to examine the relationship between the various Weibo use motives and using Weibo as a main source of information, Chi-square testing was performed. The results are listed in Table 3-6. There is only one social motive variable that positively related with use of Weibo as a main source of information: “communicate with many people” (χ2=5.62, p<.05). In comparison, four out of six information motives were positively related with using Weibo as a main source of information. Weibo users were more likely to use it as one of their main sources of information if their Weibo use was driven by the purposes of getting information (χ2=21.38, p<.001), learning new things (χ2=9.78, p<.001), meeting new people (χ2=5.06, p<.05), or sharing information with others (χ2=10.14, p<.001). Table 3 Chi-square test coefficients for Weibo use motives and Weibo as main source of information
The only social motive that is positively related with Weibo as main source of information, “communicate with many people,” might also relate to using Weibo for informational purposes. By following many people on Weibo, each person becomes an information source. Being followed by other people also helps the user to spread information to wider audiences. Thus, “communicate with many people” can be seen as both a social and an informational motive that drives people to use Weibo. The interview data confirmed this finding. To sum up, the information-associated reasons for using Weibo were positively associated with using Weibo as a main source of information. There were more people, almost 70 percent of respondents, who use Weibo as an informational platform. About 30 percent of respondents do not primarily use Weibo for information purposes. Conclusion This section sought to examine whether Weibo is used primarily as an information platform or not. An important finding was revealed by bivariate correlation analysis: both information motives and social motives are pivotal in driving people to use Weibo in China. However, further analysis indicated that there were more people who use Weibo primarily as an information platform than people who do not. Thus, hypothesis 1 is accepted. The larger purpose of this thesis, however, is to find out whether Weibo use will affect people’s involvement in collective action. From the findings above, several related questions emerged: Are Weibo activists driven by information motives to use Weibo? Is informational Weibo use one of the main factors that affect people’s involvement in collective action? To answer the questions above, further analysis of who Weibo activists are will be carried out in the next section, using multiple predictors of individual factors and Weibo use patterns.
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