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The purpose of this study is to explore the general and specific gratifications obtained from using microblog and WeChat.

To shed light on the difference of gratifications to use microblog and WeChat, 18 interviews with social media users in China were conducted.

Results reveal that three types of gratifications were obtained from using both microblog and WeChat: content gratification, social gratification and hedonic gratification. Also, the strength and components of each gratification for microblog and WeChat were different. Content gratification plays the most salient role in using microblog, while social gratification is the most important for WeChat usage. In addition, content gratification of microblog usage is related to information seeking and information sharing, while social gratification of WeChat usage is constituted by private social networking and convenient communication. Furthermore, content gratification of WeChat usage refers to high-quality information provided and information sharing, and entertainment and passing time develop hedonic gratification of microblog usage, while that of WeChat usage refers to entertainment.

Extant research has mainly focused on the gratifications of one social media and lacks studies comparing the motivations in using different social media. Also, only little research has identified the components of different gratifications and how they affect the adoption of different social media. The current study attempts to fill these research gaps.

The purpose of this paper is to explain how individuals form microblogging habits and why they continue to use microblogs from the perspective of direction social networks.

Drawing on the social network theory and the social presence theory, the authors develop a theoretical framework to explain how individuals form microblogging habits and why they continue to use microblogs. To test the proposed model and examine its external validity, the authors collected data from two microblogs: Twitter and Sina Weibo.

Satisfaction and habit have a significant influence on microblogging continuance intention. Whereas, users’ microblogging habits are developed by two key factors – satisfaction and frequency of past behavior – that are further determined by social presence and social network centrality.

Larger sample size with diverse populations is highly recommended for future studies. In addition, exploring the distinct technical functionalities of microblogs when conceptualizing habit formation would be of benefit in future studies.

In this study, it was found that social presence increases both the satisfaction of users and the frequency of past use behavior. Hence, microblog designers should provide users with greater freedom to modify the form and content of their interface, and enable these modifications to be visible in real time to increase the interactivity of microblogs.

In contrast to past studies that have largely neglected the impacts of the directed social network structure, this study aims to focus on microblogging continuance intention from the directed social network perspective. The results from two independent data sets converge on the conclusion that users’ continuance intention to use is affected by both their conscious evaluations (i.e. satisfaction) and unconscious reactions (i.e. habit).

Consumers are increasingly connected to each other through electronic devices. Consequently, the potential for online retailer (hereafter, e‐tailer) initiated communications delivered through electronic media to inspire viral‐like e‐WOM processes among consumers is also expanding. Microblog postings and e‐mails may impact consumers' perceptions of retail web sites (e‐servicescape). These perceptions may trigger other outcomes (i.e. greater trust, patronage, or e‐WOM) that redound to e‐tailers' interests. The first purpose of this paper is to expand online e‐tailers' (e‐tailers') understanding of how and whether microblog postings affect consumers' e‐servicescape perceptions. The second purpose is to investigate how and whether e‐servicescape perceptions influence consumers' trust in e‐tailers' web sites, patronage of e‐tailers, and propensity to engage in e‐WOM about e‐tailers' messages.

By integrating the e‐servicescape construct with the Network Coproduction Model of WOM theory, a model is developed. This model examines how e‐communication efforts affect consumers' perceptions of e‐servicescape, trust, e‐tail patronage and e‐WOM. Each relationship is investigated through a consumer survey.

Findings suggest: microblog postings may have a negative impact on consumers' e‐servicescape perceptions; retail web site's usability, financial security, customization, and entertainment value positively affect consumers' trust; and consumers' trust positively impacts retail patronage and e‐WOM intentions.

Prescriptive insights for managing microblogging in ways that more favorably influence consumers' perceptions of e‐tailers' e‐servicescapes – and subsequently consumer trust in, patronage of, and e‐WOM about the retailer and its web site – are developed.

The paper is the first to integrate word‐of‐mouth theory with e‐servicescape to test a model examining how microblog postings affect e‐servicescape perceptions, consumer trust, consumer retail patronage, and e‐WOM intentions.

Celebrity endorsement on microblogging platforms (such as Twitter or Weibo) has become a widely adopted marketing practice. Compared to its counterpart on traditional mass media, celebrity endorsement on microblogging platforms has some unique characteristics. For example, the endorsement information is usually more implicit and the endorsers tend to use different tactics so as to maximize the impact on their followers. However, these new practices have not been thoroughly investigated and the underlying mechanism by which the endorsers influence potential information receivers is not well understood. Anchored on the theory of parasocial interaction borrowed from the mass communication literature, this paper aims to reveal the underlying mechanism of celebrity endorsement on microblogging platforms. More specifically, it examines the relationship between the intensity of microbloggers’ various celebrity-following activities and endorsement effectiveness.

The authors designed and conducted a Web-based survey containing scales for all focal constructs and demographic and control variables. Through online and offline campus advertisement, undergraduate and graduates students who have used microblogging for at least three months were recruited.

First of all, the survey results show that the intensity of users’ celebrity-following activities on microblogging platforms has a positive effect on the effectiveness of celebrity endorsement. Second, the positive effect of the intensity of microbloggers’ celebrity-following activities on the effectiveness of celebrity endorsement is mediated by the perceived parasocial interaction with the endorsers.

Firstly, most respondents of the survey are university students. Second, because of the intrinsic disadvantage of the survey method, the causal relationship between constructs cannot be examined directly. Last, parasocial interaction/relationship is a complex theoretical construct whose influence is unveiled partially in this research.

First, this study found that the effectiveness of celebrity endorsement on microblogging platforms are largely affected by celebrity-followers’ online involvement. Second, this study revealed that celebrity-following activities that help enhance followers’ perceptions of parasocial interactions are particularly beneficial for endorsement effectiveness. Last, the exploratory analysis further revealed that followers’ perceptions of ingenuousness and companionship are two key sub-dimensions of parasocial interaction.

First, the authors verified the positive relationship between information receiver’s involvement and the effectiveness of celebrity endorsement in the context of microblogging platforms. Second, this study found that parasocial interaction fully mediates the relationship between celebrity-following intensity and endorsement effectiveness. Last, through an exploratory factor analysis, the authors further decomposed the construct of parasocial interaction into three sub-dimensions, namely, ingenuousness, empathy and companionship.

Although microblogs have become an important information source, the credibility of their postings is still a critical concern due to the open and unregulated nature. To understand the antecedents of microblog information credibility, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the dual-role of cognitive heuristics (i.e. the additivity and bias roles) and the effect of gender differences.

This study collected data via an online field survey of active microblog users, and a total of 204 valid responses was received.

This study demonstrates the dual-role of source credibility and vividness, the additivity role of microblog platform credibility, and the bias role of social endorsement. Furthermore, this study also found out gender difference that the additivity role of cognitive heuristics was stronger for men while bias role was stronger for women.

This research enriches the microblog literature by examining the cognitive heuristic determinants as key predictors of microblog information credibility, and contributes to the information credibility literature by identifying and analyzing the dual-role effect of cognitive heuristics and corresponding gender differences.

This study can help organizations better manage their reputation, especially during the reputation crises, and also serves as a reminder to microblog platform operators of the importance of their microblog platform credibility.

This study can help organizations better manage their reputation, especially during the reputation crises, and serves as a reminder to the microblog platform operators of the importance of their microblog platform credibility.

This study investigates the dual-role effect of cognitive heuristics (i.e. the additivity role and bias role) and corresponding gender differences that are less touched on before, and thus provides a more nuanced understanding of the more complex effects of cognitive heuristics.

Social networking tools, like Twitter, are beginning to demonstrate their potential as powerful communication and collaboration tools in social, political, and educational arenas. As smart phones and mobile computing devices become less expensive and more powerful, they will also become more pervasive. As a matter of economics, institutions will need to adapt to learning experiences that can occur in a wide range of contexts and over multiple channels. Having more technologically adept learners will also compel educators to develop innovative ways to promote students’ active learning and equitable participation in class discussions. Given the increased popularity and exponential growth of Twitter, educators have begun to experiment with it to determine its potential for communication and collaboration, both in and out of the classroom. Through a brief description and history of microblogging and the emergence of Twitter, examples of how instructors are integrating microblogs into their courses, and an overview of a social networking cooperative project case study, this chapter tells the story of how the authors’ use of microblogs evolved from purely recreational to authentic instructional uses for their online classes.

User-generated content (UGC) refers to semantic and behavioral traces created by users on various social media platforms. While several waves of platforms have come and gone, the long-term sustainability of UGC activities has become a critical question that bears significance for theoretical understanding and social media practices.

Based on a large and lengthy dataset of both blogging and microblogging activities of the same set of users, a multistate survival analysis was applied to explore the patterns of users' staying, switching and multiplatforming behaviors, as well as the underlying driving factors.

UGC activities are generally unsustainable in the long run, and natural attrition is the primary reason, rather than competitive switching to new platforms. The availability of leisure time, expected gratification and previous experiences drive users' sustainability.

The authors adopted actual behavioral data from two generations of platforms instead of survey data on users' switching intentions. Four types of users are defined: loyal, switcher, multiplatformer and dropout. As measured by the transitions among the four states, the different sustainability behaviors are thereby studied via an integrated framework. These two originalities bridge gaps in the literature and offer new insights into exploring user sustainability in social media.

The purpose of the study is to evaluate the severity of public events in real time from the perspective of social media and to construct the early warning mechanism of public events.

This study constructed the severity assessment system of public events from the dimensions of the netizens' role, the Internet media's role, the spread of public events and the attitudes and feelings of netizens. The method of analyzing the influence tendency of the public event severity indicators was proposed. A total of 1,107,308 microblogging entries regarding four public events were investigated. The severity of public events was divided into four levels.

It is found that serious public events have higher indicator values than medium level events on the microblogging platform. A quantitative severity classification standard for public events was established and the early warning mechanism of public events was built.

Microblogging and other social media platforms provide rich clues for the real-time study and judgment of public events. This study only investigated the Weibo platform as the data source. Other social media platforms can also be considered in future.

Different from the ex-post evaluation method of judging the severity of public events based on their physical loss, this study constructed a quantitative method to dynamically determine the severity of public events according to the clues reflected by social media. The results can help the emergency management departments judge the severity of public events objectively and reduce the subjective negligence and misjudgment.

The primary objective of this research is to explore the underlying mechanisms of social ties influencing lurking behaviour in Microblog by combing role theory and social identity theory.

An online survey of 312 Microblog users in China was conducted to test the proposed research model and hypotheses. The partial least squares (PLS) approach was used to analyse the data.

The results show that social ties affect lurking behaviour on Microblog in two ways, directly and indirectly through role stress. Social ties have a negative direct impact on lurking behaviour. Based on the multiple mediation analysis, social ties positively affect lurking through role overload and negatively affect lurking via role ambiguity. Perceived heterogeneity strengthens the positive effects of social ties on role overload and conflict, and weakens the negative impact of social ties on role ambiguity. Social identification weakens the positive relationship between social ties and role overload and strengthens the negative relationship between social ties and role ambiguity.

This study extends the literature on the social interaction reasons behind lurking behaviour in Microblog by revealing the effects of social ties in Microblog. The theoretical mechanisms of social ties on lurking behaviour in Microblog are unveiled by discovering the direct effect of social ties, the mediating effects of multidimensional role stress, and the moderating effects of different kinds of social identity.

This study aims to profile the government microbloggers and evaluate their roles. The results can help improve the governments' response capability to public emergencies.

This study proposes the user profiling and role evaluation model of government microbloggers in the context of public emergencies. The indicators are designed from the four dimensions of time, content, scale and influence, and the feature labels are identified. Three different public emergencies were investigated, including the West Africa Ebola outbreak, the Middle East respiratory syndrome outbreak and the Shandong vaccine case in China.

The results found that most government microbloggers were follower responders, short-term participants, originators, occasional participants and low influencers. The role distribution of government microbloggers was highly concentrated. However, in terms of individual profiles, the role of a government microblogger varied with events.

The findings can provide a reference for the performance assessment of the government microbloggers in the context of public emergencies and help them improve their ability to communicate with the public and respond to public emergencies.

By analyzing the performance of government microbloggers from the four dimensions of time, content, scale and influence, this paper fills the gap in existing literature on designing the user profiling and role evaluation model of government microbloggers in the context of public emergencies.