Research On Microblog Users And The Factors Of Its Information Dissemination Effects

With the popularization and development of information technology, the Internet has gradually shifted from Web1.0era (the "thing" as the center), Web2.0era ("person" as the center) into the Web3.0era (the "Application Service "as the center). Microblog, as a typical application service, has seen a rapid development and a growing number of users and fans.All sorts of statistics and practices attest that microblogging can effectively promote the dissemination of information. Or in other words, users disseminate information more and more through microblog. So, it is important for microblogging service providers to havee users use microblog steadily. Nowadays the competition is intense and similar products and services saturate the market; providers have to be proactive to attract users. How to keep current users and let them continuously use the service has been an intereting topic to entrepreneurs and scholars.So in this research, we will discuss this problem by using various research methods including literature review, social network analysis, case study/interview, content analysis and statistics analysis. On the basis of the theories about information dissemination in the field of information and literature management, mass media, social science and management science, social network, as well as utility and satisfaction, we construct a causal-effect model for microblog users’ behavior in disseminating information, develop a software to retrieve user behavior related data from Sina Weibo, make an online questionare to collect user feedbacks, and then carry out empirical study to reveal the motives behind microblog user behaviors regarding information dissemination. Furthermore, we propose strategies to promote the use of microblog to disseminate information in order to spur more users to continuously use microblog and consequently, to prod the continous growth of microblog.The concrete contents and conclusion include:First, the theoretical section. We begin with the discussion of the backdrop of our research, including key research objectives and methods. After analysis of research context, we put forward our researched problem, and expound the the theoretical and practical significance of our work; we also put forward the main objectives and contents of our research, and explain our choice of research subjects and the four key definitions involved in our study; we then bring forward our research methods and the creative ideas of our work. We introduce domestic and foreign research papers related to our research, and summarize the status quo of the global research on microblog before laying out the theoretical foundation for our research, including classical information dissemination pattern, network information transmission pattern, social network analysis theory and the utitlity/satisfaction theory.Second, research about microblog users. First of all, we discuss the characteristics and types of micro blog users that are disseminating information. Microblog users are defined and described, and2467well known users’data as well as12,555ordinary users’data are collected from Sina Weibo via a crawler software developed by our own. Analysis of the data shows that the basic characteristics of microblog users, such as gender or place, are important and not correlated with the fame. As shown from the behaviors of microblog users, well known users’behaviors emboy such features:They conform to expontiential distribution to some extent with their own characteristics. The behaviors of ordinary users, on the other hand, conform to a typical regular expontiential distribution. From the properties of the relation between microblog users, we can see the length of the watch list of users is correlated with the cardinality of the users’blogs; in addtition, by observing the number of fans, the number of other users to fan, and the number of publish blogs, we find that microblog users can be categorized into six types:vagabounds, caretakers, activists, egoists, diehards and celebrities. Then, we carry out social network analysis on microblog network regarding information dissemination. By applying social network analysis theory/methods on the crawler collected data, we apply ceter limit analysis, kernel-margin analysis and clustering groups analysis, in order to expos the underlying laws and characteristics of the social network structure of microblog users in disseminating information.Third, impact factor research. We begin with the discussion of the factors that affect users’ behavior in information dissemination. After selection of interviewees and interview procedures, we interview14subjects. We conclude from the interview contents that the factors influencing microblog user in information dissemination mainly include information retrieval, maintainance of existant relations, establishment of new relations, self realization, pleasure, membership, influence, shared emotion and immerment. Then on the bais of U&G theory, we construct the theoretical model for the information dissemination behavior of microblogging, and put forward a series of hypothesis, which are then discussed through factor analysis, reliability analysis, correlation analysis and regression analysis on the data that are collected throught questionares designed according to domestic and abroad mature measuring methods. In conclusion, information collection, psycholigcal immersing feeling and membership coginition as well as socializing desire have a positive impact on users’ browsing posts, and the strongest factors are information collection as well immersing feeling. Psychological gain in influence, shared emotion, immersing feeling and socializing desire for self presentation are positively correlated to users’ publishing of posts, and the strongest factor is psychological gain in influence while the second strongest factors are self presentation as well immersing feeling. Psychological gain and entertainment feeling positively affect users’ forwarding behavior to almost the same extent. Psychological gain in influence, immersing feeling and information need positively affect users’ commenting on other users’ post; the strongest factor here is the psychological gain in influence. Besides, as far as the whole information dissemination behavior is concerned, different information dissemination behaviors are affected by differenct factors of users, to different extent. In comparison of the gains in micorbloging, psychological gain is the strongest factor, followed by immersing feeling, and subsequently, information gain.Forth, search for the strategies of information dissemination in microblogging. We analyze core problems in microbloging behaviors regarding information dissemination in combination with the analysis of microblog user characteristics and influencing factors before putting forward strategies that take the aspects of content and technology into account; the strategies will effectively facilitate information flow, encourage quality microblog contents, fintune supervising technique, find knowledge by mining data, and folster information recommendation mechanism that will cater better to user interests.