The Participating Motivation Of Residents In Virtual Community

With the development of information technology, network becomes an indispensable part of life. Especially the development of virtual communities attracts more and more people involved. University students are a main part of participating people. Involved in the participating process, they will inevitably be affected. How to correctly guide the students to participate in virtual communities and how to guide the cogitation of students by virtual communities are the problems which need to be solved by Ideological and Political Education.Based on literature research,this study applies qualitative research methods, in case of RenRen net, through depth interviews of 18 university students to understand their participating motivation in virtual communities, and analyze the type and the process of motivation.Four exploratory conclusions are obtained by analyzing interview data intensively: Firstly, participating motivation is formed by interation of internal and external factors. The function of getting for information,entertainment,communication,self-catharsis and expression, love and belongin provided by virtual communities is the external factor. They interact with internal needs of participants, and form the participating motivation.Secondly, the construction of participating motivation is a dynamic process. This process can be divided into five stages: the starting phase, strengthening and deriving phase, diverting phase, weakening phase, stabilizing and lasting stage. Thirdly, participating motivation develops and changes in the process of achieving psychological benefits. Each stage will receive the appropriate psychological benefits. When these psychological needs are met, participants will have new needs, thus promoting the development and changes of motivation. Finally, the motivation also reflects the impacts of virtual communities on both sides. Participating motivation is formed by the interaction of internal needs and condition supplied by virtual communities. Therefore, virtual communities may bring some positive impacts for participants. But the information is mixed in virtual communities, it may also produce some negative impacts.Institute for the conclusions of this study, there are three recommendations for ideological and political education: students should be more concerned about their psychological needs; take full use of virtual communities in order to go deep into university students; select the network educational methods adjust to the need of university students.