| During daily life, Social support is helpful for people to reduce stress and keep physical and mental health. With the increasing number of the netizen, internet not only affects people's way of life, but also become an important way to obtain social support. This paper, taking N virtual community for example, using participant observation, conversation analysis and speech acts analysis to research social support among members of the forum.Results suggest that online social support includes modes of emotional support, friendship support, informational support and trading support. The first two modes, which situation is relaxed, is tend to overflow; the other two modes, which subject is clearer, is not tend to overflow. Refering to the interactive structure, the initiator of the subject is not just beneficial owner of social support, who may also be contributor of the social support. Also, the findings revealed that self disclosure is the important strategy of soliciting and offering support. Online social support is not isolated to the real-life penetration and conversion. For example, people through online shopping, the same city gathering, etc., to establish contacts in real life. |
PDF Full Text Request