A Theoretical Study On Spatial Relationships Of Interpersonal Nodes In SNS Community And Its Impact Factors

In Web2.0times, the various community applications which caused by rapiddevelopment of community technology have influenced the individual’s usage ofInternet. At the same time, the spatial relationships of interpersonal nodes intraditional interpersonal communication also changed. Geographical Theory andConcentric Zone Theory are introduced in this paper, and Social Network Service(SNS) is taken as the research object, and the SNS community as the cutting point.Then researches methods of spatial distribution of interpersonal nodes are respectivelyintroduced by classify the group in SNS community as “have reality location” and “noreality location”. By the explanations of Geographical Theory and Concentric ZoneTheory towards spatial structure of interpersonal nodes in SNS community, anevolution process of circular layer structure is given. Subsequently, through theresearch of spatial relationships of interpersonal nodes in SNS community, and basedon the consideration of the mutual correlation among various factors, the influencemechanism of physical distance, trains/flights frequency, national/province boundaries,and language towards spatial relationships of interpersonal nodes is analyzed. Theresults are as follows:1) physical distance has impact on interpersonal contact basedon electronic communication, and the impact intensity depends on the conveniencedegree of travel among the areas which the nodes in.2) the distance between peopleto people can be shortened by efficient traffic. Frequently flights/trains are convenientfor travel. They realize the face to face communication, and increase the possibility ofcontact establishing in SNS community.3) national boundaries are the most obviousfactor for controlling people’s mobility, and also classify the interest groups.Therefore, national boundaries can independent on the impact of physical distance,and reduce the possibility of contact establishing in SNS community. Scaled down toa country, province boundaries have the similar impact on relationships ofinterpersonal nodes in SNS community.4) same language which regard as the basiccondition of social communication has more complex impact. The same languagemay separate from distance to have an impact. Because people use other language besides the domestic mainstream language, especially, English, expand people’scontact as a lingua franca. In SNS community, Japanese use Kanji or kana to labeltheir location or post message, so they are only understand by people who knowJapanese or familiar with the Japanese cities. This can lead to the contacts of Japaneseusers mostly come from their own country. Thus, the contact in SNS community morelikely establish among users of strong language contact and who post message use thesame language.There are six sections in the paper:Section one is introduction. Firstly, research background and significance of thepaper are introduced; then the research objective and method are given; the review ofrelated domestic and foreign literature are analyzed subsequently, and find out theliterature are mainly on descriptive research of SNS development history, userbehavior of SNS, community structure and service condition, and researches ingeography are almost blank; finally, research contents and framework are established.Section two is the summary of SNS. It is the basic part of the paper. In thissection, the definition and new media characteristic of SNS, and development stageand user distribution of SNS community are discussed firstly; then classify SNSaccording to community content and user group.Section three is an important part of theory basis of SNS. This section presentsGeographical Theory and Concentric Zone Theory based on the basic theory in earlydays. It establishes theory base for the following research on spatial structure ofinterpersonal nodes.Section four is the research on spatial relationships of interpersonal nodes in SNScommunity. It is one of the main parts of the paper. Firstly, strong ties and weak ties inSNS community are introduced; secondly, researches methods of spatial distributionof interpersonal nodes are respectively introduced by classify the group in SNScommunity as “have reality location” and “no reality location”; finally, an evolutionprocess of circular layer structure is presented.Section five is also the main part of the paper, which talks about the factorsimpact on spatial relationships of interpersonal nodes in SNS community. This section selects four factors of physical distance, train/flight frequency, national/provinceboundaries, and language to analyze and conclude their impact on interpersonalcontact in SNS community.Section six is the conclusion and outlook. This section concludes the researchfindings, points out what to be perfect, and outlook the future research field.