Relationship Between Q&A Social Network Sites Use And The Acquisition Of Online Social Capital

With the development of the Internet, people are increasingly integrated into the network society, to acquire knowledge and interact with each other on the Internet has become a modern way of life. In recent years, online knowledge communities combined with the structure of social network sites, formed a new kind of online community, which was called the Q&A social network sites(Question&Answer social network sites), Zhihu is typically one of them. Q&A social network sites keep a high quality of information and content while constantly attract new users. On the network which was built by the same knowledge and interest, Q&A social network sites continuously promote the knowledge and information forming a positive cycle of social resources, at the same time to generate value during the communication and interaction, and finally create the social capital.In the perspective of communications and sociology, this study concentrates on the audience of Q&A social network sites. Taking Zhihu as an example, based on the study of whether the user can get social capital on the sites, the research use the method of questionnaire and interview to investigate the usage of Zhihu, then examine the relationship between the users’behavior and the acquisition of online social capital. Research finds that there is online social capital that can be acquired by the user on the Q&A social network sites. Intensity of use is positively associated with both online bridging and bonding social capital. In terms of users’preferences, preference of gaining information is positively correlate to online bridging social capital, preference of interpersonal interaction has a less intensity compared with other preferences, but with has a positive correlation with the user’s gaining of online bridging social capital. The preference of knowledge sharing has a very weak relationship with two kinds of online social capital. Because of a certain degree of overlap between the function of gaining information and the entertainment, user’s entertainment preference also has a positive correlation with the acquisition of individual online bridging social capital. In this study, we explored the development of Q&A social network sites, it is also a new attempt of research in Internet field and the network society. The study verifies the relevant theories of social capital again, and enriches the research in the field of Internet as a new example, as well as providing a certain reference for the knowledge dissemination and audience’s resources acquisition.