Mobile Instant Messaging

2013, Chinese Mobile Internet had made an explosive development. According to the iResearch, Chinese mobile internet market has grown81.2%yearly to105billion Yuan, in which the IM has made great contribution. According to CNNCI, the number of Chinese IM users was up to532million, and the usage of IM occupied the first place by Dec2013. The mobile device based IM users had a fastest development, which amounts to431million. On this background, this paper studies the mobile IM, and summarizes the similarity of We Chat, Mitalk and other mobile IM softwares, and on this basis, uncovers the influence and development of mobile IM tool to the five traditional communication models:intrapersonal communication, interpersonal communication, group communication, organizational communication and mass communication.The first chapter, starting from the basic concept of the IM, states the development of IM and through the comparison with the traditional IM, such as cell phone and SMS, highlights the characters and advantages of the present mobile IM. It is worth mentioning that according to the different terminals and purposes, this article divides the IM into four categories, and on this basis, further specifies the research object of this article, which is the local mobile IM represented by We Chat. The following is brief analysis of the typical representative of mobile IM, We Chat, and summary of the similarities of mobile IM, laying the foundation of this paper.The second chapter mainly discusses intrapersonal communication character and interpersonal communication character of mobile IM. The first section states the new form and new characters of intrapersonal communication of mobile IM. Through the statement, the paper finds that mobile IM recalls users’desire of intrapersonal communication, and stimulates the users’demand of intrapersonal communication, and meeting the demand through new forms. And at last, the article points out that the best situation of intrapersonal communication is to keep the ID. And next, the article fully discusses the interpersonal communication property of mobile IM. It first discusses the transformation of interpersonal communication, and then put forward that mobile IM is return and exceeding to the traditional interpersonal communication. The so-called return refers to that the mobile IM realizes the face to face communication through phonetic symbol, non-verbal sign and video, etc. And the following four aspects present the exceeding to the traditional interpersonal communication:First, breaking the boundaries of time and space; second, enhancing the subjectivity of the communication; third, realizing the integration of transmission symbols; fourth, greatly expanding the traditional interpersonal relationship.The fourth chapter researches the mass communication property of mobile IM. In this chapter, the author first analyzes the feasibility of mobile IM being the new model of post-information age mass communication, and then introduces two of most popular mass communication modes----pushing and subscribing message. At the end of this chapter, the article puts forward that mobile IM opens up a new communication mode---Interpersonal-mass communicationAt the end of this article, the author summarizes the problems during the development of mobile IM, such as security issues, privacy issues and "the people in the container", etc, and then makes a bold prediction to the developing trend of mobile IM: Interconnection is the future direction of mobile IM.