Self-presentation In Social Networking Sites

In recent years, people’s social life has been largely changed by rapiddevelopment of social network sites. What features does Social NetworkSites have? What’s the influence of media feature towardsself-presentation and relationship development/maintenance motives?Based on latest researches, the author chooses theories of mediarichness, communication control and self-presentation to explain the topic.With a sample of299Shanghai college students, this study probes theimpact of media richness and communication control on college students’self-presentation, relationship maintenance motive and relationshipdevelopment motive through SEM analysis.The results lead to:(1) Control variable education level hassignificant influence on media richness and relationship developmentmotive; Control variable SNS usage time of length has significantinfluence on media richness, self-presentation and relationshipmaintenance motive; Control variable SNS usage frequency has significantinfluence on media richness, communication control, self-presentation,relationship maintenance motive and relationship development motive.(2) Media richness and communication control are highly related. Mediarichness positively contributes to relationship maintenance motive withside effect and direct effect, to relationship development motive with directeffect. Communication control positively contributes to relationshipmaintenance motive with both side effect and direct effect.Communication control has no effects to relationship maintenance motive.(3) Self-presentation positively contributes to relationship maintenancemotive. Relationship maintenance motive positively contributes torelationship development motive.(4) According to best-fit SEM model, media richness and communication control explained57%ofself-presentation. Media richness, communication control andself-presentation explain43%of relationship maintenance motive,38%ofrelationship development motive.