A Qualitative Study On Parasocial Interaction In Social Media Environment

With the development of Internet science and technology,the media form has changed greatly.The emergence and development of social media has brought great changes to human society.It is very common in people's life,affecting people's learning work and life.All areas,in daily life and social interaction occupy a very important position.The dissemination of information in the social media environment not only broke the time and space constraints,become more rapid,convenient,diverse,but also profoundly affect and change people's lifestyles and social patterns.Para-social interaction is a new form of socialization in the context of a change in the media environment.It was first formed between the audience and media figures in the mass media era and was based on the new scene features caused by the development of electronic media.When the audience contacts the media through the mass media,they have a special attachment to their favorite role,and they will be treated as a true person in the real world,forming a social interaction in the imagination.And the real social interaction is different,there is no two-way interaction.With the social media on the subversion of traditional media,in the social media as the background of the media environment,the audience and the media between the quasi-social interaction has changed,with new forms and characteristics.Based on the theory of social interaction,this study adopts the research methods of network ethnography such as in-depth interview and online participatory observation,and studies the interaction between the audience and the media in the social media environment.On the basis of analyzing the media environment in the social media era,combining with the social media such as Sina Weibo,Baidu Tieba and online games media,this paper analyzes the present situation,characteristics and theoretical basis of the social interaction.The study found that in the social media environment,the audience and the media character of the social interaction according to the nature of the different characters,manifestations can be divided into three cases:The para-social interaction between the audience and the real person,the para-social interaction between the audience and the virtual character and the para-social interaction between the audience and the anthropomorphic account.In these three cases each has different performance and different audience expression.At the same time,the social interaction in the social media environment shows different characteristics in the past,and the performance of the audience and the media in the social media environment,a higher degree of social interaction,unilateral para-social interaction with the possibility of two-way interaction,The formation of virtual community and promote the fan culture and fan economy development,than the traditional media environment,more negative para-social interaction and para-social interaction with the traditional media era compared to become more fragile these five aspects.Finally,this paper discusses the two paradigms and rationalities of social interaction,and lay the foundation for further study of para-social communication in the new media environment.This paper is divided into six parts.The first part mainly introduces the research background and related concepts,and summarizes the current research situation;The second part analyzes the media environment of the social media age.The third part is mainly about the para-social interaction performance of the audience and the different media characters and the audience.The fourth part is the analysis of the social media environment,;The fifth part discusses the theoretical basis of the formation of para-social interaction;the sixth part is the conclusion.