Mediated Cats:The Communication Cohesion And Barriers Of Groups Of Cat-Loving Fans

With the rapid advancement of media technology,information transmission between humans has gradually extended to the transmission between human and environment or human and nature.The greatest value of pets is not only as sources of amusement for humans but also their associations with certain symbols.When keeping cats becomes a way of life,the way people get along with others changes as well as and interpersonal distance is closed by a shared love of the animals.Specifically,when we consider cats as a medium,there are four basic connotations.First,the cat is a unique cultural symbol of the different identities,status and tastes of different owners.Second,the cat itself can connect unfamiliar individuals to form different groups of cat-loving fans.Third,since the beginning of the internet,cats are and always have been the prevalent species to be found online,even though the occasional puppy,snail or panda gets a slice of the viral action.There are a large number of pictures of cats or bits of cat footage because so many people like to take photos of them,creating an abundance of raw material for meme or video creation.Fourth,cats can continue to produce various media forms,social modes and public spaces,like cat coffeehouses,which enrich the existing communication forms.Based on long-term participatory observation of raising cats in real life and systematic in-depth interviews analyzed with grounded theory,this work intends to address the following questions:(1)How does human-cat communication affect human psychology,behavior,interpersonal communication and social relations?(2)Does having a cat strengthen or weaken the relationships among people by building up new groups and increasing identity or by alienating individuals?(3)What kind of socio-cultural psyche is reflected in the increase of cat ownership and the prevalence of cat culture?The data analysis of in-depth interviews with 24 cat owners leads to three main findings.First of all,as a medium,cats act on interpersonal communication in terms of attitude,behavior and emotion.On the one hand,scattered individuals coalesce into groups of cat-loving fans and become a community with similar attitudes,behaviors and affections.On the other hand,people are distinguished as“insiders”and“outsiders”according to whether they love cats or not,resulting in different degrees of interpersonal barriers.Second,the way to reduce interpersonal barriers depends on the satisfaction of the cognitive subject with their relationship.The higher one's satisfaction,the more inclined one is to choose constructive and active paths to remove obstacles,while the lower one's satisfaction,the more inclined one is to choose destructive and passive paths to resolve conflicts.This discovery expands Heide's Balance Theory.Third,analysis yields the concept of a“virtual intimate relationship”,which refers to the virtual,imaginary and personalized intimate relationship between people and cats.The origin of this relationship is the tendency of modern people to try to alleviate their anxiety by forming relationships with their cats.Empathy and emotion for cats reflects changes in interpersonal relationships and social psychology resulting from the change of social structure in China.