The Research On The Influence Mechanism Of Users’ Self-presentation On Continuous Participation In Virtual Community

With the development of Internet technology,social network platform represented by virtual community has become a daily communication mode for people to show themselves and establish relationships.Active online behavior promotes the generation of diverse content,constitutes the unique competitive advantage and economic value of virtual communities,and is regarded as the key to the sustainable development of communities.However,there are still many virtual communities facing the problems of poor user stickiness and low continuous utilization rate.Community members usually choose to leave quickly with little contribution,so that these communities eventually fade out of the public view.Therefore,how to retain existing members and promote their continuous participation in the community has become an important problem faced by virtual community managers.The relevant research on the continuous participation of virtual communities has verified the influence of personal,social and technical factors.Although these studies provide valuable insights into the causes of sustained participation in virtual communities,they lack consideration of the individual’s self-presentation in virtual communities.Self-presentation,based on the perspective of social psychology,is regarded as an important intrinsic motivation for individual behavior.At the same time,online self-presentation can make up for the defect of social clues based on technical intermediary communication,and interact and communicate with other members,thus promoting the establishment of relations.This self-presentation promotes strong online behavior intention to some extent.Based on this,this paper argues that user self-presentation in virtual communities will have a certain impact on continuous participation.However,the relationship between self-presentation and continuous participation in virtual communities has not been verified,and the internal influencing mechanism and theoretical perspective need to be further revealed.This paper reviews and combs the relevant literature on virtual community,user’s continuous participation in virtual community,virtual self-presentation,community identity and Sensemaking theory.Based on the perspective of Sensemaking theory,this paper considers incorporating virtual self-presentation into the study of users’ continuous participation,taking community identity as the mediating variable,and considering the moderating effect of expectation confirmation perception and social support perception,so as to construct the specific influencing mechanism and put forward the research hypothesis.In this study,601 valid questionnaires were collected through network channels,and the data were analyzed based on statistical software,including common method deviation test,reliability and validity test,correlation analysis,model test and post-test.Finally,the following conclusions were drawn:First,virtual self-presentation has a significantly positive impact on community identity.Second,community identity has a significantly positive impact on continuous participation.Third,community identity partially mediates the influence of virtual self-presentation on continuous participation.Fourth,expectation confirmation perception positively moderates the relationship between self-presentation and community identity,reputation labels and community identity,respectively.At the same time,expectation confirmation perception positively moderates the mediating role of community identity between self-presentation and continuous participation,reputation labels and continuous participation,respectively.Fifthly,social support perception positively moderates the relationship between self-presentation and community identity,reputation labels and community identity.At the same time,social support perception positively moderates the mediating role of community identity between self-presentation and continuous participation,reputation labels and continuous participation,respectively.This study emphasizes the importance of users’ online continuous behavior and expands the theoretical perspective of social psychology research.In theory,this paper expands the concept of continuous participation,verifies the importance of virtual self-presentation in users’ continuous participation,identifies community identity and situational factors as the important internal mechanism between virtual self-presentation and continuous participation,introduces a new theoretical perspective to explain online behavior,and extends the research and application of Sensemaking theory.In practical management,the study suggests that community managers should be fully aware of the importance of community user retention and activity,and their psychological needs should be taken into account in the development of basic functions of virtual communities.Managers in virtual communities should take the cultivation of identity and group consensus among members as operational objectives,and actively maintain and improve community system use perception and community atmosphere.