| From ancient pictograph to paper and pen and then to online blog,human beings have never stopped recording,loving and thinking about life.With the innovation of new media technology,diary writing in cyberspace has changed from text to audio and then to video.In a media environment of visual culture,Vlog has become a window for the new generation of young people to record their life,explore the world,express themselves and find each other.As a representative of video-based social media,Vlog has its natural social attributes.In Vlog,a conversation space similar to face-to-face interpersonal communication is built between Vlogger and its audience,but it is actually kind of a one-way imaginary relationship.This virtual but solid intimacy is parasocial relationship.In the 1950 s,Horton and Whol proposed Parasocial Relationship Theory to describe the "imaginary intimate friendship" between television audience and media character.In this kind of friendship,audience will form an affective attachment to the media characters,imitate them and conduct media consumption continuously,and finally change their cognition,attitude and behavior subtly in this process.As a theory born in media technology innovation,parasocial relationship depends closely on the communication environment.Therefore,the mechanism of its establishment in social media context deserves more attention and research.Thus,this study applies path of interpersonal relationship establishment to the antecedent research of parasocial relationship,setting self-disclosure as independent variable and attraction as mediating variable.Besides,this study adds social presence as another mediating variable to the research model.That is,audience’s liking towards Vloggers’ self-disclosure owes to two key factors: The first is the personal charm of Vlogger,namely interpersonal attraction,which can be divided into three dimensions: social attraction,physical attraction and task attraction;The second is the authenticity and approachability of Vlogger perceived by the audience,namely social presence.In this process,parasocial relationship is established.Under this research model,this study is a quantitative empirical research which aims to explore the mechanism of parasocial relationship establishment between Vloggers and their audience in the social media environment by questionnaire survey.It’s a theoretical extension of the research on the establishing mechanism of parasocial relationship in the social media environment,as well as a supplement of the empirical research of parasocial relationship in China.In addition,this study helps to get a deeper understanding of relationship building and the internal psychological characteristics of Vlog audience and provides enlightenment for China to guide public opinion and spread culture to foreign countries by social media better in the future.Data analysis of this study shows that Vlogger’s self-disclosure has a positive impact on their social attraction,physical attraction and task attraction as well as social presence perceived by their audience.The three dimensions of interpersonal attraction and social presence also have positive impacts on the parasocial relationship between Vloggers and their audience.The results of mediating effect test show that vloggers’ self-disclosure can enhance their parasocial relationship with audience by improving their social attraction,physical attraction and task attraction as well as social presence perceived by their audience.The research results indicate that Vloggers can become their audience’s "imaginary friends" by enhancing multiple attraction,shaping mirrored identity,performing their life,increasing empathy and triggering interaction. |
