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Cultural Adaptation and Maintenance: Chinese International Students' Use of Facebook and WeChat

In terms of Uses and gratification theory, this study examined the relationships between the usage of social networking sites and acculturation among Chinese students who are studying in U.S. colleges (N=246). By comparing two different SNSs, American SNS (Facebook) and ethnic SNS (WeChat), it was discovered that Chinese students exposed differential needs and gratification achievement in these two SNSs. This study applied a quantitative method, and data were collected with an online survey platform "Qualtrics," which was carried out on February 2018. The present study found that the degree of Facebook gratification can lead to the increasing of use intensity. In contrast, the degree of WeChat gratification cannot be reflected in use intensity. Intriguingly, Facebook and WeChat indeed act as important roles in adaptation to U.S. culture and maintenance to Chinese culture respectively.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:USF/oai:scholarcommons.usf.edu:etd-8439
Date22 March 2018
CreatorsWang, Mengni
PublisherScholar Commons
Source SetsUniversity of South Flordia
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
SourceGraduate Theses and Dissertations

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