Social media environments effect on perceived interactivity. An empirical investigation from WeChat moments
| Published date | 08 April 2019 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/OIR-12-2016-0344 |
| Pages | 239-255 |
| Date | 08 April 2019 |
| Author | Xi Xu,Zhong Yao,Qing Sun |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Information behaviour & retrieval,Collection building & management,Bibliometrics,Databases,Information & knowledge management,Information & communications technology,Internet,Records management & preservation,Document management |
Social media environments effect
on perceived interactivity
An empirical investigation from
WeChat moments
Xi Xu
Department of Management Engineering, Qingdao University of Technology,
Qingdao, China
Zhong Yao
Department of Economics and Management, Beihang University,
Beijing, China, and
Qing Sun
Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Beihang University,
Beijing, China
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to treat WeChat moments as social media environments and applies
the research model to explore the effect of social media environments on perceived interactivity from the
perspective of environmental psychology.
Design/methodology/approach –This paper proposes social media environments as effective stimuli for
future participate in online social interactions. First, two cues of social media environments (user-to-system
cues and user-to-user cues) can be important antecedents of users’perception of interactivity. Second, users’
intention of future participates in online social interactions can be influenced by three dimensions of perceived
interactivity (action control, connectedness and responsiveness). Using data from 334 users of WeChat
moments, the authors conduct partial least squares analysis to validate the research model.
Findings –The results indicate that both technological and social environments positively affect three
dimensions of perceived interactivity, respectively, including action control, connectedness and
responsiveness. Moreover, actual findings also suggest that higher perceived interactivity increases users’
intention of future participate in online social interactions.
Originality/value –This work contributes to in-depth research on the relationships between social
environments and perceived interactivity. Besides, this paper demonstrates that both technological and social
cues of social media environments are significant elements in simulating users’internal experience and behavio ral
intention. The main conclusions of this study can be valuable to social media developers and managers.
Keywords Social media, Environmental psychology, Perceived interactivity, Partial least squares (PLS),
Future participation, WeChat moments
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Social media has deeply changed interpersonal communication and interaction, which combine
the user-generated content with social networking. The growing availability and popularity of
social media has significantly increased the importance of online social interactions. Online social
interactions occur in many different settings which allow a high degree of interactivity, especially
multiuser domains. Online social interactions enable individuals to manage self-presentation or
receive feedback from peers. Through these exchanges of information, individuals can
gain socio-emotional support and satisfaction in the social media (Jiang et al.,2013).
Moreover, such interactions are characterized by a significant degree of social influence, which Online Information Review
Vol. 43 No. 2, 2019
pp. 239-255
© Emerald PublishingLimited
1468-4527
DOI 10.1108/OIR-12-2016-0344
Received 6 December 2016
Revised 31 December 2016
16 January 2017
30 April 2018
18 May 2018
Accepted 11 August 2018
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/1468-4527.htm
This work has been supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China (Project Nos 716710111,
71271012 and 71332003) and funded by China Scholarship Council.
239
Social media
environments
means that the individual becomes identified with and emotionally attached to the social media
as well as interactions in the communication.
Nowadays, the growing influence of social media is evidenced by the number of people
who use it. Most of the internet users are using social media and the number is growing
steadily (Kwahkand Park, 2018). Because of easy adoptionand voluntary participation,social
media provides a powerful platform for online social interaction. At the same time, online
social interactions can influence socialmedia users significantly in many ways, from sharing
opinions on diversity issues to influence decisions and relationships (McKenna et al., 2002).
Although such interactions occupy considerable amounts of users’time, they still have
intention to further participate. So, there is increased interest in understanding how social
media environme nts impact users’online social interactions behavior.
The dynamic, ubiquitous and real-time interactivity enabled by social media
significantly influence interpersonal communication. Interactivity reflected the degree to
which communicating parties act on each other, on the communication medium, and on the
message (Liu and Shrum, 2002). From a perception-based perspective, Thorson and Rodgers
(2006) defined perceived interactivity as the extent to which users perceive their experience
as simulation of interpersonal interaction and sense they are in the presence of a social other.
In this study, we view the interaction between communicating parties from an interpersonal
communication perspective and the interaction in social media environments.
Social media provides users with a way for direct interaction, which constitutes an ideal
environment for interpersonal communication. In addition, social media environments also
offer unique features such as openness, two-way communication and feedback (Kwahk and
Park, 2016). Under this circumstance, users might be influenced by two types of environmental
cues: user-to-system (US) cues and user-to-user (UU) cues. These two characteristics capture
key features of the social media environment. Compared with traditional media, social media
put more emphasis on the interaction between peers (Dewan and Ramaprasad, 2014). Clearly,
both environmental cues can impact the perceived interactivity of users. The effective use of
the system helps achieve high-quality communication, thus enhancing interactivity (Ou et al.,
2014). So, we regard perceived effective use of the system as US cues. As social context has
unique characteristics includinginterpersonal relationships whichare common to social media
(Liu, 2010), the UU cues underlying the interpersonal interaction in social media environment
are worth to explore. However, few works have been conducted to examine this line. This
present study seeks to fill this gap. We draw on the perspective of environmental psychology
to theorize how the characteristics of social media environments improve users’perceived
interactivity and how such perception subsequently affects their intention to participate in
future interaction activities.
The remainder of this paper is structured as follows. First, we outline the environmental
psychology perspective as theoretical base underlying our research. Second, we introduce
the research model and propose several hypotheses regarding how social media
environments and perceived interactivity are related. Third, we describe the methodology
of the study and present the results of data analysis. Finally, we discuss theoretical and
managerial implications, the limitations of this study, and future research directions.
2. Theoretical background
2.1 WeChat moments
WeChat was published in China by Tencentcompany that has attracted 902mactive users as
of 2017, upto 17 percent from 2016. WeChathas become one of the most heated topicswithin
the last five years and its every upgrade has successfully attracted attention from various
academia, industries and enterprises. The well-known WeChat moments is an additional
function embedded in the WeChat, which enable users to convert their living conditions
and state of mind into the form of tests, photos or videos and then post on moments.
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OIR
43,2
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