Page 84 - Feasibility Study of New Media Technology on Constructing Online Public Sphere

Feasibility Study of New Media Technology
on Constructing Online Public Sphere

and art, while others may pay special attention to law, human rights and environmental

protection. The growing influence of SNS, not only on the individual’s side, but also on
society’s side, has successfully drawn the attention of industry and academia, which in
return has boosted user growth and the development of SNS (Lin and Lu, 2011). Online
advertising is a popular business mode taking advantage of SNS. By mixing personal
and business messages, companies create a particular context that sets the stage for

online marketing. As Nielsen (2009) indicated, an appropriate amount and frequency
of business postings together with a user-preferred casual message style is beneficial to
guarantee a more stable customer base.

The popularisation of modern communication devices has facilitated the advance-
ment of SNS. SNS have penetrated people’s lives and greatly influenced how people
network in the modern society (Kiesler, et al., 2002; Lin and Lu, 2011). It empowers
individuals to exhibit themselves, connect to a social community and extend and rein-
force the relationships with others (Ellison, Steinfield and Lampe, 2007; Kane, et al.,

2009). After benefiting from SNS, users usually spread it to their friends and relatives.
Positive feedback increases the number of platform members (Powell, 2009). The use
of SNS satisfies individuals’ need for social relatedness by giving them a sense of be-

longing in social network or social communities (Kiehne, 2004).

3.3.4.1 Renren network

The Renren Network, formerly known as Xiaonei, was one of the earliest SNS
in China and particularly popular among college students. In February 2011, Renren

announced that it had reached 160 million registered users (Ke, 2011), and this had in-
creased to 31 million active monthly users by April the same year (Chao, 2011).
Xiaonei was launched in December 2005 by four students from Tsinghua Univer-
sity. It is a Chinese social network service with a Web 2.0 concept designed for college

students. Initially it provided services with an interface similar to early Facebook; users
were only able to use email address and specific IP address from designated colleges to
register and log in. The initial idea was to control the user base and to encourage users
to post blogs and pictures under their real names. Xiaonei became China’s largest on-

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