Analysis of Young Chinese Users of Sina Weibo Based on Uses and Gratifications Theory

Sammanfattning: Among the web 2.0 applications, a micro-blog (Weibo in Chinese), resembling the combination of a Twitter-like Internet service has gained substantial popularity in China. Sina Weibo is the market leader with approximately 50% of the market share. Around 80% of the users on Sina Weibo are young people. Hence, it is necessary to analyze young Chinese users of Sina Weibo and examine whether Sina Weibo fulfills the needs of young people and whether Sina Weibo meets their expectations. The study used the theory of uses and gratifications and the theory of expectancy-value as theoretical foundations. This study summarized six gratifications items (including social interaction, social networking, information seeking, information sharing, entertainment and recognition) from previous studies, and used these gratifications items to analyze: (1) the relationships between demographics and gratifications obtained; (2) the relationships between Sina Weibo usage and gratifications obtained: (3) the correlations between gratifications sought and gratifications obtained. This study used quantitative method to obtain data from a questionnaire and all the data were input to SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Science) for analyzing. The questionnaire was conducted and was distributed in Sojump.com. The results showed that Sina Weibo meets their users’ needs from six gratifications dimensions.