paper presentation

deef

Zhang2012-BabelorGreatWall-SocialMediaUseAmongChineseStudentsintheUnitedStates.pdf

Home >Computer Science homework help >paper presentation

Babel or Great Wall: Social Media Use Among Chinese Students in the United States

Shaoke Zhang Department of Psychology

Tsinghua Uni versity Beijing, 100084, P.R.C.

[email protected]

Hao Jiang College of Inform ation Sciences

and Technology Pennsylvania State Uni versity

Uni versity Park, PA 16802 [email protected]

John M. Carroll College of Inform ation Sciences

and Technology Pennsylvania State Uni versity

Uni versity Park, PA 16802 [email protected]

ABSTRACT We investigated how social media supp ort the acculturation p rocess for an exp atriate group : Chinese students in the United States. We interviewed 20 p articip ants and found that 1) students extensively used Chinese social med ia to maintain their original self, esp ecially through social bond in g and infor mation surveillan ce activities, while facin g culture shock; 2) social media were also critical in help in g students assimilate into their new (American) cu lture, through affordances for scaffoldin g, brid gin g, and surveillance; 3) the use of social med ia across the acculturation p rocess is evolvin g in the context of the changin g ecolo gy of social media. This study exp ands existing HCI work on inter-cultural co mmunication and co llabor ation activities toward consideration of accu lturation strategies, online sup p ort for identity , and designin g for indiv idual d evelop ment.

Categories and Subject Descriptors H5.m. [Information interfaces and presentation (e.g., HCI)]: M iscellaneous.

J.4 [Computer Applications]: social and behavioral sciences - Economics, Psycho logy, Sociology.

General Terms Design, Human Factors, Theory

Keywords Social Identity , Social M edia, Acculturation, Culture Shock, Uses and Gratifications, Online Community

INTRODUCTION The era of globalization is marked by communications p enetrating national or cultural boundar ies in all sorts of areas. Unp recedented levels of mobilization or migration, and the boom of infor mation communication technolo gies (ICT s) such as social media, which free p eop le from the limitations of sp ace and time, have been two high ly salient features that are rap idly and irrevocably changin g the world. In this p ap er, we exp lore how social media use is

influencin g the acculturation p rocess (i.e. learnin g about, exp erien cin g, and p articip ating in a n ew culture) in an exp atriate context: Chinese students livin g in the United States.

ACCULTURATION PROBLEMS Increasin g migration or exp atriation has transformed cultural p henomena in recent decades. It has brought many new opp ortunities for learnin g and exchan ge, but also social p roblems and challen ges. Accord in g to a rep ort by the Dep artment of Homeland Secur ity [38] in August 2011, there were 46,471,516 nonimmigr ant admissions to the US in the single y ear of 2010; 1,595,078 of these were students, greatly increasing the ethnic diversity of American universities.

These exp atriates, confronting a n ew culture, may suffer from my riad difficu lties in cop ing with acculturation, ref erred to sometimes as “culture shock ” [25, 33] or “cultural fati gue” [19]. Some exp erien ce co gnitive dissonance [32] or feelin gs of lonelin ess and alienation [31]. The challen ges of acculturation can also undermin e wellb ein g, mental and p hy sical health, p sy chological satisfaction, self-esteem, work p erformance, and grad es in school [22].

Taft [33] identified six distinct sources of culture shock, confirmed by subsequent researchers (e.g. [24]): 1) strain due to the effort required to mak e necessary p sy chological adap tations; 2) a sense of loss and feelin gs of dep rivation in r egard to friends, status, p rofession and p ossessions; 3) being rejected by or rejectin g members of the new culture; 4) confusion in role, role exp ectations, values, feelin gs and self-id entity ; 5) surp rise, anxiety , even dis gust and indignation after becomin g aware of cu ltural differences; and 6) feelin gs of imp otence due to not being able to cop e with the new environment.

We ar e interested in the strategies adop ted by exp atriate students to cop e with the challen ges of culture shock. A p riori there are a range of p ossibilities. At one extreme, exp atriates might assimilate into the new mainstream (e. g. [25]). This is the Babel strateg y, referrin g to the story of Genesis in which, after the Great Flood, all of human ity sp oke a single lan guage and shar ed a common culture. Babel is a traditional view of the cultural trajectory of minorities.

At the other extreme, exp atriates might isolate themselv es from the new mainstream cu ltural that confronts them. That is the Great Wall strategy, r eferrin g to the attemp t of the early Chinese emp ire to p revent incursions from the north. For examp le, Duster [13] described the tendency of students (at Berkeley ) to group themselves racially . Duster emp hasizes p ositive consequences of such group ing, includ in g the develop ment of in-group affinities,

P ermission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided t hat copies are not made or dist ribut ed for profit or commercial advant age and that copies bear this not ice and the full cit at ion on the first page. To copy ot herwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribut e to list s, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. SIGDOC’12, October 3–5, 2012, Seatt le, Washington, USA. Copyright 2012 ACM 978-1-4503-1497-8/12/10…$15.00.

cultural p ride, ethnic identity , and social supp ort . Other researchers ( e. g. [10]) hav e ar gu ed that such self-segregation can also lead to incr eased ethnocentrism and r acial intoler ance.

This p henomenon not only denies the antiquated idea of mere assimilation, but also shatters the overmuch idy llic con cep tion that diversity by itself benefits, which guid ed us to take a more rational and p ragmatic p ersp ective to exp lore how we could help . Researchers claimed that increasin g interracial interactions were beneficial, because they enhanced cultural awareness and commitment to ethnic understanding [30], as well as co llege satisfaction and student retention [7]. We p lan to investigate how these strategies ar e emp loy ed with the facilitation of social media.

IN LIGHT OF IDENTITY THEORIES M any studies have discussed social identities includin g national and ethnic id entities (e.g. [2, 5, 35, 36]), with a consensus that social ch an ges such as exp atriating or migration would trigger deep intra-individual chan ges in social identities over time [2]. Social id entity being defin ed as “p art of individuals’ self-concep t which derives from his or her knowled ge of membership to a social group (or group s) together with the valu e and the emotional signif ican ce attached to it” [34], imp lies its multip licity because the same indiv idual could belon g to a v ariety of group s. Chinese students, for examp le, when exp osed to American culture, will exp erien ce flu ctuations of and conflicts between Chinese identification (mainly based on ethnicity ) and American identification (mainly based on living env ironment) in the context of social interactions.

Considerin g acculturation in light of social identities gives us an opp ortunity to examin e id entification p rocesses sep arately , as well as how different identities beco me integr ated [2, 28]. Accord in g to Turner et al. [37], social identification is a p rocess of dep ersonalization “whereby p eop le come to p erceive themselves more as the interchan geable exemp lars of social cat egory than as unique p ersonalities”. In such identification p rocesses, individuals identify strongly with their group , develop ing a p rototyp e that embodies the beliefs, attitudes, feelin gs and b ehaviors associated with group membership . However, beliefs, attitudes, feelin gs and behaviors could b e inco mp atible in different identification p rocesses. For p ersons managin g a mu ltip licity of social identit ies, these incomp atibilities can create co gnitive d issonance [32] and emotional exh austion through the p ursuit of self consistency [17].

Acculturation Strategies and Identity Structure In resp onse to these incomp atibility and dissonance p roblems, p eop le develop a variety of cop ing strategies that eventuate in different p atterns of identity structures. Berry [5], for examp le, p rop osed a framework of four acculturation strategies dep ending on whether p eop le value their n ative ethnic identity more or less than their new cultural id entity . When individuals do not wish to maintain their n ative identity and seek adap tat ion into new culture, the Assimilation strategy is defin ed; when individuals p lace a value on holdin g a native id entity while avoid en gagin g in new culture, the Separation strategy is defined; when ind ividuals seek to maintain native identity while also adapting to the new culture, the Integration strategy is ap p lied; and Margina lization, when individuals abandon the effort of recon cilin g id entities, and disp lay an interest in neither of them.

Roccas and Brewer [28] further d evelop ed a Social Id entity Comp lexity , describing four kinds of identity structures accordin g

to the subjective rep resentations of multip le identities. Individuals may categorize themselves in an intersectional group (e. g. Chin ese American) while maintainin g both identities (i.e. intersection) ; they may also adopt one p rimary group identity to which all other group identities are subordinated ( e. g. just a Chinese thou gh temp orarily living in U.S.), which is dominance; they may also maintain both identities, whether they are integrated (i.e. merger) or not (i.e. compartmentalization).

Berry ’s [5] analy sis seems to oversimp lify the situation individuals holdin g both identities and ignores p ossibility of comp artmentalizing and situationalizin g identities. It was unclear how well the identities were integr ated in Roccas and Brewer’s [28] intersection group . According to self-develop ment view, p eop le’s identities could be constructed and re-constructed, which suggests that such categorizations may risk stereotyp ing. They regarded acculturation as a state instead of a p rocess.

Furthermore, these categorizations are confoundin g d ifferent p rocesses. For examp le, the assimilation strategy comp rises both adap tation to new culture and resistance to original cu lture. A closer scrutiny of these acculturation strategies as in a quadrant (figur e 1) reveals two basic un derly in g mechan isms, identification with the new culture (e. g. Amer ican identification as in this p ap er) and identification with the original culture (e. g. Chinese identification), that drive acculturation p rocesses and lead to above states (i.e. categorizations).

Figure 1. American Identification and Chinese Identification

Underlying Acculturation Processes

SOCIAL MEDIA INFLUENCING ACCULTURATION M ost of studies on acculturation and ident ity structures were conducted offline, ignorin g the fact that social media are radically chan gin g the world. Social med ia, in terms of social network sites, weblogs, microblo ggin gs, wikis, Internet forums, social news, social bookmark in g, and multimedia sharing, etc., introduce “substantial and p ervasive changes to communication between organ izations, communities, and ind ividuals” [20] with tremendous use all over the world. For examp le, Facebook [15] rep orted that it had more than 750 million active users in global, with half of them loggin g in at any given day . Twitter, as another examp le, has around 200 million users as of 2011, gener ating ov er

200 million tweets and handlin g over 1.6 billion sear ch queries p er day [42].

Functions of Social Media Social med ia help p eop le to p resent the self [18], and thereby supp ort identity construction and maintenance. Sever al studies [6, 11, 16, 46] have discussed identity embodied in social media. Closer scrutiny of these studies, however, reveals that most of them p resented a static concep tion of identity , grounded only in user p rofiles and other characteristics. Goffman [18] asserted, p eop le try to control their self-p resentations to other p eop le through any typ e of social interactions, we view identity as a more dy namic concep tion of constructing self-p resentations, and studied identification through social interactions in social media [44, 45]. In this study , we further focus on exp lorin g maintenance, chan ge and integration of identities of Chinese students in U.S. in the context of accu lturation.

Social media help maintain social ties. Youn g p eop le are motivated to join social network sites to keep strong ties with friends, to maintain ties with new acquaintances, and to meet new p eop le online [1]. Social networkin g sy stems (SNSs) have a strong association to maintaining or solidify in g existing offlin e relationship s [14]. They enable users to create and maintain a network of heterogen eous and weak ties du e to the low maintenance cost [6, 12]. For Chinese exp atriates in U.S., maintain “old” ties in Chin a is an imp ortant commitment to Chinese identity ; havin g op p ortunit ies to create “new” ties may lar gely facilitate American identification p rocess.

Social media d isseminate information rap idly and have a low threshold for p articip ation. Barkhuus and Tashiro [3] r ep orted that social med ia facilitate social events, and p rovide increased opp ortunities for engagement. For examp le, telep honing friends requires an exp licit social ap p roach and action commitment. However, interacting through Facebook is more of an incid ental social interaction. For Chinese exp atriates in U.S., social media p rovide their op p ortunity to easily en gage in both Chinese and American group s, these engagements will def initely influence their identification p rocesses.

Landscape of Chinese Social Media There were 221 million blo ggers, 176 million SNS users, 117 million bulletin board sy stem users in China as of early 2010, which were hu ge amounts [8]. But the social med ia used in Chin a are totally different from that in U.S. While most of social media hosted in U.S. are lack of access in China, the landscap e of social media there is dominated by local p lay ers. As a result, we can find the counterp arts of almost all kinds of social med ia in China (table 1): Renren, for examp le, as a counterp art of Facebook, and Weibo as a counterp art of Twitter. In contrast to the wave of “globalization” of social med ia, this p henomenon of “relocalization” [39] introduces interesting communication issues. There are already some studies sp ecifically investigatin g these Chinese social med ia in CHI co mmunity (e.g. [27, 43]).

Chinese students in the United States as a result find themselves facin g all these op tions, and often use different kinds of social media with both American and Chinese counterp arts for their social lif e. This situation p rovide us a great scenario to exp lore 1) how they choose and use different kinds of social media; and 2) how their use of social media influ ence their acculturation processes, which serve as the research questions of this p ap er.

American social media (US -based)

Chinese social media (CN-based)

Social network sites Facebook, My sp ace Renren, Kaixin001

M icroblogs Twitter Weibo

Online news Portals New York Times Sina News, Sohu

Wikis Wikip edia Baidu Baik e

Online forums Craigslist M ITBBS, Huaren

Instant messaging M SN, Gtalk QQ

Table 1. Examples of American and Chinese social media counterparts.

METHOD We interviewed Chinese students who have stay ed in the United States for more than two y ears, with behavioral interview techniques [23], accomp anied with questionnaires. Each study took about 60 to 90 minutes.

Procedures and Questions In the study , we first asked p articip ants to introduce themselves with back ground questions and the Twenty Statements Test (TST, [21]), which had been widely used to exp lore self concep ts in cross-cultural situations [40]. Particip ants were asked to giv e twenty brief descrip tions of themselves, which help ed us to understand their cultural identities (e.g. liv in g in Pennsy lvania, gradu ated from Beijin g University , etc) and to relate them with social media use ( e. g. connecting a college fr iend through SNS).

Then they were asked to rep ort their gener al social med ia use with a comp rehensive social media list adap ted from Wikip edia [41] (by adding Chin ese counterp arts of these media) with about 40 app lication examp les. With this list as a cue, p articip ants rep orted which social med ia they use. They were asked to rate use frequency for each discussed social media ap p lication, with a 6- p oint Likert scale from 0 (never) to 5 (very frequently ).

For each social med ia ap p lication that was used at least monthly , p articip ants were asked to describe how they used it. With questions such as why and when they adopted it, what they usually did with it, who they usually interacted with, we leveraged behavioral interview techn ique, which wer e usually used in human comp etency assessment studies (e.g. [23]), asking p articip ants to describe typ ical events in their p ast exp erience on how the app lications influenced exp atriate life, in a storytelling way while interviewers help ed them clar ify the story .

The interviews were followed by questionnaires about acculturation to understand the p articip ants. We adap ted the M ultigroup Ethnic Identity M easure (M EIM , [26]) to measure both Chinese and American identification, with 10 items about cultural information search in g, behavior al involv ement, and emotional attachment. Based on bicultural identity integration [4], acculturation strategy [5], and social identity comp lexity model [28], we adap ted the Bicultural Id entity Integration questionnair e consisting of 5 items measurin g integration level of Ch inese and American id entities (e.g. “these two cultures are just comp atible”, and “I usually feel conflicts between these two cultures’). We also leveraged the Culture shock Questionnair e [24], which consisted 7 items such as feelin g of strains, homesickness, and f eelin g of

accep tance by new environment. All questionnaires were in 7- p oint Likert scale.

Two of us took notes and discussed the data after each interview. The interviews were conducted in both Chinese and English, dep ending on p articip ants’ p references. It was imp ossible to count the numbers because many conversations were conducted in a mix of both languages. In data analy sis p rocess we translated some of p articip ants’ rep orts from Chinese to English, with the agreement of translation between two interviewers.

Participants We recru ited p articip ants by sending out a recru itment message twice in on e month throu gh a mailin g list of Chinese students in a lar ge eastern university in the United States. In the recruitment message, we asked for p articip ants who had stay ed in US for at least two y ears. In this way we recruited 20 p articip ants, with 8 males and 12 females. Their ages ran ged from 20 to 33, with average of 25.40 (std=3.38). Their y ears in the United States ranged from 2 to 6, with average of 3.47 (std=1.54). 15 p articip ants were graduate students, and 5 undergraduates. Their average time stay ing on social media p er day was 2.60 hours (std=1.38), rangin g from h alf an hour to 4 hours. Particip ants were giv en $10 each to comp ensate for their time.

Demographic information Overall Number of p articip ants 20 Chinese Identity 5.51 (0.64) American Id entity 3.77 (1.01) Bicultural Identity Integration 3.74 (0.97) Years in U. S. 3.47 (1.54) Culture shock 3.21 (0.73) Social media use (hrs) 2.60 (1.38)

Table 2. Demographic information of participants. (figures in p arenthesis are standard deviations)

Table 2 p resents the descriptive statistics of p articip ants. Accordin g to p aired-samp le t test, Chinese identifications of all p articip ants (mean=5.51, std=0.64) were sign ificantly higher than their American identifications (mean=3.77, std=1.01), t(19)=6.95, p <0.001. Their Chinese id entifications were all h igher than four, which was reasonable because Chin ese identities were their inborn ethnic identity .

USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA Particip ants’ usage of Chinese (CN-based) social media was rep orted higher than usage of Amer ican (US-b ased) social media. The existence of American and Chinese counterp arts of different kinds of media (e.g. Renren vs. Facebook for SNS, Weibo vs. Twitter for microbloggin g) gave us opp ortunities to comp are. Table 3 p resents the average usage of some most p op ular media by different group s.

From table 3, we found that p articip ants used almost every kind of social media in the acculturation context. The least used social media was US-b ased microblo gs such as Twitter.

Media Overall usage

SNS US-based (e. g. Facebook) 2.90 CN-based (e.g. R enren) 3.85

M icroblogs US-based (e. g. Twitter) 0.30 CN-based (e.g. Weibo) 3.25

News p ortal

US-based news p ortal 1.80 CN-based news p ortal 2.50

Wikis US-based (e. g. Wikip edia) 2.65 CN-based (e.g. B aidu Baike) 1.80

Online Forum

American Forum ( e. g. Craiglist) 1.50 Chinese Forum (e. g. M ITBBS) 3.40

Table 3. Usage of different social media (in use frequency).

The “Babel” and “Great Wall” Strategies From the interview, all p articip ants rep orted that they leveraged social media both to maintain their Ch inese identity (as the “Great Wall”) and to get assimilated to American identity (as the “Babel”). All p articip ants used both US-based and China-b ased social media (table 3) and k ep t certain levels of American id entity and Chinese identity (table 2). In below section we will analy ze how their use of social med ia fulf illed both needs.

Me dia Total # of

acti vities

# of acti vi ties for Ameri can Identi fi cati on

# of acti vi ties for Chinese

Identi fi cati on SNS

US-based (e.g. Facebook)

CN-based (e.g. Renren)

M icroblogs

US-based (e.g. T witt er)

CN-based (e.g. Weibo)

News p ortal

US-based news port al

CN-based news port al

Wikis US-based (e.g. Wikipedia)

CN-based (e.g. Baidu Baike)

IM Inst ant messaging

51 7 35

Online Forum

American Forum (e.g. Craigslist)

Chinese Forum (e.g. MIT BBS)

Table 4. Number of social media use activities for American and Chinese Identification.

From the 20 p articip ants, we collected 329 social med ia use activities. For each rep orted social media use activity , based on p articip ants description of this activity , we further asked them to exp licitly identify whether it was p rimarily about getting adap ted to American culture (i.e. American identification), or maintain in g their Chinese id entities, ties, or events (i.e. Chin ese identification), or not related to neither. Based on p articip ants’ rep orts, we get the statistics on social media use for different acculturation strategies as in table 4.

From table 4, we identified 71 social media use activities for American identification, and 164 social med ia use activities for Chinese identification, which suggested that 1) p articip ants were using social med ia ( esp ecially US-b ased SNS such as Facebook) to cultivate their American identification; 2) p articip ants were much more intensively using these social media (esp ecially CN- based SNS such as Renren, CN-based microblo gs such as Weibo, and instant messagin g) to maintain their Ch inese id entification.

The other 94 social media use activities were not included in the table because they were rep orted as either not relatin g to cultural identification (e. g. usin g Facebook group for course p roject), or bein g hard to tell (e. g. discussin g visa issue in M ITBBS)

SNS: Maintaining Social Ties of American and Chinese We collected 40 activities in US-based SNS ( e. g. Facebook), and 45 activities in CN-based SNS ( e. g. Renr en). I found that CN- based SN S was exclusively for Chinese identification, while U S- based SNS was mostly for American id entification.

US-based SNS: cultivating American identity, in “understanding” level The US-based SNS that p articip ants rep orted were almost exclusive Facebook, which was or iginated in the United States and had gained p op ularity in many countries. Facebook users p ost messages not only for communication p urp ose but also for self- p resentation [18] by p ublishing their p ersonal information. It became a rich chann el for p articip ants to get to know every day lives of American friends. Facebook was considered to p rovide critical information to maintain American ties and to cultivate American identification.

Facebook p rovides a window to closely observe American lives (i.e. information surveillance), as one p articip ant informed us: “In Facebook I can learn how American friends’ life is, what they usually do, wha t they usually th ink ”; another p articip ant rep orted “I don’t have much to talk with them outside class, mainly due to our different cultural background. Facebook gives me some sense about their daily life”. Facebook is critical for American identification as a scarce on line commun ication ch annel with American friends. At least 5 p articip ants had statements such as “besides email, Facebook is almost the only wa y to connect with American friends online”.

The inter-cultural communication, however, often stay ed at an “understanding” lev el with low lev el of interaction. While Facebook p rovided easy accessibility to American friends with information surveillance and simp le actions such as “like”, “birthday greetings”, p articip ants rep orted that they seldom interact deep ly with American fr iends on Facebook. 12 p articip ants described their p assive use of Facebook as merely viewin g others’ p osts to keep a p erip heral awareness. A typ ical resp onse was “I just check it every couple of days to know what’s

happening around, I don’t write updates, neither do I share, though occasionally I give comments and add friends”. Some p articip ants exp lained it with cultural incomp etency such as “I want to get involved but I don’ t know what to say”, but some others claimed “It doesn’t matter. I live well with so many friends online [in Chinese social med ia] and offlin e [with o ther Chin ese students].Why force myself to adapt to American culture? ”.

Even when en gagin g in Facebook activities, a lar ge p art of these activities (9 of 40 as in table 3) could be interactin g with other Chinese students: “more than half of my Facebook friends are Chinese; usually they were my target audien ce wh en I was writing status updates; sometimes I just type in Chinese”. The awareness of the existence of American friends may even inhibit their active p osting: “there are so many alien p eople [i.e. w eak ties] in Facebook; to share something I would choose places like Renren ”, which demonstrated that their use of social media are lar gely influenced by their cultural identity and culture-based social ties.

CN-based SNS: maintaining Chinese identity, intensively Accordin gly table 2, tab le 3 and p articip ants’ rep ort, CN-based SNS such as Renren and Kaixin001 were intensively used for Chinese identification. Particip ants used CN-based SNS actively and interactively , by up dating status, up loading p hotos, p lay ing social games, shar in g articles and v ideos, co mmentin g, and chatting. As one p articip ant rep orted, “it is convenient because almost all my friends use it, wh ether th ey are currently in Ch ina or US, which makes my abroad life no t that boring”. They rep orted that Facebook and Renren corresp onded to two different group s of p eop le (although overlap p ing): in Facebook there ar e “alien people” or “professional” fr iends; but in Renr en, there ar e “high school friends”, “college friends”, and “Chinese peers in US”, which were all Chinese social ties.

Accordin gly , the use (and p ercep tion of use) of these two media differed: “Facebook is for professional use, and is more formal; Renren is much more casual and in formal. I will share my daily things in Renren, bu t I won’t share th em in Facebook because they look too trivial”, which greatly supp orted their cultural inertia in the acculturation p rocess.

Microblogging: Surveillance on Chinese Ties and News We collected on ly 5 activities on US-based microb lo gs (e. g. Twitter). Although 12 p articip ants had registered in Twitter, most of they seldom used it, because “the [American rela ted] contents are not relevant”, and “my friends are not there”. Only 2 p articip ants used Twitter at least weekly . They followed celebr ities such as famous movie critics, grap hic design ers, and industrial lead ers to keep up dated with the movies and industries. They have few friends to follow. In contrast with low use of Twitter, we collected 42 activities on CN-based microblo gs ( e. g. Weibo). 15 p articip ants used Weibo, at least daily .

The use of microbloggin g tools is different from that of SNS. “Weibo is so lightweight” that they shared contents “ more frequently and more casually ” with Chinese friends than in any other social media in cludin g Renren. Up dates in Weibo can b e more “ad hoc”, as a p articip ant rep orted, “ I will create an album in Renren for the pho tos of my trip to Las Vegas; bu t if I randomly take a picture o f a lovely squirrel on the road, I will definitely share it in Weibo ”. Accord in g to p articip ants, micro-blo gs p rovide a more friendly way for instant sharing of trivial things that

matters in daily bonding and acculturation. With these instant and rich up dates, Weibo p rovided users quick and wide access to their friend’s information, which p rovides p articip ants the surveillance with regard to their Chinese friends, and thus maintainin g the Chinese identity .

Besides keep ing touch with Chinese ties, p articip ants used Weibo as news p ortal to keep abreast of current affairs in Chin a. One p articip ant rep orted that “every morning I open Weibo, I won’ t miss any piece of hot news”. Any valuab le information ( e. g. news, op inion) would be shared and rep ost (like “retweet” in Twitter) quickly and extensively in Weibo. In such way , t he hot news and top ics transmit much faster than traditional news p ortals. Nine p articip ants mentioned that they used Weibo to get informed of Chinese news, esp ecially in big events such as the Yunn an earthquake and bullet train crash in China. “ Although I am currently in US, I am really concerned about these th ings [that] happened in China ”, as many p articip ants rep orted.

As Weibo is so lightweight , every user could add op inion when resharin g infor mation about hot top ics. Valuab le and div erse op inions p op ularize through mass sharin g, so that users could “learn opinions from different p erspectives” that added value to the news. “There are so many opinions, rumors, and debates. Weibo makes you open-minded and rational to these events”, esp ecially when “China is d eveloping so fast with so many controversial events happening everyday”. They also re-share messages for emotional sup p orts. For examp le, a p articip ant re- rep osted a message callin g for p eop le around in Beijin g to buy vegetables from an old p oor lady ; another p articip ant re-shared a very p op ular message of blessin g a child victim in the bullet train accid ent: “At that moment, I feel my heart is with people in China ”.

Particip ants also sought for worldwide news and op inions (e. g. tsunami in Jap an, up rising in Egy pt) in Weibo. In such circumstances, the Chinese identity became salient due to the social categorization in the national level [2, 37]. With so many channels to understand the world, some of them chose Weibo to learn and share op inions with other Chinese p eop le, which help ed maintainin g the Chin ese identity .

News Portals and Wikis: to Understand the Cultures We co llected 7 activities on U S-based on line news p ortals, mostly for American identification, and 13 activities on CN-based news p ortal exclusively for Chinese identification. Particip ants rep orted that they read American news “ so that I know what’s happen ing around, and I can have some topics to ta lk with American friends”, which imp lied an effort for American identification. M ore p articip ants exp ressed that they were less interested in things happ ened in US. “I am more concerned with a similar event happened in China than that in US”, as one p articip ant rep orted.

We also collected 16 activities usin g US-b ased wikis ( e. g. Wikip edia) and 3 activities usin g CN-based wikis ( e. g. Baidu Baike). While many activities were to understand p rofessional terms in their acad emic work, p articip ants also used wikis to understand American cu ltural, historical ev ents, and celebr ities, as one p articip ant rep orted: “when I am communicating with American fr iends, I usua lly hear names or events tha t I have no idea. For example, one friend mentioned “the Ellen DeGeneres Show”, but I never heard of it. When I come back I search ed for it in Wikipedia. Actua lly later I even listened to some of her talk shows.”

Online Forums: Scaffolding, and B ridging Particip ants sometimes used US-based online forum such as Craigslist, but they used Chinese online foru ms a lot, includ in g both Chinese forums located in US (e.g. M ITBBS) and CN-based online foru ms. In the Chin ese on line forums in US ( e. g. M ITBBS, huaren.com) wer e sp ecific online co mmunity of Chinese students in the US, which are divided into hundreds of subgroup s of interests and top ics, which were related to “ almost every aspect o f our lives in US, from flea market, to travelling to certa in pla ce, to repairing a car, to any disciplin e we study, and to fans of certa in soccer team”. These bulletin boards serv e as a scaffold role for their lives in the U S. “Any time I have a qu estion abou t, say, wha t are best Chinese restaurants in Boston wh en I travel there, I just enter certa in subgroup to browse or to ask ”, as one p articip ant rep orted.

Such scaffoldin g role help s brid ge Chin ese id entities with American id entities. By interacting with Chinese p eers in the US, they learned hand-down exp eriences on how to deal with their livin g and acculturation p roblems in US (e. g. the visa p roblem, how to cook, travel guidan ce, etc.). These interactions help them build up cultural comp etency , and thus better engage in American life.

Particip ants may also use American counterp arts such as Craigslist. Although their usage of Craigslist was limited in things lik e p urchasing “second-hand p roducts” or house renting, it supp orted the American id entification p rocess in help solvin g liv in g p roblems in the new environment.

Instant Messaging: for Social Bonding Particip ants rep orted 51 instant messagin g activities, with 7 for American identification and 35 for Chin ese identification. They used instant messaging a lot to communic ate with their Chinese strong ties. Fifteen p articip ants rep orted that they had weekly video call with their p arents in IM ’s such as Sky p e and Tencent QQ. One p articip ant rep orted that “ I usually use QQ to chat with my college friends in China. We talk about everything. Especially when someone has some problems and n eeds to pour ou t th eir worries, I would become a very pa tien t listener and tries to give some emotional support.”

THE TEMPORARITY OF SOCIAL MEDIA USE We found that p articip ants’ adop tion and use of social med ia wer e influenced by two other p rocesses: the changin g landscap e of social media, and indiv idual accu lturation p hases.

Social Media Migration: Changing landscape As the time in the U.S. of our p articip ants varied from 2 y ears to 6 y ears, we had an opp ortunity to observe a p henomenon of “social media migr ation” accordin g to their rep orts. As different social media emer ged in diff erent time, a rou gh migration p ath was from instant messages to blo gs, to social n etworks, and then to micro- blogs. While they may use all of these social media, the usages seemed to have p eaks of waves across the time. As one p articip ant rep orted, “when Xiaonei ( the predecessor of Renren) became popular about five years ago, I began use it with my friends. It is much better than blogs because we can build tang ible conn ection there. We do not need to bookmark each friend’s blog anymore, and I got conn ected to friends who hadn’t written b logs before ”. Sever al others rep orted “ The use of Renren of my friends is not as

high as a couple of years ago, mainly b ecause w e are using Weibo more frequently”.

Adoption and Decay of Media Use along Acculturation Particip ants’ use of social media also chan ged dep endin g on their acculturation stages in the U.S. M ost of p articip ants rep orted a leap in use of social media at the time when they entered the U.S. One typ ical examp le was: “ I used Renren much more frequently when I came here three years ago, although I had its accoun t earlier. When in China we could see friends around [so we didn’t use it much], bu t right before I came abroad, I thought I should have something to stay connection w ith th em”.

The social media migr ation p henomenon becomes much mor e comp lex when accomp anied with p articip ants’ length of stay in the U.S. For examp le, the adoption (or leap in use) of certain social media lar gely dep end on their time of entry . Both of the two p articip ants who entered the U.S. in 2005 used b lo gs frequently to share their American lives; and most p articip ants who came to the U.S. two y ear later chose to use social network sites.

12 p articip ants mentioned the decay of use of at least one kind of social media. Facebook was a fr equent examp le. One p articip ant observed that the decay of Facebook use was common in his Chinese friends, “now just a few of my friends are still actively using it [Facebook], so I don’t use it either”. Although this decay could be p artly attributed to the emergence of its Chinese counterp arts (e.g. Renren) and n ew kind of social media (i. e. microblo ggin g), p articip ants indeed rep orted the influence of the acculturation p hases. An interesting examp le is: “ when I came here [four year ago], I created a Facebook account to add friends. We used it a lot w ith silly features such as pokes and biting zombies. But a couple of years later my socia l network became pretty large, with many acquaintances, like some foreigner, or professional friends met on ce in conferen ces. I don’t like having too much revealed to so many p eople w ith whom I am not familiar [weak ties]”, so now she just checked Facebook every coup le of day s but seldom p osted anything.

A more salient examp le is the Bulletin Boards Sy stems. M ost of p articip ants rep orted that they used bulletin boards intensively in their first y ear in U.S., because they had “so many things to ask for help”. But several y ears later, as they got more adap ted in new cultural env ironment, their usage decr eased, just as one p articip ant rep orted that now she “only ch eck it weekly to keep upda ted, or to look for some deals when needed”.

DISCUSSION The Acculturation Process This study exp ands existin g HCI work on inter-cultural communication and collaboration activities toward research on acculturation strategies, the onlin e sup p ort of cultural identity , and design in g for individu al develop ment. Livin g abroad can be excitin g and en joy able, but it can also b e challen gin g and ev en difficult. Peop le reconstruct and maintain identities throughout lif e, but for y oung p eop le identity develop ment is an imp ortant social p roject. Young adults liv in g abro ad face a p articularly challen gin g identity construction p roject, due to cognitive dissonance and emotional exhaustion caused by the inco mp atibilities of values, feelin gs and behav ioral p atterns imp lied in different cultural identity [17, 32]. This challen ge is even greater when the two cultural identities bein g man aged are relatively more distinct, as

they are in case of Chinese and American cu lture. Study ing Chinese students livin g in the United States is p articularly imp ortant because the two cultures they are dealin g with are quite different, because mor e and more Chinese students are p ursuing education in the U. S., and b ecause the two cultures are quite imp ortant ones geo-p olitically and are broadly engagin g at a scale and rate that is unp recedented.

All p articip ants in our study showed strong identification with their origin al culture and strong needs for maintain in g original cultural identity . All p articip ants maintained a high er Chinese identification than American id entification. This cultural inertia can be seen as a result of livin g in a culturally different environment, because accord in g to social identity theory , group identity becomes more salient with p resence of contrasting group s [2, 37]. Living abro ad is an extreme case of this kind, in which one has to interact with p eop le from a differ ent culture throughout every day life. In this analysis, social media can be a tool to re- access and re-ener gize one’s original cu lture, and thereby a tool for maintainin g it within a contrasting cultural cont ext.

In reactin g to stimuli from wide social context, some p articip ants showed certain level of neglect or resistance. This is a stage of cultural identity “sep aration” [5]. Our p articip ants rep orted high use of social media to maintain Chinese ties (as the “Great Wall”) p roviding emotional sup p orts, which allev iate the cu lture shock [24, 33]. They also exp ressed high use of bulletin broad sy stems that are based in America but p rovide Chinese content as a Chinese onlin e community , which is more of an indication of identity level maintenance.

Particip ants also exhib ited efforts to get assimilated to American culture. For examp le, p articip ants were using U S-based SNS to connect with American friends and have an information surveillan ce of them; they used Wikip edia to understand culture and history of the United States; some p articip ants even regular ly use US-based news p ortals.

Use Social Media to Support Identity Development and Acculturation The extensive use of Chin ese social med ia can be a result of drivin g demands of maintain in g one’s original identity . Social network sites (SNS) and instant messages (IM ) contribute to this a lot. Although both SNS and IM do not necessarily work on the social identity level, they do p rovide a strong mechanism for Chinese students living abroad to maintain social ties, and thus cultural id entities reinforced or cultivated. From our p articip ants’ disclosure, these two typ es of social media kep t the emotional connections between them and their Chinese fr iends (i.e. bond ing). Facebook was not the most used social med ia for this p urp ose, although it is the most p op ular social network website. Instead, Chinese social n etwork websites such as Renren served this p urp ose.

Another kind of social media that can help satisfy the need of maintainin g and reinfor cin g Chin ese cultural identity is Chinese news p ortal and a twitter-like system called Weibo. From these channels, Chin ese students in the U.S can subscribe or read news related to China in a very timely fashion (i.e. surveillance). What we could see fro m our p articip ants was that they cared about the happ enings in their home country , showing high connection with original cultural id entity .

Besides usin g social med ia as the “Great Wall” to maintain in g their Chinese identity , p articip ants also use social medial to

cultivate American identity . Facebook serves as a p lace where Chinese students can observe Amer ican lif e and as a channel for Chinese students to have p ersonal contacts with American p eop le (i.e. bridging).

Social media run by Chinese exp atriates in the U.S. p rovide content in Chinese and they cover almost every asp ect of livin g in the US: travelin g, finan ce, legal issues, health, and many others (i.e. scaffold ing). Social media of this typ e p lays a very imp ortant role in liv in g abroad at least for the early y ears. These media p rovide information of very useful instrumental value at first, to help someone get one’s life goin g. It also p rovides a forum where the new exp atriates can raise questions and seek for help in Chinese when their secondary language is not p roficient. This is very imp ortant in that bein g able to find help in an unfamiliar culture can alleviate cu lture shocks [24, 33]. A social learn in g of those seemingly trivial and concr ete exp eriences of others can help foreign students adapt their lives into a new environment and lead to further identity integration.

Some Underlying Mechanis ms Lookin g at the use of social media in our p articip ants, we see a p attern of temp orality of social media use. In the first coup le of y ears, social media that p rovide China-related information and interp ersonal interaction are intensively used and app reciated by Chinese students. They used these channels to consolidate their connections with remote f amily members and fr iends, which is more emotionally bonded and less informational in nature. At the same time, U.S-based Chinese social med ia that p rovide content relevant to livin g in the U.S also was used intensively .

Use of these media becomes less after a p eriod of time; but the use of social media such as Facebook that p resents more American lif e continues, although with a relatively low interaction level with American ties. In later y ears, Chinese students also showed their interests in absorbing American news p ortals.

In terms of total social media use, we noticed the trend that the amount of time sp ent on social media decreased over time, accomp anied with decreasin g culture shock in our p articip ants. One interp retation of this is that students with well-integrated cultural identity has less trouble in handling and reacting to social stimuli and they can sp end more time on their offlin e life. It is not surp rising, since as y ears sp end in a new environ ment incr eases, familiarity and skills of cop ing in the environment will develop . However, this p oints to us that some social media ar e more of value to exp atriates only for a p eriod of time and the mar ginal value and actual use of these social med ia decrease ov er time.

We believe that it is a p rocess of social construction. Both human agents and social media p lay interactively to achieve this cultural identity integration and successfully cultural cop ing. In the develop ing p rocess, it is the agents actively choosing different social media to react to stimuli fro m the social world, and social media p rovide the p ossibility for human agents to do so. So in our case of Ch inese students livin g in the U. S, it becomes a sp iral circle: students living abroad exp erience d ifficu lties to p rocess culturally different events, certain social media can help ; when students develop their understandings and skills of cop in g American culture in r eal life, not n ecessarily from those social media, old social med ia can lose their mar gin al valu e to the students and they may find new media and way s of life.

CONCLUSION AND FUTURE DIRECTION In this p ap er we investigated how Chinese students in the United States used social media in acculturation p rocess. Diverse social media were lever aged for accommodatin g Amer ican identity as well as maintain in g Chin ese id ent ity . They p rovide value to p articip ants such as bridging, social bondin g, information surveillan ce, and scaffold in g. This exp loratory work exp ands existing HCI work on inter-cultural communication and collabor ation activities toward research on acculturation strategies, and designin g to supp ort self develop ment.

What we learned is that no sin gle tool can serve well in cu ltural identity integration. Particip ants adopted different kinds of social media for differ ent uses in the acculturation p rocess. While Babel strategy rep resents an effort seeking for total assimilation into the host culture, the Great Wall strategy rep resents a resistance to adap t. Neither is enough as shown in the study . With supp orts of social media, we actually have b etter choice, to embrace cu ltural diversity and move towards a new self, by cultivating new identities and maintain in g existin g identities at the same time.

It should be noted that as we recruited p articip ants through a mailin g list of Chinese student in one university , the results could be biased due to the samp ling issue. M ost of the p articip ants were gradu ate students, which further limited the generalizability of this study . While this is mainly a qualitative interview study , we p resented some quantitative data, which suggested some trends without further statistical examination due to limited samp le size. We p lan to conduct a survey study with large samp le of Chin ese students in the United States based on this study .

REFERENCES 1. Acquisti, A. and R. Gross (2006). Imagined co mmunities:

Awareness, information sharin g, and p rivacy on the Facebook. In Proc. of the 6 th Workshop on Privacy Enhancing Technologies.

2. Amiot, C.E., de la Sablonn iere, D., Terry , D. J., and Smith, J.R. (2007). Integration of social identities in the self: Toward a co gnitive-dev elop mental model. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 11 (4), 364-388.

3. Barkhuus, L. and Tashiro, J. Student socialization in the age of facebook. In Proc. CHI 2010. 133-142.

4. Benet-M artínez, V., Leu, J., Lee, F., and M orris, M . (2002). Negotiatin g bicu lturalism: Cu ltural frame-switching in biculturals with "opp ositional" vs. "comp atible" cultural identities. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psycholog y, 33, 492-516.

5. Berry , J.W. (1997). Immigr ation, Acculturation, and Adaptation. Applied Psycho logy: An In ternationa l Review, 46 (1), 5-34.

6. boy d, D.M. and Ellison, N.B. (2007). Social Network Sites: Definition, History , and Scholarship . Journal of Computer- Mediated Communica tion, 210-230.

7. Chang, M .J. (1996). Racial diversity in higher edu cation: Does a racially mixed student popu lation a ffect edu cationa l outcomes? Unp ublished doctoral dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles.

8. Colaizzi, M . (2010). Social med ia and Ch ina: What y ou need to know. Retrieved from http ://smartblogs.com/socialmedia/2010/03 /31/social-media- and-china-what-y ou-need-to-know/

9. Corbin, J. and Strauss, A. (2008). Basics of Qualitative Research: Techniqu es and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory. Sage Publications, CA.

10. D’Souza, D. (1991). Illiberal edu cation: The po litics of race and sex on campus. New York: Free Press.

11. DiM icco, J.M . And M illen, D. (2007) Identity management: multip le p resentations of self in facebook. In Proc. GROUP 2007, ACM Press, 383-386.

12. Donath, J. and Boy d, D. (2004). Public disp lay s of connection. BT Technology Journal. 22(4), 71-82.

13. Duster, T. (1991). The diversity project: Fina l report. Berkeley : Institute for the Study of Social Chan ge.

14. Ellison, N.B., Steinf ield, C. and Lamp e, C. The Benefits of Facebook "Friends:" Social Cap ital and College Students' Use of Online So cial Network Sites. Journal of CMC. 12(4), (2007). 1143-1168.

15. Facebook. (2011). http ://www.facebook.com/p ress/info.p hp ?statistics. Retrieved on Sep tember 21, 2011.

16. Farnham, S.D., and Chur chill, E.F. (2011). Faceted Identity , Faceted Lives: Social and Technical Issues with Being Yourself Onlin e. In Proc. of CSCW 2011. 359-368.

17. Grice, T.A., Jones, L. and Paulsen, N. (2002) M ultip le targets of organ izational identification: The role of identification congru ency . Journal of Articles in Support o f the Nu ll Hypothesis, 1 (2), 1-12

18. Goffman, E. (1956). The Presenta tion of S elf in Everyday Life. NY: Anchor Doubled ay .

19. Guthrie, G.M . (1975). A behavioral analy sis of cult ure learnin g. In : Brislin R W, Bochner S, Lonn er WJ (eds) Cross- cultural perspectives on learning. Wiley , New York, 95-115.

20. Kietzmann, J.H., Hermkens, K., M cCarthy , I.P., and Silvestre, B.S. (2011). So cial med ia? Get serious! Understanding the functional build in g blocks of social media. Business Horizons, 54 (3), 241–251.

21. Kuhn, M .H. and M cPartland, T.S. (1954). An emp irical investigation of self- attitudes. American Sociologica l Review, 19, 68-76

22. Liebkind, K. (2001). Accu lturation. In R. Brown & S. Gaertner (Eds.), Blackwell handbook of socia l psycholog y: Intergroup processes. Oxford: Blackwell. 386–406.

23. M cClelland, D.C. (1998). Identify ing comp etencies with behavioral-event interviews. Psycho logica l Science, 9(5), 331- 339.

24. M umford, D.B. (1998). The measurement of culture shock. Social psych iatry and psych iatric epidemio logy, 33 (4), 149- 154.

25. Oberg, K. (1960). Cultural shock: adjustment to new cultural environments. Pract. An thropol. 7: 177-182.

26. Phinney , J. (1992). The M ultigroup Ethnic Identity M easure: A new scale for use with adolescents and y oung adults from diverse group s. Journal of Adolescen t Research, 7, 156-176.

27. Qu, Y., Huang, C., Zhan g, P., and Zhan g, J. (2011). M icrobloggin g after a major d isaster in China: a case study of the 2010 Yushu earthquake. In Proc. of CSCW 2011, 25-34.

28. Roccas, S. and Brewer, M .B. (2002). Social Identity Comp lexity . Personality and Social Psychology Review, 6 (2), 88-106.

29. Rudenstine, N. (1996). Why a diverse student body is so imp ortant. Chronicle of Higher Edu cation, 42(32), B1-B2.

30. Smith, D.G., Gerbick, G.L., Figueroa, M .A., Watikins, G.H., Levitan, T., M oore, L.C., M erchant, P.A., Beliak, H.D., and Figuero a, B. (1997). Diversity works: The emerging picture of how students benefit. Washin gton DC: Association of American Co lleges and Universities.

31. Suarez, S.A., Fowers, B.J., Garwood, C.S., and Szap ocznik, J. (1997). Biculturalism, Diff erentness, Lonelin ess, and Alienation in Hisp anic College Students. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Scien ces, 19 (4), 489-505.

32. Tadmor, C.T. and Tetlock, P.E. (2006). Biculturalism: A M odel of the Effects of Second-Culture Exp osure on Acculturation and Integrative Co mp lexity . Journal of Cross- cultural Psychology, 37 (2), 173-190.

33. Taft, R. (1977). Cop ing with unfamiliar cultures. Studies in cross-cultural psychology, 1, 121-153.

34. Tajfel, H. (1978). Differen tiation betw een socia l groups: Studies in th e social psychology o f intergroup relations. London: Academic Press.

35. Ting-Toomey , S. (1981). Ethnic identity and close friendship in Chinese-Amer ican college students. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 5(4), 383-406.

36. Ting-Toomey , S., Yee-Jung, K.K., Sh ap iro, R., Garcia, W., Wright, T.J., and Oetzel, J.G. (2000). Ethnic/ Cultural Identity Salience and Conflict Sty les in Four US Ethnic Group s. International Journal of Intercultural Rela tion. 24, 47-81.

37. Turner, J.C., Hogg, M .A., Oakes, P.J., Reicher, S.D., and Wetherell, M .S. (1987). Red iscovering the socia l group: A self-categorization th eory. Oxford, En gland : Basil B lackwell.

38. U.S. Dep artment of Homeland Secur ity . (2011). http ://www.dhs.gov/files/statistics/p ublications/YrBk10NI.sht m

39. Warschauer, M . (2000). Lan guage, Id entity , and the Internet. In B. Kolko, L. Nakamura & G. Rodman (Eds.) Ra ce in Cyberspace. New York: Routled ge, 151-170.

40. Watkins, D. (1997). The Twenty Statements Test: Some M easurement Issues. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 28 (5), 626-633.

41. Wikip edia, http ://en.wikip edia.org/wiki/Social_ media. 42. Wikip edia, http ://en.wikip edia.org/wiki/Twitter. 43. Yan g, J., Ackerman, M .S. and Adamic, L.A. (2011). Virtual

gifts and guan xi: supp orting social exchan ge in a ch inese online co mmunity . In Proc. of CSCW 2011, 45-54.

44. Zhang, S., Jian g, H., and Carroll, J.M . (2010) Social Identity in Facebook Community Life. Internationa l Journal of Virtual Communities and Social N etworking. 2 (4), 66-78.

45. Zhang, S., Jian g, H., and Carroll, J.M . (2011) Integratin g Online and Offlin e Commun ity through Facebook. In Proc. o f International Con ference on Collaboration Technolog ies and Systems (CTS 2011), IEEE Press, 569 - 578.

46. Zhao, S., Grasmuch, S., and M artin, J. Identity Construction on Facebook: Digital emp owerment in Anchored relationship s. Computers in Human Behavior, 24 (5), 2008, 1816-1836.

http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics

http://www.dhs.gov/files/statistics/publications/YrBk10NI.shtm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter