Exploring Gender Differences in Motivations for Using Sina Weibo

Abstract

While Facebook and Twitter get worldwide attention, these popular SNSs are not available in China. As the leading local SNS, Sina Weibo has garnered much of the attention in China. The purpose of the study was to explore why Chinese college students use Sina Weibo and if gender differences exist in the motivations for using it. The results from a survey of 360 respondents show that Chinese students used Sina Weibo mainly for information-gathering, followed by accessibility to celebrity, social connection, self-presentation and entertainment. Among them the most dominant reason for using Sina Weibo was found to be information-gathering. This finding suggests that Sina Weibo functions as a platform to search for information on social issues and interests. The study also found that these motivations were significantly different between male and female users. Interestingly, female respondents used Sina Weibo much more broadly than male counterparts, accessing it to satisfy all needs such as information gathering, accessibility to celebrity, social connection, self-presentation and entertainment. Based on these findings limitations and direction for future studies are discussed.