Commercial Use of Mobile Social Media and Social Relationship: The Case of China

Research Purpose

Based on the view of strength of weak ties of social networking, the research on mobile social software, driven by Internet technology, is deconstructing the power structure and communication pattern. And when audiences have more power, they will have their own commercial value and they are likely to pay for channels and contents.

Mobile Internet, firstly, is to deconstruct the power structure of traditional society. Fei (2006) proposes ‘Differential mode of association’ of agricultural society and he thought blood relationship is the basis of agricultural social relations where egoism occupies personal emotions and there is on obvious distinction between public and private, also, violent ruling, without democracy; Industrial society appears ‘Group pattern’, where nation controls rare resources and builds a new organizational framework with production materials, employment position and living space, so that it can eliminate the differential mode of association based on the blood relationship. Internet society has brought elimination of those power structures. The decentralization and fragmentation of state power, and the opening and connection of the Internet have changed the scarcity of resources, and the mobile Internet has made information sharing easier, and even the marginal cost of surplus social resources is close to zero. The essence of ‘‘sharing’ makes the Internet burst out with greater energy. Sun (1993) argues that the basic unit of social control and resource allocation gradually loses the power to monopolize social resources and to control social relations. The society becomes a relatively independent source of resources and opportunities, and individual dependence on the state is significantly weakened (Sun, 1993).