College Students' Motives For Using Emoticons

In the cyber space constructed by the Internet,with the growing dissatisfaction with literal expression,which cannot fully reveal emotions and postures,people tend to use emoticons,as a new way to express their feelings,display their personality,and look for group identification,etc.Above all,to gain pleasure from the use of emoticons.In this thesis,the outstanding theory of communication,which is the play theory of mass communication,would be used as the analytical framework,to find out the using motivation of emoticons.Also,in-depth interview would be the primary research method,while the textural analysis would be adopted too.Fifteen college students,who are also users of emoticons,would be invited to the in-depth interviews.Finally,data would be gathered and analyzed to see what exactly those motivations are.Through the research,six motivations are generalized as following:gaining pleasure,catch up with the trend;self-expression,assistance for online chatting,impression management,fit in a group and so on.Using the play theory of mass communication to analyze those motivations above,we can conclude that,the use of emoticons could be counted as one form of convergent selectivity,to produce emoticons themselves,and express their ideas etc.The use of emoticons is a form of communication just chasing for pleasure without involving any utilitarian gain.Besides,using emoticons could help to construct personal image and gain group identification.