Facebook V.S.wechat Use And Acculturation Of Chinese International Students In The U.S.

With a growing number of Chinese students going to America to further their study,more cases like committing suicides and falling victims were reported.As the details of social media profiles and posts were often disclosed in the news,it is obvious that social media play an important role in international students' life,including receiving social help from families and friends,and building self-image and identity in the new environment.Therefore,the issue of social media use and acculturation is of great importance in the academic sphere.Guided by use and gratification theory and Berry's acculturation model,this empirical study looks at the use of Facebook and WeChat of Chinese international students in the U.S.and their acculturation with the method of questionnaire and indepth interview.Given the background of acculturation,the author intended to examine how the motive of acculturation and home culture identification(based on social identity theory)influences host and ethnic social media use,and how the intensity of social media use could predict students' inclination toward four types of acculturation strategies.The author also probed into whether interpersonal interactions via social media would differ by acculturation mode.The result shows that the acculturation motive is positively related to the intensity of Facebook use and the motive of home culture identification is positively related to the intensity of WeChat use even after controlling for their demographic and social psychological characteristics.Besides,heavy use of Facebook could predict the preference of assimilation and integration;separation is negatively related with Facebook use and positively related with WeChat use;marginalization is negatively related with WeChat use.What's more,students adopting the assimilation strategy tend to interact more with Americans and initiated interactions by updating new posts;students in the integration mode also keep contact with American students after class but their performance on Facebook and WeChat remain almost the same.Students adopting the separation pattern tend to prefer WeChat and stay in the comfort zone of Chinese students.To conclude,the author argues that the relationship between social media use and acculturation is not unidirectional.Social media act as a mediator between the need of acculturation(whether adapting to American society or maintain Chinese identity and characteristics)and the acculturation strategy.Meanwhile,with the dual function of mass communication and interpersonal communication,social media can,to some extent,display the acculturation process and the social network of Chinese international students.