A Study Of We Chat Emojis In The Context Of Embodied Communication

The use of WeChat,an online social networking software,involves the dissemination of emojis,which means that our bodies are more deeply embedded in the medium.As opposed to interactions in concrete life scenarios,WeChat emojis are presented through two-dimensional images,in which the body is increasingly reshaped to contain more complex emotional meanings and physical interactions.This paper focuses on why users use WeChat emojis? Why do they choose different emojis? Why have WeChat emojis evolved into a habitual presence? How do their preferences for different emojis emerge?What is the body consciousness in these different preferences? The spread of embodied emojis involves a number of abstract and complex concepts and questions.For the specific study,the author selected 20 WeChat emoji users and conducted semi-open-ended interviews with them for about 120 minutes.Through the classification,use and selection of WeChat emoticons to study the underlying body consciousness behind them,certain desires and imaginations about the body have certain commonalities,and the individualised psychological mechanisms are typical and universal in a small scale.Based on the preliminary body literature research combined with the experience of using WeChat emoticons in daily life,we start from the interviewees’ interests and the use of emoticons in their daily life,and observe the motives of body behaviours that exist in their choice of WeChat emoticons,and the daily habits of interaction in the social process.This study is structured in four main sections: Chapter 1 clarifies the characteristics of the embodied medium WeChat platform.The second chapter examines the embodied expression of WeChat expressions.The second chapter examines the embodied expression of WeChat emoticons,classifying them in terms of the relationship between the embodied and the embodied: proto-form expressions,image-form expressions,and indexical expressions,exploring how real bodily actions and contextual meanings are transferred through emoticons,and how the body transitions,leaves,and diverges in such virtual spaces.Chapter 3 focuses on the reception of the body in WeChat emojis.From the reception and observation of the eye to the visual perception in WeChat emojis,it examines the tendency of unofficial interaction in the decoding of emojis based on the daily experience of the subject’s intertwined reality and imagination;Chapter 4 explores in detail how the integration of the body image category like WeChat emojis with the context presented on the screen promotes the psychological needs and behavioural practices of the subject’s social and self-identity.Specifically,the sharing and diffusion of emotions through embodied WeChat emojis is more likely to highlight users’ internal emotional will and behavioural tendencies than the moment-to-moment rationality and self-restraint of offline interpersonal interactions.The use of differentiated emojis by different subjects implies different psychological mechanisms and appeals.Such differentiated expressions are not only limited to visual reception at the bodily level,but are also characterised by dynamic changes in the spatio-temporal dimension and the fragmentation of delayed interactions,which to a certain extent weaken the basic identity and group affiliation shaped by material bodily activities.