University of Twente Student Theses
How do technical companies use microblogging?
Zhang, Shu (2015) How do technical companies use microblogging?
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| Abstract: | Microblogging is providing technical companies with new platforms for communication. In China, the top mircoblogging provider is Sina Weibo and in the western world, Twitter is the most popular one. To understand how Chinese and Western technical companies use microblogging, it is necessary to analyse the Chinese companies’ usage of Sina Weibo and the western companies’ usage of Twitter. Hence, the purpose of this research is to find out how these technical companies use microblogging and to compare and contrast the Chinese and Western companies’ use of microblogging. This essay conducts a qualitative content analysis of microblogging of two separate Chinese and Western companies. I began deductively with what previous literature has found about organizational usage of microblogging. Then a grounded theory analysis of the collected samples of microblogging was conducted. The analysis reveals that both Chinese and Western companies use microblogging frequently. It is used with great diversity and for different purposes. Furthermore, different official microblogging accounts serve for different functions and target groups. When comparing the microblogging usage of Western to Chinese companies, the results show they share great similarity. It is predominantly used for corporate, marketing, emergency, pedagogical and technical communication. Meanwhile, there are also differences: Chinese companies focus more on relationship building whereas western companies seldom do this; instead Western companies pay more attention to pedagogical communication. |
| Item Type: | Essay (Master) |
| Faculty: | BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences |
| Subject: | 05 communication studies |
| Programme: | Computer Science MSc (60300) |
| Link to this item: | https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/66748 |
| Export this item as: | BibTeX EndNote HTML Citation Reference Manager |
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