Download pdf
The Influence of Perceived Trolling on Weibo Users’ Lurking Behavior — The Moderating Role of Social Media Affordance and Platform Engagement
- 1 Jinan University
- 2 Beijing Normal University
* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
With society evolving, social media platforms have become an indispensable component of individuals’ daily existence. However, the relationship between online trolling and user lurking behavior deserves more attention and research. This research, conducted using the Weibo platform, gathered 289 valid survey responses through a questionnaire to explore the correlation between online trolling and lurking. The moderating impacts of social media affordance and platform engagement were also examined. The results revealed that online trolling significantly and positively predicts lurking behavior; While the moderating influence of social media affordance did not yield significant results, the moderating impact of platform engagement was found to be significant. Specifically, at low levels of platform engagement, online trolling significantly and positively predicted lurking behavior, while at high levels of platform engagement, online trolling negatively predicted lurking behavior. Therefore, social media platforms should enhance their monitoring of online trolling and provide users with more privileges to increase their platform engagement and more features to deal with trolling, enabling them to participate in maintaining a healthy platform environment.
Keywords
trolling, lurking, social media affordance, platform engagement
[1]. Luqiu, L. R., Schmierbach, M. and Ng, Y. L. (2019). Willingness to Follow Opinion Leaders: A Case Study of Chinese Weibo. Computers in Human Behavior, 101, 42–50.
[2]. Van Zoonen, W., Treem, J. W. and Ter Hoeven, C. L. (2022). A Tool and a Tyrant: Social Media and Well-being in Organizational Contexts. Current Opinion in Psychology, 45, 101300.
[3]. Sohn, D. and Choi, Y. S. (2022). Silence in Social Media: A Multilevel Analysis of the Network Structure Effects on Participation Disparity in Facebook. Social Science Computer Review, 089443932211179.
[4]. Howard, K., Zolnierek, K. H., Critz, K., Dailey, S. and Ceballos, N. (2019). An Examination of Psychosocial Factors Associated with Malicious Online Trolling Behaviors. Personality and Individual Differences, 149, 309–314.
[5]. Sun, Q. and Shen, C. (2021). Who would Respond to A Troll? A Social Network Analysis of Reactions to Trolls in Online Communities. Computers in Human Behavior, 121, 106786.
[6]. Hong, Y., Hu, J. and Zhao, Y. (2023). Would You Go Invisible on Social Media? An Empirical Study on the Antecedents of Users’ Lurking Behavior. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 187, 122237.
[7]. O’Day, E. B. and Heimberg, R. G. (2021). Social Media Use, Social Anxiety, and Loneliness: A Systematic Review. Computers in Human Behavior Reports, 3, 100070.
[8]. Hu, Z., Ma, B. and Bai, R. (2022). Motivation to Participate in Secondary Science Communication. Frontiers in Psychology, 13.
[9]. Shahbaznezhad, H., Dolan, R. and Rashidirad, M. (2021). The Role of Social Media Content Format and Platform in Users’ Engagement Behavior. Journal of Interactive Marketing, 53, 47–65.
[10]. Šincek, D. (2021). The Revised Version of the Committing and Experiencing Cyber-Violence Scale and Its Relation to Psychosocial Functioning and Online Behavioral Problems. Societies, 11(3), 3.
[11]. Chen, M. and Peng, A. Y. (2023). Why do People Choose Different Social Media Platforms? Linking Use Motives With Social Media Affordances and Personalities. Social Science Computer Review, 41(2), 330–352.
[12]. Hayes AF. (2018). Introduction to Mediation, Moderation, and Conditional Process Analysis: a Regression-Based Approach. 2nd ed. New York, NY: The Guilford Press.
Cite this article
Lai,S.;Shen,Y. (2023). The Influence of Perceived Trolling on Weibo Users’ Lurking Behavior — The Moderating Role of Social Media Affordance and Platform Engagement. Communications in Humanities Research,22,81-87.
Data availability
The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study will be available from the authors upon reasonable request.
Disclaimer/Publisher's Note
The statements, opinions and data contained in all publications are solely those of the individual author(s) and contributor(s) and not of EWA Publishing and/or the editor(s). EWA Publishing and/or the editor(s) disclaim responsibility for any injury to people or property resulting from any ideas, methods, instructions or products referred to in the content.
About volume
Volume title: Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Interdisciplinary Humanities and Communication Studies
© 2024 by the author(s). Licensee EWA Publishing, Oxford, UK. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and
conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license. Authors who
publish this series agree to the following terms:
1. Authors retain copyright and grant the series right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgment of the work's authorship and initial publication in this
series.
2. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the series's published
version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgment of its initial
publication in this series.
3. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and
during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See
Open access policy for details).