Managing everyday communication with strong, weak, and latent ties via WeChat: Availability, visibility, and reciprocal engagement

Abstract

This article examines how people utilize WeChat, the most popular multi-purpose mobile app in China, to manage their everyday communication with different social ties. Since Granovetter popularized the idea of social ties by noting the strength of weak ties, a long list of studies has extended social ties theory by following the quantification tradition, for instance, quantitatively examining the different functionalities of strong and weak ties. However, many aspects of social ties cannot be easily quantified. In this vein, this study, being a qualitative network analysis, offers a communicative conception and categorization of social ties. It is based on data from 39 distinctive Chinese respondents, collected through an interview-diary-interview method. WeChat, being more than a social media app, affords new technologies (e.g., mobile payment and virtual red packets), enabling users to manage and maintain their social networks in new and alternative ways. The empirical findings suggest that Chinese respondents differentiate between strong, weak, and latent ties, and they articulate three communication strategies: managing availability, managing visibility, and managing reciprocal engagement. Based on the empirical evidence, this article discusses further implications with reference to the concepts of imagined audiences and commercialization of social relations. Moreover, this study contributes to social ties theory by providing empirical insights into its cultural specifications in the context of China, such as the emphasis on the principle of reciprocity in guanxi culture.