Jonathan J. H. Zhu

Perceived Characteristics, Perceived Needs, and Perceived Popularity: Adoption and Use of the Internet in China

The Internet has arrived in China, the most populous nation in the world, at a rapid rate. To account for the adoption and use of the Internet by Chinese audiences, the current study develops a theoretical framework that centers on three key independent variables in the diffusion process: perceptions (i.e., perceived characteristics of the Internet or PCI), motivations (perceived need for the Internet or PNI), and social context (perceived popularity of the Internet or PPI). In addition, adoption is conceptualized as involving four categories that are mutually exclusive at a given time but interchangeable over time. This classification enables investigation of discontinuance. The current study also examines reinvention by integrating use into diffusion process. Data from a probability survey of 2,500 residents in Beijing and Guangzhou in 2000 largely support the hypotheses of the model. The study illustrates the importance and benefits of a theory-driven approach to new media research.

Visual Analysis of Topic Competition on Social Media

How do various topics compete for public attention when they are spreading on social media? What roles do opinion leaders play in the rise and fall of competitiveness of various topics? In this study, we propose an expanded topic competition model to characterize the competition for public attention on multiple topics promoted by various opinion leaders on social media. To allow an intuitive understanding of the estimated measures, we present a timeline visualization through a metaphoric interpretation of the results. The visual design features both topical and social aspects of the information diffusion process by compositing ThemeRiver with storyline style visualization. ThemeRiver shows the increase and decrease of competitiveness of each topic. Opinion leaders are drawn as threads that converge or diverge with regard to their roles in influencing the public agenda change over time. To validate the effectiveness of the visual analysis techniques, we report the insights gained on two collections of Tweets: the 2012 United States presidential election and the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Diffusion, use, and effect of the internet in China

China has embraced the Internet. As of December 2004, 94 million people had gone online, making China the second largest Internet-user market in the world, behind only the U.S., according to the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), which has carried out 15 semiannual surveys of Internet users in China since 1997.1The growth trajectory of the countrys Internet use appears to follow the common S-curve of technology adoption seen around the world (see Figure 1). The collapse of the worldwide Internet bubble in 2000 and 2001 slowed diffusion only momentarily. The rate of growth accelerated again in 2002 and 2003, driven by a few leading applications, including online chat, online games, and the Web-based short message service (SMS).

EvoRiver: Visual Analysis of Topic Coopetition on Social Media.

Cooperation and competition (jointly called “coopetition”) are two modes of interactions among a set of concurrent topics on social media. How do topics cooperate or compete with each other to gain public attention? Which topics tend to cooperate or compete with one another? Who plays the key role in coopetition-related interactions? We answer these intricate questions by proposing a visual analytics system that facilitates the in-depth analysis of topic coopetition on social media. We model the complex interactions among topics as a combination of carry-over, coopetition recruitment, and coopetition distraction effects. This model provides a close functional approximation of the coopetition process by depicting how different groups of influential users (i.e., “topic leaders”) affect coopetition. We also design EvoRiver, a time-based visualization, that allows users to explore coopetition-related interactions and to detect dynamically evolving patterns, as well as their major causes. We test our model and demonstrate the usefulness of our system based on two Twitter data sets (social topics data and business topics data).

Controllability of Weighted and Directed Networks with Nonidentical Node Dynamics

The concept of controllability from control theory is applied to weighted and directed networks with heterogenous linear or linearized node dynamics subject to exogenous inputs, where the nodes are grouped into leaders and followers. Under this framework, the controllability of the controlled network can be decomposed into two independent problems: the controllability of the isolated leader subsystem and the controllability of the extended follower subsystem. Some necessary and/or sufficient conditions for the controllability of the leader-follower network are derived based on matrix theory and graph theory. In particular, it is shown that a single-leader network is controllable if it is a directed path or cycle, but it is uncontrollable for a complete digraph or a star digraph in general. Furthermore, some approaches to improving the controllability of a heterogenous network are presented. Some simulation examples are given for illustration and verification.

Mapping the landscape of Internet studies: Text mining of social science journal articles 2000–2009

What does ‘Internet studies’ entail as a field of social science research? We aim to answer the question by mapping research themes, theorization, and methodology of Internet studies based on 27,000+ articles published in Social Sciences Citation Index and Arts & Humanities Citation Index journals over the last 10 years. In analyzing the articles, we adopt a ‘bottom-up’ approach – classifying keywords of the Internet studies without any a priori categorization – to identify the boundaries, major divisions, and basic elements of the field talis qualis. The research strategy results in a number of expected, as well as surprising, patterns and trends. Internet studies have evolved into a viable field that has witnessed a booming decade. The field is clustered around four primary research themes: e-Health, e-Business, e-Society, and Human–Technology Interactions. Two or three sub-themes with different research foci and methodologies emerge within each theme. The evolution of popular keywords in each sub-theme further shows that the field has become more concerned with intricate relationships between Internet use and specific behaviors/attitudes/effects; Internet usage patterns have increasingly attracted research attention; and network perspectives and approaches have become popular. Internet studies in the past decade have been modestly theorized. Established research methods (e.g., survey, experiment, and content analysis) still prevail in the Internet studies reviewed.

Diffusion, Use and Impact of the Internet in Hong Kong: A Chain Process Model

Hong Kong appears to be a dream venue for the Internet as a mass medium: There are a well-developed telecommunications infrastructure, a population with both financial resources and bilingual (Chinese and English) abilities, and a legal environment in which there is virtually no government regulation of content. However, recent experience with the slow adoption of other new media in Hong Kong, including cable TV and interactive TV, has sounded a cautionary note about the potential use and impact of the Internet in this technologically sophisticated city. Based on a telephone survey of 1,000 adult residents, this paper examines the adoption, use, and social impact of the Internet in Hong Kong using a chain process model that was initially developed by Dutton, Rogers, and Jun (1987) for research on home computing. The results show that Internet adoption is affected by a full range of factors, including ones personal characteristics, socioeconomic status, socio-cultural settings, and perceived compatibility of the Internet. On the other hand, Internet use is primarily affected by socioeconomic status and perceived compatibility. The study also found that both adoption and use of the Internet have observable impact on leisure activities and concerns for privacy and other Internet-related negative consequences. However, these effects are not overarching but rather confined to specific attitudes and behavior.

Where you publish matters most: A multilevel analysis of factors affecting citations of internet studies

This study explores the factors influencing citations to Internet studies by assessing the relative explanatory power of three perspectives: normative theory, the social constructivist approach, and a natural growth mechanism. Using data on 7,700+ articles of Internet studies published in 100+ Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI)-listed journals in 2000–2009, the study adopted a multilevel model to disentangle the impact between article- and journal-level factors on citations. This research strategy resulted in a number of both expected and surprising findings. The primary determinants for citations are found to be journal-level factors, accounting for 14% of the variances in citations of Internet studies. The impact of some, if not all, article-level factors on citations are moderated by journal-level factors. Internet studies, like studies in other areas (e.g., management, demography, and ecology), are cited more for rhetorical purposes, as suggested by the social constructivist approach, rather than as a form of reward, as argued by normative theory. The impact of time on citations varies across journals, which creates a growing “citation gap” for Internet studies published in journals with different characteristics.

A Random Digit Search (RDS) Method for Sampling of Blogs and Other User-Generated Content

Blogs are arguably the most popular genre of user-generated content (UGC), which make blogs a gold mine for social science research. However, existing research on blogs has suffered from nonprobability samples collected either manually or by computerized crawling based on random walks method. The current article presents a probability sampling method for blogs, called random digit search (RDS), that is modified from the popular ‘‘random digit dialing’’ (RDD) method used in telephone surveys. The RDS method was tested in a study of Sina Blog, a popular blog service provider (BSP) in China. The results show that, while ‘‘random walks’’ sampling tends to oversample popular/active blogs, probability samples generated by RDS yield consistent and precise estimates of population parameters. Although the RDS takes advantage of the numeric identification (ID) system used on Sina Blog, the general principles may be applicable to other BSPs and many other genres of UGC.

A teapot graph and its hierarchical structure of the chinese web

The shape of the Web in terms of its graphical structure has been a widely interested topic. Two graphs, Bow Tie and Daisy, have stood out from previous research. In this work, we take a different approach, by viewing the Web as a hierarchy of three levels, namely page level, host level, and domain level. Such structures are analyzed and compared with a snapshot of Chinese Web in early 2006, involving 830 million pages, 17 million hosts, and 0.8 million domains. Some interesting results have emerged. For example, the Chinese Web appears more like a teapot (with a large size of SCC, a medium size of IN and a small size of OUT) at page level than the classic bow tie or daisy shape. Some challenging phenomena are also observed. For example, the INs become much smaller than OUTs at host and domain levels. Future work will tackle these puzzles.