Locative social media engagement and intergenerational relationships in China

Mobile Internet is enjoying a rapid penetration period in China with the popularization of smart-phones. According to the latest survey report from China Internet Network Information Center ( CNNIC 2015 ), up until the end of 2014 there were 557 million mobile Internet users, accounting for 85.8 percent of the 649 million Internet users and 41.1 percent of the whole population, surpassing PC Internet users. Accompanying this process is the emergence of location-based services in Chinese mobile and social media practice. Jiepang, also known as China’s Foursquare, is one of the first generation locative media to have attracted a lot of urban youth users ( Hjorth and Gu 2012 ). Since then, people have also used various integrative social media for locative information sharing, like Weibo (microblog service similar to Twitter), Renren (popular SNS among students like Facebook), and especially WeChat (mobile messaging app service similar to WhatsApp).

China · Economic geography · Geography · Linguistics · Locative case · Political science · Social media · Sociology · Philosophy · Youth Education and Societal Dynamics