@inproceedings{f96b9a8b417041c99a2ff9fcbeb74063,
title = "Space collapse: Reinforcing, reconfiguring and enhancing Chinese social practices through we chat",
abstract = "We Chat (a.k.a., WeiXin) is a popular mobile instant messenger (MIM) with various social features and has most of its users in China. Whereas recent scholarship suggests that MIMs could support users to {"}dwell{"} together with close friends and family members and to have {"}fleeting{"} encounters with strangers, little else is known about We Chat use. In this paper, we present findings from a qualitative investigation of We Chat use and its impact on Chinese social practices. Drawing from 36 interviews conducted between 2013 and 2015, we provide a contextualized account of how We Chat use reinforces, reconfigures, and enhances existing Chinese social practices. We propose a new theoretical concept, space collapse-that denotes the emergence of a fourth space where public, private and parochial social spaces are collapsed together in a socio-technical system. We discuss how these results deepen our understanding of MIMs.",
author = "Yang Wang and Yao Li and Bryan Semaan and Jian Tang",
year = "2016",
month = jan,
day = "1",
language = "English (US)",
series = "Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Web and Social Media, ICWSM 2016",
publisher = "AAAI Press",
pages = "427--435",
booktitle = "Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Web and Social Media, ICWSM 2016",
note = "10th International Conference on Web and Social Media, ICWSM 2016 ; Conference date: 17-05-2016 Through 20-05-2016",
}