Online identities construction on host social media: the determinants of self-presentation among Chinese overseas students.

At present, China ranks the first in the number of students studying abroad in the world, they who are also called millennial youths become the powerful group on social media. Seldom studies make the empirical analysis to examine the social media usage and its influencing factors from the perspective of cross-cultural adaption. When the contexts of individuals’ self-presentation expand from offline physical space to online social media, it may affect the motivations and behaviors on host social media. The purpose of research is to fill up the gap by analyzing the similarities and differences of online self-presentation on Instagram among Chinese overseas students in various countries.
When entering a new country, Chinese overseas students have complex factors to impact how to balance their own identity on home social media and develop new relationship on host social media. This is related to their selection about how to adapt to a new community as sojourners. Existing studies about social media usage of international students just focused on one country or one platform which can’t explain the complex determinants of self-presentation in cross cultural contexts. My current research applies survey and in-depth interviews to test insights the influencing factors toward motivation and online identity construction of online self-presentation between host social media in cross-cultural contexts. This is the first study to combine the motivations and identity construction of self-presentation with acculturation process (Need, Attitude, Level) and construct the research model.