Page 126 - JOURNAL OF LIBRARY SCIENCE IN CHINA 2015 Vol. 41

Luchuan LIU & Kai SUN / Analysis of the relationship between microblogging users’ affections and users’ satisfaction 125

marketing and information system etc. The sociological research is focused on network
sociology, including the definition of network society, network public domain, social media
and online democracy, network social structure, and network’s impact on young people etc. (J.
Zhang, 2012). The communication research is focused on the characteristics of communication
and the effects of communication (J. Zhang, 2012). The marketing research mainly discusses
the changes in what classic marketing theory has described about the consumption patterns,
product strategy, channel strategy, marketing strategy and brand marketing theory that are
caused by the emergence and development of micro-blog, as well as the factors that influence
micro-blog marketing (Z. Li, 2012; N. L. Luo, Guo, & G. Q. Chen, 2012; Yin & B. Yang,
2010; Yuan & X. G. Wang, 2011; Y. J. Zhao, 2011; Zhu, 2012; Zou, 2012). Information system
researchers mainly analyze micro-blog users’ behavior and factors influencing their use based
on the theory of rational behavior and in compliance with the theoretical model of cognitive
judgment paradigm (L. C. Liu, Y. W. Liu, & Sun, 2012; J. Y. Xu & X. B. Lu, 2013; X. Zhao,
Zhou, Yu, & Q. Liu, 2012).
However, few researchers are concerned about micro-blog users’ behavior from the affections’
point of view. Nowadays, consumers’ motivations behind buying goods and services are not only
to resolve difficulties in life, but to address the affective appeal deep down in souls. Consumption
has become a pursuit of affection and an action of affective outlet (Yan, 2008). Micro-blog is
regarded as a kind of information system mainly for fun and enjoyable use experience (Van der
Heijden, 2004). From the perspective of users’ affections, we can better explain the continued
use behavior of micro-blog users (Agrifoglio, Metallo, Black, & Ferrara, 2012). Therefore, it is
particularly necessary to break research framework of rational cognition and pay more attention
to consumption behavior of information products like micro-blogs from the perspective of
consumption affections.
This paper adopts the measuring methods of affections in psychology to analyze the affections
of micro-blog users in the course of use, classify the affections, summarize the major affections
appearing during the use of micro-blog, and analyze the relationship between affections and user
satisfaction from the perspective of positive affections and negative affections. It has theoretical
significance for comprehensively understanding the law of behavior of the micro-blog users and
practical significance for applications like micro-blogging platforms’ attracting and retaining of
users and micro-blog marketing.

1 Literature review

Based on Oliver’s Expectation Confirmation Theory in marketing, Bhattacherjee (2001) proposes
the Expectation-Confirmation Model of IS Continuance (ECM-ISC) that is widely used in the
field of Information System (IS). The ECM-ISC believes that before using the information system,
users already have expectations for the result of use; if user’s actual use experience is consistent