Masaryk University

Faculty of Social Science

Diffusion of Social Media in East Asia

How sociocultural context influenced the diffusion of social media innovation in

South Korea, Japan, and Mainland China?

Bachelor thesis

Michal Španěl

Brno 2018

I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.

…………………………….

Brno, 1. 12. 2018

Abstract

This work is dedicated to a comprehensive analysis of sociocultural context influencing a diffusion of innovations. Diffusion of innovation and related theory is applied to a specific case of spread of social media in East Asia countries, all having and developing unique and distinctive media ecosystems: Japan, South Korea and Mainland China. The thesis aims to analyse how might have sociocultural factors influenced the diffusion of the media innovation in these countries and in which direction, based on the related innovation and media theory.

Key words: diffusion of innovation, Carl Rogers, Bass Diffusion Model, Hofsfede cultural dimensions, Hall low-context high-context dimensions, innovativeness, social media,

Mainland China, South Korea, Japan

Table of Contents

1. Introduction ...... 5 2. Everett Rogers and innovations ...... 7 3. Bass Model and Critical Mass ...... 11 4. Cultural Dimensions and Innovativeness ...... 12 5. Characteristic of Innovators ...... 20 6. Critical Mass ...... 28 7. Learning effect ...... 29 8. Diffusion of Social Media in Japan ...... 31 9. Diffusion of Social Media in South Korea ...... 42 10. Diffusion of social media in Mainland China ...... 52 11. Discussion ...... 58 12. Conclusions ...... 60 13. Limits ...... 62 14. References ...... 63

Number of words: 14 398

1. Introduction

Diffusion research is conducted a long time, ranging from analysis of innovations itself to characteristic of recipients, merging these dimensions together. This work aims to not mix them together, it focuses strictly on society and culture and how it influences diffusion of innovations. Iuse scientifical theoretical findings and apply them to Social media in East Asia.

But why social media and why East Asia? Social media are quite new phenomena arising in

21th century, when many new successful media platforms (LINE, Kakao, WeChat, Weibo) were created and started to be successful in last years. Data from new platform should be added to data from older platforms (Cyworld, Mixi, Myspace) to have wider options to generalize.

Till now only limited research was done on social media in connection with diffusion of innovations opening opportunity to do it now.

The East Asian region was chosen mainly because development of social media here is unique and localised. Today´s world´s social media landscape is mainly dominated by western social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Twitter). In East Asia region

(Japan, South Korea, China) is situation different. These states resist to the westernalization pressure with their own platforms being widely used in their own countries expressing their cultural specifics (as I will later show).

Western social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram are on the other side widely globalized and global appeal is imprinted in their development. Facebook is not built for American market, Indian market, Japanese market, it is built for everybody (with some very limited local customizations). Western social media platforms could be from cultural perspective analysed harder as those platforms does not take these stronger to account and were not built with them in mind.East Asian social media platforms are cultural specifics easier to see. The fact that every of observed countries has its own very different social media market enables me to compare them well. 5

My method of work is qualitative research, specifically literature review with an application of acquired knowledge on specific cases of three social media landscapes of South

Korea, Japan and Mainland China. My research question thus is: How sociocultural context influenced a diffusion of social media innovation in South Korea, Japan and Mainland China?

I have chosen to make detailed literature review first, going through of few hundreds of studies related to culture, societal characteristic and innovativeness, using main existing study databases, going through references inside studies linking to other materials, reading relevant chapters of main related authors in diffusion of innovation and cultural theme (Rogers, Bass,

Hofstede, Hall).

The second step was going through relevant resources connected with the development of social media in target countries, using digital Blogs and Newspapers mainly from English-speaking media landscape and some standards studies too (as social media is quite new topic, only very limited amount of studies in English was dealing with it). The text was written for every country with information mainly focused on specific of development of target markets and platform and cultural and societal specifics of target markets, eventually of platforms. The third step was using the checklist of chapters used in every subchapter of literature research and searching in the text all relevant information. After a comparison of it and consideration, writing mine conclusions and discussion based on scientific finding which very observed by researchers mentioned in the work.

THEORETICAL PART:

2. Everett Rogers and innovations

2.1 Roger´s Diffusion of Innovation Theory

In this chapter I summarize main theory connected with innovativeness and sociocultural factors. Main theoretical concepts in this topic are: Rogers Diffusion of innovations theory and Bass diffusion model, Hofstede´s cultural dimensions and its correlates, correlates of other factors and learning effect. I go through all these factors one by one.

Innovativeness of individuals could be defined as personality trait (Foxall, 1995), innate innovativeness “a predisposition to buy new and different products and brands rather than remain with previous choices and consumer patterns’ (Steenkamp et al., 1999), consumer innovativeness, the tendency to buy new products more often and more quickly than other people (Midgley and Dowling, 1978).

Or a characteristic of the system, a characteristic based on relative position in time among potential adopters the social system. “Innovativeness is the degree to which an individual or other unit of adoption is relatively earlier in adopting new ideas than other members of a system” (Rogers, 2003, p. 22). The fist conceptualizations are then more stable, the second actualized. (Hirshman, 1980)

The line between definition is often very thin and authors often in their works manipulate like there was definition only one (Rogers, 2003), mainly when they search relationships between and other factors and concepts. In this work, we either use innovativeness defined from the perspective of asystem either from the perspective of an individual, as the way how to note all important relationships. In text are these differences in definitions not stated, they are however used in limits of work at the end of the text.

Rogers diffusion of innovation concepts represents way how to explain how 7

innovations spread in society from the earliest time of its adoption in social system to the moment where saturation of market happens. Using the adoption rate and time as main metrics.

Two typical cases of diffusion curve are sigmoid (see Figure 1) and exponential when sigmoid is the most common one and exponential is less typical. (Eliashberg, Tapiero, & Wind 1987;

Gatington & Robertson, 1985)

In theory of Rogers (2003) diffusion rates are usually at the beginning lower reaching less conservative member of a social system first and continue to the general public. When after the accumulation of critical mass rise usually start to be steep which creates S-Shape of the curve. Rogers works in this context with phenomena’s of homophily and heterophily, which together with later introduced Bass effects of innovation and imitation help explain typical main processes behind diffusion.

Figure 1. S-shaped graph of innovation diffusion development as suggested by Rogers

(2003). Graph from Nathan (2014, April 23). Dangerous S-Curves Ahead! Retrieved

November 1, 2018, from http://thecomputerboys.com/?p=676

Feder and O'Mara (1982) and Jensen (1982) suggest that strongly contributing factor to the shape of the diffusion curve are opinion. When initial beliefs tend to be very similar, which is not too common, the exponential curve is expected, as communication is very homophilious (similar), without bigger barriers.

When there is unimodal, in other words with one high point close to the middle, curve tends to be sigmoid. In unimodal distribution must innovation overcome different barriers, represented by limited communication and trustworthiness of certain more innovative groups for other less innovative groups. Their heterophily (different) presumes different ways of persuading process, in different times, slowing down diffusion.

2.2 Homophily and Heterophily

Homophily, a concept suggested by Paul F. Lazarsfeld and Robert K. Merton (1964) describes a situation in which communication is taking place between individuals which are alike. This communication is more effective, because of the effects of aspects like shared common meaning or subcultural language, lowering potential space for misunderstanding and disagreements. (Rogers, 2003) This one is more typical for Bass´s imitators. (Gatignon

& Robertson, 1985)

Heterophily, is the opposite concept happening in situations where individuals with different socioeconomical, cultural or other characteristics communicates. Such a communication is considered less effective, problems connected with misunderstandings raising from differences more commonly occur. (Rogers, 2003) This one is more typical for

Bass´s innovators. (Gatignon & Robertson, 1985)

Heterophilous communication has a special role in diffusion theory as it is basically condition for any diffusion process. Communication in a fully homophilous social system would be actually very rigid, not enabling external information to flow in and as external 9

information are often source of innovations it poses a problem. Transfers of innovations throu heterophilous channels is in diffusion theory called bridges. (Granovetter’s, 1973;

Rogers, 2003).

In general, the more homogeneous is the social system, the faster is diffusion and the maximum penetration level too. (Eliashberg, Tapiero, & Wind, 1983; Jeuland, 1981) In a more heterogenous social system, communication between different individuals is reduced and this reduced one is even less effective. (Gatignon & Robertson, 1985) This is valid even for ethnic differences. (Dekimpe, 1998, 2000; Talukdar, Sudhir & Ainslie, 2002)

For diffusion is important concept of a “point of optimal heterophily”. It represents a balance between the amount of new knowledge about innovation individual in a social system could get from heterophilous communication and amount of similarity between individuals enabling fast and effective spread of acquired knowledge about innovation. Such a state is very favourable for diffusion. (Gatignon & Robertson, 1985; Kaigler-Evans, Leavitt and Dickey,

1977)

2.3 Attributes of Innovations

Rogers (2003) introduced 5 main attributes of innovation influencing its success, relative advantage, complexity, trialability, observability and compatibility, all very important.

In my reseach scope the attribute od compatibility is relevant.

Compatibility is factor representing how compatible how consistent is innovation with knowledge, attitudes, lifestyles and values of target social system. If accepting of innovation requires a big change of mentioned attributes for innovation it will be very hard to succeed. (Rogers, 2003)

Adoption of potentially incompatible innovation for individuals in a social system means risking societal disapproval (Herbig & Miller, 1991), fear of sustaining own nation´s 10

identity (Kissinger, 2001) or even their own security. (Bakardjieva, 1992)

3. Bass Model and Critical Mass

The Bass model (1969, 2004) has been used in numerous studies as a source of explanation for diffusion processes. The model of Bass is based on the proposition that spread of innovations is mainly influenced by to processes as seen in Figure 2.

• Innovation effect p, also known as an internal influence or propensity to innovate

represents adoption due to a perception of usefulness or worthiness for a self-perception,

when information coming mainly from mass media or adopters direct experience.

Effect p tends to occur primary at the beginning of diffusion.

• Imitation effect q, also known as an external influence or propensity to imitate

comes less from the perception of personal usefulness, but more from societal effects

like norms and worth to mouth, potentially imitating other members of the social system.

Effect q occurs usually later in the diffusion process because a mass of people who

already adopted innovation must be accumulated to start being active. (Bass, 1969; Bass,

2004)

Figure 2. Diffusion of innovation in time divided based on p and q effect. Reprinted

from Rogers, E. M. (2003). The diffusion of innovation 5th edition, 251.

FAs innovation effect tends to be a stronger driver for adoption in individualistic societies, in collectivistic it is just the opposite. (Kim, 2008) About personalities being more convinced more by imitation effect Bass talks as about imitators, about those acting more independently

(innovation effect) he talks ass about innovators when these categories in many aspects correspond with Rogers innovators and laggers categories. (Bass, 1969, 2004; Gatignon et al.,

1989; Rogers, 2003)

4. Cultural Dimensions and Innovativeness

4.1 Hofstede´s Theory

Researcher Geert Hofstede based on data collected 1967 and 1973 divided culture into four dimensions, categories which happened to be widely used across many social science areas.

The distinction later extended with fifth and sixth was used even in area of innovation studies.

(Kolb, 2018) I summarize findings for five categories of them and their relations to the innovativeness. Sixth Indulgence-Restrained int reduced at 2007 I do not use because of its relative freshness and very limited research insufficient for valid conclusions.

Uncertainty avoidance. Uncertainty avoidance is the tendency to avoid potential risk express by a focus on ritual behaviours, an obedience of rules, explicit rules and structured situations. In high uncertainty avoidance societies predictability and security is wanted and needed, different things could be perceived as dangerous there (Hofstede, 1991), people requiring here more time and initial guarantees to limit uncertainty and risk connected with an adoption of new products (La Ferle, Edwards, & Mizuno, 2002).

In low uncertainty avoidant societies risk causing in their perception less discomfort and members of these societies are more willing to accept it. (Yaveroglu & Donthu, 2002)

Potential adopters from fight uncertainty avoidance societies tend to be convinced more by interpersonal sources of information than from mass media. (La Ferle, Edwards & Mizuno,

2002). In big part because novelty might be by these people perceived as a risk. (Greve, 1998)

For adoption, elimination by stress relatedness with other more know products and known aspect of it are recommended. (Erumban, 2006; Wejnert, 2002)

Results of studies analyzing the relationship of uncertainty avoidance are quite clear, showing the inhibiting effect of uncertainty avoidance to innovativeness. Analyses were made in dozens of product categories like ICT, ECR, internet (Edwards & Mizuno, 2002; Everdingen

& Waarts, 2003; Erumban & Jong, 2006; La Ferle, Nath & Murthy, 2004) common consumer durables, (Takada & Jain, 1991) technical goods (Lynn & Gelb, 1996; Lee, 1990) and wide range of other products. (Cordon & Marshall, 2008; Frank et al., 2001; Jain & Dalal, 2015;

Yeniyurt & Townsend, 2003) Research of Yaveroglu & Donthu (2002) indicates that states with higher tendency to be uncertainty avoidance have higher tendency to imitate than innovate, 13

when in low uncertainty avoidance countries is the situation opposite, having innovation coefficient higher.

Longterm orientation. Long-term orientation, formerly known as Confucian dynamic (Bond, 1987) represents another Hofstede´s dimension. The long-term oriented societies are usually more focused on future rewards, giving priority to common sense and reality instead of ideals, promoting slower adaptation of newer concepts, stressing persistence, thrift, loyalty, savings, building relationships, and trustworthiness. (Hofstede,

2001; Hofstede et al, 2011; Yalcinkaya, 2008) encouraging a strong work ethic and performance (Lin, 2009).

People in long-term societies are more able to control their materialistic tendencies, and tendencies to show other people prestige in name of future benefits. Adapting to changing environment. In countries having high levels of LTO, commitments and traditions could pose as barriers of change, however, when a change of it is accepted by society, a pace of diffusion is very fast. (Hofstede, 2001)

Short-term societies, on the other hand rather stress present and past, focusing more on abstract thinking, respect and traditions harder to change, protection of personal prestige and materialistic values. (Hofstede et al., 2010; Yalcinkaya, 2008) People there focus more on fulfilling their immediate needs then planning longer to future, stressing absolute truths, being less flexible. (Hofstede, 2001)

Studies were conducted to measure an effect of long-term orientation on innovativeness, showing positive results. (Everdigen & Waarts, 2003, Kwo, Kim, Koh, 2016,

Czerniak, J., & Smygur, V. 2017). However also some negative results (Erunban & Jong, 2006;

Dwyer, Mesak, & Hsu, 2005;). So in general, results are mixed.

Supporting logic could be found for both sides of the relationship. For short-term orientation pole, higher tendency to strive for status and material wealth might motivate 14

members of a social system to adopt certain innovation to enhance their position and material well-being. (Yalcinkaya, 2008) Following actual trends could be necessary to endure social pressure there. (Nakate & Sivakumar, 1996)

For long-term, people who have stronger tendency to think into future and to grow their saving might be more able to adopt certain technologies, because they are having sufficient resources for them, as they can consider them as being a good investment into future.

On the other hand, people more cautious about a future could be more reluctant to make more radical, innovative choice, because they might be more aware of potential risky future consequences. (Nakate & Sivakumar, 1996; Yalcinkaya, 2008)

In long-term societies to bear cost of more expensive innovations is more common, planning ahead, stressing common benefits for whole society. (Bukowski & Rudnicki, 2018)

High long-term orientation might be expressed in big infrastructure projects as broadband penetration. (Mooij, 2010; Mooij & Hofstede, 2010),

Power distance. Power distance (PD) degree of acceptance of differences in inequality and power in society. Societies high at this factor rely on authority and centralization, follow direction, avoid standing out more. (Hofstede, 2001; Herbig & Miller, 1991) Conform to existing norms and imitate behaviours of others is more common for them.

On the other side people from low power distance countries tend to initiate new behavior more than in high power distance countries (Singh, 2006), to be more independent, decentralized, decide more in cooperation and to promote technological development and adoption of new technologies more (Hofstede 2001)

Impact of high power distance on innovativeness is probably the clearest from all the

Hofstede´s cultural dimensions, being almost in every study negative, in consumer durables products, internet technologies in comparisons of states around the world (Bukowski &

Rudnicki, 2018; Edwards & Mizuno, 2002; Everdingen & Waarts, 2003; Erumban & Jong, 15

2006; Herbig and Miller, 1991; Jain & Dalal, 2015; Kwon, Kim, & Koh, 2016; ; La Ferle,

Takada & Jain, 1991; Peres, Muller & Mahajan, 2010; Yeniyurt & Townsend, 2003) When results of studies show that a coefficient of imitation is in high power distance countries tends to be higher. (Dwyer, Mesak, & Hsu, 2005; Van den Bulte & Stremersh, 2004; Yaveroglu &

Donthu, 2002)

Collectivism / Individualism. People in societies with higher levels of collectivism tends to more prefer collective needs and interest compared to their own than people in societies which are less collectivistic. (Hofstede, 2001). Collectivist cultures tend to build relationships in their in-group, be loyal to it and seek with it harmony. They tend to do things more as a group, what could delay some innovation at the begging, because they will be more probably cautious about which innovations are common in the group, so right, or not, so risky. For individualistic societies, this applies much less because social pressure has lower importance for them. Societal trends are not so contagious there. (Mooij, 1998; Hofstede, 2001)

Impact of high levels of individualism tends to be positive, (Jain & Dalal, 2015; Kwon,

Kim, & Koh, 2016, Le Ferle, Edwards, & Mizuno, 2002 Shane, 1993; Yeniyurt & Townsend,

2003) indicating that in highly individualistic societies coefficient of innovation seems to be high too. (Yaveroglu & Donthu, 2002) On the other hand, in societies which are more collectivistic is higher imitation effect. (Dwyer, Masak, & Hsu, 2005; Yaveroglu & Donthu,

2002;)

A general pattern indicates that in more collectivistic societies innovations spread at the beginning slower, waiting for imitation effect to start up its impact, then, although being rapid, extremely fast, reaching fuller overall penetration level. In more individualistic societies innovations start faster. Though, later their growth is slower than in collectivistic ones. As imitation effect, social pressure is there not so impactful. (Inoue, 1996; Mooij, 1998)

Masculine / Feminine. The masculinity of society in a context of Hofstede´s 16

dimension represent how gender roles in society are structured. In more masculine societies, clear distinctions between man and woman exists, a stronger focus on materialistic tendencies, stress on economic growth, and personal achievement are there present. In more feminine on the other side, tendency to focus on family life, conservation of a living environment, being modest, stress warm personal relationships and do not separate gender roles so much. (Hofstede,

2001, 2010)

As the need for achievement is correlated with innovativeness, researches were suggesting positive effects of masculinity on diffusion processes. (Dekimpe et al., 2000;

Steenkamp et al, 1999; Stremersch, & Tellis, 2004) However, results are mixed ranging from those with positive correlations (Dwyer, Mesak, & Hsu, 2005; Nath & Murthy, 2004, Halkos

& Tzeremes, 2013; Singh, 2006,) through those negatively correlated (Everdingen & Waarts,

2003; La Ferle, Edwards, & Mizuno, 2002; Steenkamp, Hofstede; Wedel, 1999) to those openly mixed or insignificant (Jain & Dalal, 2015; Rinne et al., 2012; Shane, 1992, 1993;

Yeniyurt & Townsend, 2003)

Thus, findings indicate that an effect of masculinity could be diverse or even none, depending probably on a couple external factors, where product category probably plays an important role.

4.2 Hall´s cultural distinctions

Scientist Hall (1976) made the distinction between two types of culture. High-context and low-context, see Figure 3. In high context cultures, people have a stronger tendency to stick to each other and perceive thinks in a wider perspective. People there do not read a meaning of messages just from them by itself but in big part from social clues and situation around. (Czinkota & Ronkainen, 1998; Johansson, 2003). They are more committed to each other, stressing conformity I higher degree. A tendency to make insider and outsider 17

distinctions between them and others is also higher. (Hall, 1976)

On the other hand, people from low-context cultures are more focused on an explicit meaning of messages and taking a majority of information from them, they prefer straight talk with honesty. (Czinkota and Ronkainen, 1998; Johansson, 2003; Gong, 2009) People in low- context cultures have stronger inclination to be somewhat alienated and fragmented, not to depend so much on others, stressing more formal code in contracts, then relationship dimension around it there. People tend to be more individualistic in low-context cultures too. (Hall, 1976)

Figure 3. Comparison of high-context and low-context cultures. Table from Malicki, B. (2017,

November 7). Three Business Culture Differences That Affect Communication. Retrieved

November 1, 2018, from http://blog.jana.com/blog/three-business-cultural-difference-that- affect-communication

According to researches communication in a high context culture is more

homophilous then in low context cultures, thus it is more conducive to the spread of innovative ideas and products. (Hall, 1976; Rogers, 2003). Similar findings observed even other researchers attributing it to higher imitation effect. (Kumar, Czerniak & Smygur, 2017; Gong,

2009; Ganesh & Echambadi, 1998; Takada & Jain, 1991). Helsen et al. on the other hand, suggested that for the relationship is just a little evidence and does not consider it as valid.

Beside high-context low-context societies Hall made another cultural distinction and it is based on time and how it used when people are performing tasks. Polychromous societies are less focused on a process behind conducting of the task, but more the end result, handling usually more tasks simultaneously, putting more affection in the task. Relationships are often more important than it. Interruptions during task are not so big problem for them as well as changes of plans

On the other side monochronic focus more on the processes, organization, punctuality, tends to prefer work on one task at one moment, interruptions are an unwanted element, as any changes of plans. (Duranti & Prata, 2009; Gong, 2009; Takada & Jain, 1991).

The results of the impact among studies very vary. Some showing a positive effect of monochromatism, (Everdingen & Waarts, 2003) others, negative (Czerniak & Smygur, 2017;

Gong, 2009). A little research was done in this time till this moment. Results will probably differ based on typical ways of use of specific products.

4.3 Similarity

Similarly of cultures and societies emitting and adoption innovations have been found as a significant factor influencing a diffusion process. For example, in Phillips, Calantone, and

Lee (1994) researchers concluded that cultural affinity - a concept which represents how much communication, customs and rules between observed social systems resembles - as a positive 19

significant factor for adoption of new technologies.

Similar findings were observed by scientist studying the topic from lead-lag perspective (Ganesh, Kumar & Subramanian, 1997; Kumar & Krishnan, 2002; Takada & Jain,

1991) or general diffusion process of certain innovations (Dekimpe et al., 2000; Suqvist,

Frankand, & Puumalainen, 2005; Talukdar, Sudhir and Ainslie, 2002) extending study focus of similarity on psychic distance – combination of factors originating in heterogeneity impeding communication flow between examined social systems (Wiedersheim-Paul, Olson,

& Welch, 1976), structural equivalence – demographic factors, social indicators, culture (Burt,

1987, DiMaggio & Powell, 1983) or product (Bass, 2004) economical, market, and industry similarity. (Ganesh, Kumar, & Subramaniam’s, 1997; Kumar, Sunder, & Ramaseshan, 2011)

5. Characteristic of Innovators 5.1 Innovators Categories

According to Rogers (2003) society could be divided into, as shown in Figure 4, five categories based on their typical time of adoption. Individual categories have specific behaviors and place in a whole diffusion process. I focus in this chapter, after a short introduction of categories, mainly on correlations between characteristics of these people and innovativeness.

With knowing them it should be possible partially predict the development of diffusion based on the known characteristic of an observed social system. Following categories exist.

Figure 4. Distribution of innovators categories in society. Graph from Smith, A. (2018, July

18). Fintech growth and the diffusion of innovation. Retrieved November 1, 2018, from https://yellcreative.com/fintech-growth-and-the-diffusion-of-innovation/

Innovators are usually risk-takers having resources or/and mental strength and self- confidence to overcome potential negative consequences and social pressure sometimes coming with adopting new technologies. They have usually higher social status and higher technical knowledge (Menzel, 1960; Rogers, 2003; Wejner, 2002). They are mainly those who do not rely in their innovation decisions on information and behaviours of other adopters. (Bass,

1969; Midgley and Dowling, 1978) Serving often as opinion leaders for others.

However, innovators are often outsiders of social systems too. More controversial innovations are then adopted first by them, which is not so helpful for diffusion as thay rarely hold significant influence in social system. (Becker, 1970; Rogers, 2003; Wejner, 2002)

Early adopters are less cosmopolite than innovators and in general, are strongly integrated into their near social system. This group has high levels of opinion leadership than

others, as having favourable characteristic similar to those of innovators but are more perceived as trustful and reliable source of information, because they are perceived by other members of social system more like somebody “like them”, so in other words they serve in many aspects as role models. (Rogers, 2003)

Early majority is one of the biggest adopter categories. Well interconnected in socials system, an early majority does not show to have higher levels of opinion leadership, following early majority a lot. People considered as members of it usually hold above average social system and are less technically oriented. (Rogers, 2003)

Late majority is influenced to adopt usually when the pressure to do that for peers is already to strong to resist and it starts to be an economic necessity. Social norms are usually very strong motivator them, social acceptance of innovation is the must for their adoption. They tend to be sceptical and very sensitive for finances. Opinion leadership is very weak in this category. (Rogers 2003)

Term laggards describe the latest adopters of innovation, they do not serve as opinion leaders for others, in innovation areas they mainly just follow others. These individuals are usually not to cosmopolite, having mainly quite homogeneous local social ties. They have usually limited resources and are suspicious, very aware of any potential risk coming from innovation. They are also older, low social status, more nostalgic and very frugal. (Rogers,

2003; Tellis, Yin & Bell, 2009) Laggers could very easily reject certain innovation although useful for them just because it is branded as something original and new, not proven and quite typical. (Uhl, Andrus, Poulsen, 1970)

5.2 Opinion Leadership

Opinion leadership as described by Rogers (2003) indicates how strong informal impact individuals has on attitude and behaviours of others. Impact based on conformity to a 22

certain social norm, technical expertise, his interconnectedness in a social system.

Opinion leaders are usually more exposed to external communication then to internal to system, are exposed more to mass media more (Green, Langeard, & Favell 1974;

Summers, 1972), they are centres of their communication networks, of higher socioeconomic position and being quite innovative (if social norm´s conditions are favourable to it). (Rogers, 2003)

Opinion leaders could help diffusion but even block it, based on the fact how innovation is acceptable in the society. To let others follow them, the opinion leader must represent and confirm values of his followers, so some inovations going against it could be risky for this purpose. (Rogers, 2003) On the other side, certain innovations increase a status of its adopters, motivating them to adopt. (Saltiel et al., 1994).

5.3 Heavy Users of Previous Products

Extensive research was made about heavy users in certain product categories and diffusion theory. In household products (Robertson, 1971) in electronics field (Danko &

MacLachlan, 1983; Peters & Venkatesan 1973) in internet and communicational services area

(Frank & Sundqvist & Puumalainen, 2001; Vishwanath & Goldhaber, 2003) and in many other product segments (Dickerson and Gentry, 1983; Ettema, 1984, 1989; Gatignon and Robertson,

1985) Resulting in finding that heavy users of previous related technologies are having higher penetration rates.

Heavy users of product category could use new product easier, because of the related knowledge they already have. In their perception might be innovation less risky as they can recognize certain elements of it from their earlier experience from similar products. (Gatignon

& Robertson, 1985) This looks like advantage especially for countries with high technology levels. In such a probability that people in these societies had experience with similar products 23

leading then to faster adoption is higher. (Shih & Venkatesh, 2004)

5.4 Cosmopolitanism

The more cosmopolitan potential adopter is, the stronger tendency he has to be focused on things, people and information around his immediate social system. Individuals being strong in a degree of cosmopolitanism are less influenced by their local social system and prone to be more independent in their adoption decision. Without cosmopolitan individuals can be innovation originating from an external social system only very hardly spread.

(Gatingon, Eliashberg, & Robertson, 1989) Relevant information could not be adequately conveyed without individuals spreading it. In such a scenario, social pressure convincing latter adopters not even created in it.

In analyses of 6 consumer products researchers shows that cosmopolitanism is positively related to Bass´s coefficient of external influence. (Gatignon, Eliashberg, &

Robertson, 1989) Kumar, Ganesh & Echambadi (1998) came to the same conclusion, analysing also effect cosmopolitanism on internal influence (imitation), showing it has a significant negative impact on it. However, some studies even indicated a positive effect of this concept to it (Helsen, Jedidi & DeSarbo, 1993) deterring us from stating a clear conclusion on the direction of the effect.

5.5 Ethnocentrism

Specific case connected primarily with collectivistic societies and influencing a diffusion of innovations is ethnocentrism. As defined by defined by Shimp and Sharma (1987, p. 280) “the beliefs held by consumers about the appropriateness, indeed morality, of purchasing foreign made products.” Societies, where ethnocentrism is high, have a lower tendency to prefer foreign goods, as they have a negative attitude towards it, considering 24

foreign good like a threat for jobs, economy, feeling of their pride. (Shimp and Sharma, 1987)

As purchasing and using foreign goods could be an important factor in spreading innovations, ethnocentrism was found to negatively correlate with diffusion. This negative impact is especially high in collectivistic societies, where is stronger in-group out-group effect present. (Steenkamp, Hofstede & Wedel, 1999)

5.6 Media Availability and Usage

Media provides an important source of information for any modern social system, as that it and its availability attracted the attention of researches. Tellefsen and Takada (1999) analysed how a degree of media availability influence Bass´s coefficient of internal influence q and external p. Researchers have found that with rising availability, the coefficient of internal influence decreases, while p increases. What in other words means that with rising availability of media even raise their impact.

Talukdar, Sudhir & Aislie (2002) were analysing same phenomena too, focusing primarily on TV and newspapers. Again, with rising media availability coefficient of internal influence q decreased and coefficient of external p increased. Finding are supported even from an older study of Rogers and Shoemaker (1971).

At an individual level, mass media are more important for early adopters than for later.

As innovators have a stronger tendency to act independently, even very little support from other members of a social system is needed for their adoption decision. On the other side, for later adopters, local experience is crucial and absence of it could potentially even let to denial of innovation. (Rogers, 2003) Innovators then typically spread acquired information from mass media to other members of a social system as shown by Coleman et al. (1966) or Weiman &

Brosious (1994).

An interesting notion had also Konos, Verhoef & Noslin (2008) that not only 25

availability of mass media in general but also a variety of use and tendency to use more channels before adoption decision has a positive effect on innovativeness.

5.7 Strive for Status

Innovativeness is often connected with strive for status. Research of Van den Bulte

& Stremersch (2004) indicates that societies in which status is important and completion for too, a speed of diffusion is increased, especially when adoption of specific innovation could increase it. Adoption of innovation could send social signals, showing that somebody is identifying with a certain group, or on the other side want to intentionally express the opposite.

(Berger & Heath, 2007; 2008; Bartels & Reinders, 2010). High-status individuals have however even other than informal means to influence adoption, they are often holders of power and they can impose adoption even physically. (Palmer et al.; 1993)

5.8 Susceptibility to Personal Influence

A behaviour of people could be influenced by effects connected with a presence of other, these effects are mainly informational and normative and they could influence an adoption of innovation. (Alkailani & Kumar, 2016) Influence of other people could have negative direction (Barters & Reinders, 2011) but also positive (Alkailani & Kumar, 2016), where high power distance and uncertainty avoidance making relationship more negative, and high individualism and masculinity more positive. (Jain & Dalal, 2015) Indicating in consistency with Rogers (2003) and his earlier mentioned findings about compatibility of innovations with norms and values of targeted social systems.

5.9 Positive Attitudes and Age

Positive attitudes in society connected with innovations in general shown to have a positive relationship with an adoption of new technologies, (Frank et all., 2001) as well as attitudes towards science which are strongly connected with innovations. (Rogers, 2003). Rojas et all. (2003) explaining that if techno-capital (technological knowledge, experience and level of access to modern technologies) accumulates in society, resulting attitudes tend to be positive.

Which in our context means that already technological advanced societies will be probably open to even further technological advancements.

Age is negatively connected with attitudes toward innovations, not a timing of adoption. (Frank et all., 2001)

5.10 Mobility and Literacy

Mobility of people looks like to be positively correlated with the propensity to imitate, which could be potentially explained by increased heterophilous mixing between populations.

(Kumar, Ganesh & Echambadi, 1998). However, mainly, the results are positive, mixed results are found, making the relationship be dependent on external factors like type of the product a lot. (Gatignon, Eliashberg & Robertson, 1989) Among other factors, high literacy shows to be positively correlated with innovativeness (Lee, 1990; Talukdar, Sadhir, & Ainslie, 2002;

Yeniyurt & Townsend, 2003)

5.11 Economic Factors

The wealthier country is, the faster is an innovation rate. (Lee, 1990; Shane, 1994m;

Sundqvist, Frank & Puumalainen, 2005, Lynn & Gelb, 1996) and hundreds of other studies confirming a positive impact of economic resources on a diffusion of innovations.

5.12 Formal Education, Upward Mobility, Dogmatism and Other Factors

Other relationships were summarized by Rogers (2003) and Steenkamp, Hofstede and

Wedel (1999): Less innovative individuals have fewer years of formal education, lower level of upward social mobility, they are more dogmatic, harder to make abstractions, less rational and with fewer levels of intelligence, their self-efficacy is lower. They have a more negative attitude toward change and science. They do not participate socially as much as innovators and are less exposed to mass media but even to interpersonal communicational channels than them

(Rogers, 2003) Their independence is lower, extraversion, optimum stimulation level and impulsivity too. They have a stronger need for structure and for clarity. (Steenkamp, Hofstede,

& Wedel, 1999).

6. Critical Mass Critical mass is created in the moment when a number of individuals in society is so high that a further rate of diffusion starts to be self-sustaining. Without further external subsidies or significantly high advertising costs. (Rogers, 2003) In situations where critical mass is accumulated spread of innovation will jump up rapidly, in certain cases exceeding even

400 %, this moment is in literature known as take-off. (Frank et al, 2001; Golder & Tellies,

1997; Takuldar, Sudhir, & Ainslie; 2002)

An average time for reaching this moment among countries could vary dramatically.

For instance in Europe – based on data from 137 products in 10 categories, in research of

Golder and Tellies (1997) – was average time of take-off in Scandinavian countries (Sweden,

Denmark, Finland, Norway) just 4 years, in Mediterranean countries (Italy, Portugal France,

Greece, and Spain) almost 8. Where cultural variables explain a lot of a variance, especial lower uncertainty avoidance, higher need for achievement and industriousness were important factors with impact on diffusion. (Golder and Tellis 1997)

Frank et al. (2001) have found similar differences between European North and South too. Researchers Talukdar, Sudhir and Ainslie (2002) using broader conceptualization have found in the world across different products for developing countries it is on average 19,25 years and in developed 16, 33, which is difference 17,9 %.

7. Learning effect

7.1 Lead-lag Effect

The learning effect is phenomena happening when diffusion of certain technologies between countries happens with delay. The time on the market where is innovation introduced as first enables to fix product´s flaws and accumulate experience with using it, on new market is then introduced as a more polished and in a more effectively promoted. (Ganesh & Kumar,

1996) Kalish, Mahajan and Muller (1995) explain a higher success of such an innovation by reduction of risk with innovation associated, as from the beginning are on the new market accessible reviews and feedbacks from real past users.

The effect was shown to be valid on a wide range of products in different countries showing a positive impact of lead-lag on adoption in a later introduced countries. (Ganesh,

Kumar, & Subramaiam, 1997; Ganesh & Kumar, 1996; Kalish, Mahajan & Muller, 1995;

Kumar, Ganesh, & Echambadi, 1998; Takada and Jain, 1991) Talukdar, Sudhir and Ainslie

(2002) found a positive relationship for a coefficient of internal influence, and negative for external.

Other authors uncovering topic even more in detail Dekimpe et al., (2000) showing that greater learning exists between culturally similar markets and that countries with homogeneous social systems are reaching wide market penetration faster. A similar conclusion was reached in earlier studies of Hagerstrand and Brown (1965), Malecky and Spector (1976) showing that bigger physical distance between countries and higher social dissimilarity 29

negatively influence diffusion between countries in a lead-lag relationship.

7.2 Mixing Behaviour

Mixing is an adoption concept proposed by Putis et al. (1997) describing interactions between countries in the context of innovations. Three types of mixing are defined by them, two extreme points as pure segregation where a probability of contact leading to spread of innovation, word-of-mouth effect, is zero, and random mixing, where mixing happen freely and third describing value on this continuum Beroulli mixing.

The authors show that rate in which certain nationalities mix very vary and that countries in higher level mixing with other countries adopting certain innovations could benefit from that. A higher percentage of external contacts with other more innovative countries, potentially faster diffusion, same although works even in societies, where more intensive communication across members of heterogenous populations/subpopulations having a similar effect. (*heterophily and homophily viz the first chapter)

The study shows that in context of Europe Germany, France, Italy and Spain having more internal and external contacts with other countries leading to higher diffusion rate, as well innovations are easier spread from them.

PRACTICAL PART:

8. Diffusion of Social Media in Japan

8.1 Introduction

Japan is land by many viewed as a technological superpower, feature flourished here from the early 2000s, camera phones with QR codes already from 2002, NFC-enabled for paying metro as early as 2004. (“Mixi: Rise and fall”, 2015; Zhang, 2008) Though Japan can record such a success, the penetration of social media in Japan is quite low, reaching only 56

% of its population, UK (66 %) and Hong Kong (78 %). (Evans, 2018; “Active social network

“, 2018) Time spent on social media platforms is also low, Japanese user spends on social media on average just 19 minutes daily. In comparison with Philippines (almost 4 hours), or even South Korea (1 hour 3 minutes) land which is second to the last in the ranking. (Nikkei,

2016)

Japanese report that they use social media networks as a source of information and place for „killing time “, “meet and hang out” was less important, 30 % claims that they use them just for the passive reading of information. (Kelly, 2018) Blogging is in Japan very popular phenomenon too, in 2005 Japanese was second-most used language in the world of blogging contributing to the success of social media which incorporate blogging functions.

(„Social Media in Japan 1”, 2015) The main motivation for blogging is in Japan record of thoughts and information, comparing to English-speaking blogs focused more on self- promotion an influence building. Japanese are also 5 times more likely to read blogs then

British, French or Americans. (Yamamoto, 2007)

The average time of reading blogs per person was 62,6 minutes in June 2011, in case of South Korea it was 49.6 minutes in the month, blog reading penetration in that time was also high reaching 80 %. (Radwanick, 2011) The success of blogs could be connected with Japanese

culture limiting open public expressions and supporting more introverted, introspective and formalized behaviors. (Kawaura, Sakata, & Matsuda, 2005; Kageyama, 2007)

Between 2008 and 2012, a number of people 65+ using the internet, predisposition for social media, roses from 37.6% to 62.7%. These people tend to use a word to month and printed media and opinion leaders as the main source of information. Even though they are now rising, overall this age group lag behind others. The influx of older generation to SNS is happening even now, mainly on Facebook, Twitter and Band. However, young people in their 20s are in general more active social media users. (Neely, 2018; Wong, 2015) In last years, 2015 to 2018 also Instagram were growing rapidly (Neely, 2018), however, as Instagram is not part of my research subject, I will not be discussed in more detail.

The trust between people is in Japan very low. In the survey published on Japan

Today. Japanese on a question that they “can trust most people” answered in 33.7 percent of cases that not, other countries in the survey above 60 %. They also in 36.6 % of cases answered that they are not able to distinguish between trustworthy people offline. In case of online interaction, only just 12.9 % Japanese answered that they can, UK (68.3 %), Germany (64, 4

%) had much higher values. As an expression of it, in their SNS Japanese control access to the groups and the availability of content there a lot. (Boyd, 2006). They create a distinct level of friendships and access for them. The intensity of felt commitments to them differs significantly. (Thomson & Ito, 2012)

Politeness is important for Japanese. Arguing or criticizing publicly is not supported.

(Ferle et al., 2002; Takahashi, 2010; Rogers, 2017) In Japan even not accepting friendship offer from boss or a little-known person could be considered as quite a bad manner, people then have in their social media network people because of which they limit their free expression to not offend anybody ((Kashiwagi, 2009; Takahashi, 2010; Viloria, 2012)

8.2 Mixi

The Mixi, purely Japanese platform grown gradually in popularity among its start in

2004 and progress 2011, in 2006 after one year of kick-off had a platform already 5 million of users (see figure 5 showing the growth between March 2004 and March 2006), recording already more than 20 million during 2010 and 2011. (Ghedin,2013; Takahashi, 2010) In 2008 it was that 87,2 percent of all SNS users in Japan were using Mixi. (Takahashi, 2010)

Figure 5. Rise of Mixi in Japan during 2004 and 2006. Orange colour represents number of users. Graph from ひろざわだいき. (2017, February 14). トップ mixi のプレスリリースか

ら読み解く、SNS サービスの機能とユーザー数~プレスリリース 2 年分まとめ~.

Retrieved November 9, 2018, from http://hirozawadaiki.hatenadiary.jp/entry/2017/02/14/091041

Mixi enabled users to create profiles which will fit to Japanese social context. It was built in the way which should strengthen current social relations, enable using pseudonymous names and non-real profile photos (just around 5 % of users used real ones).

Mixi included user-based review system, CDs, DVD games, options of purchasing,

“who’s viewed your page” function, blogging function called “diaries”. The function of status updates was not important there. The layout of the page below in Figure 6.) For joining platform

Mixi required an invitation from an already active user and Japanese phone number.

(Cashmore, 2006; ”Mixi: Rise and fall”, 2015; Takahashi, 2010; Toto, 2008)

Figure 6. General look of Mixi page. Picture from Takahashi, T. (2010). MySpace or Mixi?

Japanese engagement with SNS (social networking sites) in the global age. New media & society, 12(3), 453-475.

Mixi tends to stress building connection based on previous real-life relationship, a different attitude to western networks like Facebook or Twitter. Functions like invitation-only access, mutual acceptance friendship or diaries contribute to that. (Seargeant, 2014) Such a thing corresponds with Japanese culture stressing in-group relationships and interpersonal security more. (Yuki, 2003; Takahashi, 2010) In societies like Japan, the focus is placed on maintaining current social ties and developing them, self-disclosure is stipulated just to the closest social circle there. (Thomson & Ito, 2012, Yamagishi, Cook, & Watabe) contributing to the feeling of commitment expressed on Mix by an increased tendency to read friend´s diaries and respond to their comments. (Mori, 2007) Having too many friends could be by many Japanese even perceived as a risk. The bigger social group there, the higher chance that somebody will be offended. Such a thing then forces Japanese to be in their content more society compliant. (Takahashi, 2010) Some Japanese were even experiencing fatigue from

Mixi, Japanese have even word for it in context of Mixi “Mixi tsukare”. Trying to keep up news on contacts diaries and responding to them had for many people tiresome. (Takahashi,

2010)

Mixi gradually lost the majority of its users, being used only by below 5 % of Japanese social media users. Reasons for fall ware many, Mixi did not catch up rise of mobile phones and optimization to it, it kept success just at older (feature) phones. With increased internationalization purely local social network had limited benefit for its users. Troublesome registration process requiring inviting and Japanese number, too strong anonymousness also did not catch up changes in Japanese society in last 10 year. Comparing to other platforms like 35

LINE or Facebook was searching for real people through anonymous names and profile pictures too difficult. The function of footprint fought against a willingness of Japanese to visit accounts of other to not be spotted, or on the other side cause bad feeling from the obligation to visit friends in tight social knit to express politeness and affection. (Ghedin, 2013; Kelly,

2018; Matthew, 2014; “Mixi: Rise and fall”, 2015)

8.3 LINE

LINE, Japanese app with more than 71 million monthly active users being used by

92.8% of the country’s mobile users per year too. (Statista, 2017). LINE was launched soon after the terrible earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011. The event raised the demand for reliable internet-based communication mean, as during it older technologies failed (calling regularly network did not work, SMS too. LINE reacted fast on this event and because of it and other supporting factors I two years LINE already reached 200 million users. (McCracken,

2015)

The platform from the beginning built primarily for mobile phones, reached from the early customers of a female high school student, a broad audience in Japan and around the world (In 2015 LINE had already 560 million registrations, 181 million logged in the app each month.). LINE is characteristic with high engagement rates, celebrities and companies are able to get here more like and comments than at other comparable social media platforms. (B. &

Francisco, 2013; McCracken, 2015). It is claimed that development was strongly inspired by

Korean KakaoTalk, when from brown and yellow logo the colour was changed to white and green, but the overall design of it is almost the same. (McCracken, 2015) Features and concept of these messenger look suspiciously similar even these days. In Figure 7 you can see the similarity of logos and some general metric actual to the year 2016.

Figure 7. Comparison of LINE and KakaoTalk from 2016 with logos and number of users that time. Table from KH 디지털 2. (2016, September 6). [DECODED: KAKAO] KakaoTalk’s domestic glory falls short overseas. Retrieved November 5, 2018, from http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20160906000923

Line is known for its incorporation of various stickers and fictional characters. Such a character very created based on focus-group to be maximally appealing to East Asian public.

LINE friends, as these characters are named, are having their own story, a system of relationships between them, they experience and express love jealousy, bullying… majority of typical human relationship scenarios is included. These characters are cute and entertaining increasing affection of users toward app, look at Figure 8 and 9. (Lee, 2016; MacCracken,

2015; Park, 2018)

Figure 8. Use of Sticker set with a motive of the haracter called “Brown”. Picture from

Download LINE App to get INR 50 free talk time. (2014, March 26). Retrieved November 9,

2018, from http://www.theunbiasedblog.com/2014/03/download-line-app-to-get-inr-50-free- talk-time.html

Many users collect special editions of stickers released for example during important holidays, events, being willing to pay not-small amounts of money for them. (Lee, 2016)

Stickers are such a standard in LINE that not sending sticker could be even considered as unpolite, showing certain laziness and lack of affection, having certain set could be even sign of certain prestige. (Seargeant & Tagg, 2014) Line offered 140,000 sticker sets and 6,830 emoji in 2015, when up to 2.4 billion stickers and emojis were sent each day by its users. LINE offers offline merchandise too, having their own themed shops with a wide range of products generating enormous revenues from it. (McCracken, 2015)

Line makes groups management easy, dividing different social communities into different chatting groups. Japanese users then could then security on the platform, carefully choosing which content they want to post to certain people and not others, the same works for adding people to such groups, we can see similar tendency at Mixi. Japanese tend to 38

communicate in small groups. With less than five people are Japanese used to communicate within 74, 1 percent, representing real-life relationship´s contacts mainly. Groups hold advanced management features here. (B. & Francisco, 2013; “Line (software)”, n.d., Seargeant

& Tagg, 2014)

Games are included in the LINE, and such games which are focused mainly on community-building, using in-game and out-of-game currency to give or receive gifts and free play from others. Many apps interconnect with LINE messenger exists, LINE Card (sending greeting cards), LINE brush for painting, LINE Café for chatting with people who are unknown for users, Emoji LINE storage for many LINE media. (B. & Francisco, 2013; Ostaszewshi,

2017; Reynolds, 2015) In 2016 LINE already provided 35 related apps offering everything from music services, games or manga. (Russels, 2016)

8.4 Twitter

Between years 2010 and 2011 experienced a steep rise in user base continuing even now, look at Figure 10. During January 2011 it had already 20 million of users, year after 30

M, during 2017 Twitter achieved 45 active users base, almost two times more than Facebook´s

28 million in that time. Although in past years the network was dominated by young people, the situation now changed, only 43 % of Twitter user is under 30 years old. Others are older.

(Coca, 2018; Charles, 2015; Ghedin, 2013 Neely, 2017, 2018)

Strong contributor for Twitter´s growth was a catastrophe in 2011 of earthquake and tsunami. After it the number of Japanese Twitter users increased by 33 %, partly due to its reliability even during the crisis. (Golota, 2018) The popularity of feature phones is also a contributing factor to the success of Twitter, Twitter is well functioning in those, attracting older audience especially by that. (Coca, 2018; Neely, 2016; Nussey & Ingram, 2018)

Twitter enables catching trend as fast as possible, an important characteristic in societies with higher levels of conformity to societal pressure and norms. (Neely, 2016)

Freshness and immediacy of news there is highly regarded by Japanese. (Seargeant & Tagg,

2014) Twitter is also a place for engagement and broader social network, 41 percent of its user reported that they have more than 100 people in friend lists, when LINE just 29 % and

Facebook 28 %. (Seargeant & Tagg, 2014)

Figure 9. Rise of Facebook and Twitter in Japan, Twitter has from the beginning lead.

Graph from Yarow, J. (2012, January 6). CHART OF THE DAY: There's Only One Place in The World Where Twitter Is Bigger Than Facebook. Retrieved November 9, 2018, from https://www.businessinsider.com/theres-only-one-place-in-the-world-where-twitter-is- bigger-than-facebook-2012-1

Twitter Japan’s success is in big part due to its anonymity among its network. (Evans,

2018; Nelly, 2017, 2018; Ghedin, 2013) On Twitter profile are often seen pictures like the character for children Gachapin, dog or anime characters. (Coca, 2018)

Anonymity brings freedom to Japanese users. With anonymous names, Japanese do not need to be afraid of consequences of their expression. (Nussey & Ingram, 2018; Viloria,

2012) Sometimes even with real-names pressure from others is lower. (Seargeant & Tagg,

2014) Risk of anonymity is that validity of an information is sometimes hard to evaluate, as a source is factually unknown and we can hardly evaluate its credibility. (Kaigo, 2012)

Japanese likes blogging and Twitter looks to be a suitable platform for it, the limit of

140 characters for tweet gives actually in Japanese user quite wide opportunities. As Japanese skip spacing and words are usually composed just 1 up to 3 characters, the amount information conveyed by tweet could be even 200 – 300 % higher than by tweet in phonetic languages.

(Coca, 2018; Golota, 2018; “Social media in Japan 1”, 2015) As Japan is a high-context culture for some Japanese it is not still enough, they demand to explain everything carefully to not offend anybody and avoid criticism. (Seargeant & Tagg, 2014)

8.5 Facebook

The Japanese version of Facebook was up already in 2008, the development of the platform was though very slow, comparing to other nations. (Neely, 2016) An important step in the spread of Facebook was the release of the Movie the Social Network in January 2010.

The movie was very successful and raised awareness about this platform in Japan, which was before the release reportedly in literature very slow. (Gilhooly, 2012; Neely, 2016)

Facebook was from its start the place for adding everybody you know, vendors, colleagues, clients on Facebook, something like LinkedIn in US or Europe, which influenced how wide was its user base, probably more negatively. (Nelly, 2017; “Social Media in Japan 41

1”, 2015) As at the beginning primary younger people used the platform, later demographic changed, in 2017 75 % of Facebook´s users were above 30+, being a place more for man (57

% of users) and full-time workers.

During the same year Facebook achieved 29 million of users, lagging behind Twitter with 45 million substantially, when over 90 % of Facebook users accessed it through mobile phones. (Ferreira, 2018, Humble Bunny, 2017; Neely, 2017, 2018; Statista, 2017) Long-lasting lack of interest among wide-groups of Japanese people in Facebook might be explained partly by its tendency to encourage people to boast themselves. Showing their amazing lives, their success on the platform primary. This kind of behaviors is not in Japan by society too much supported, arousing a lot of negative emotions there. (Charles, 2015; Stuard, 2013)

Japanese users of Facebook appropriated international aura of the network, more business-oriented social environment. Fact that interaction with foreigners and their language too, especially the earliest adopters of Facebook were very interested in getting contact with them. (Gilhooly, 2012; Matthew, 2014, Nelly, 2016) This motive however in time diminished to a minimum. (Thomson & Ito, 2012)

To rough start of Facebook in Japan real name policy is claimed contributed extensively. (Neely, 2016) On the other side, to some Japanese a promise of increased trust connected with real names could be in final appealing too. (Gilhooly, 2012) Writing comments on someone´s wall in not in Japan so popular. Some Japanese could feel uncomfortable to express themselves on such an open space. One-to-one messages are more preferred.

(Seargeant & Tagg, 2014)

9. Diffusion of Social Media in South Korea

9.1 Introduction

Digital engagement of Koreans is high, expressed in the tendency to create their own sides, participate in social media services and adopt internet extensively. (Coyner, 2007). In

2013 already, 60 percent of South Korea owner smartphones beating Canada (45 %) or USA

(38 %) quite intensively. (Rousse-Marquet, 2013), In 2016 it was already 74, 63 %.

(“Smartphone penetration rate”, 2016) According to the study from Nielsen Koreaclick almost

91.7 percent of such mobile device users regularly used at least one social network during

October 2016. (Shin, 2016)

During year 2017 social networking activities became the most popular content category, accounting for 19% of the total time spent online. In 2007, social activities accounted for just only 6% of the total spent there. (Oh, Jang, & Kim, 2018)

The trust of South Koreans toward digital media is high. More than two fifths (41 %) of South Koreans trusting to newspaper and web-based media equally, compared to for example television (16 %). Koreans are also claimed to believe blogs, as many as 40 % trusts what they read there. Koreans are on the other side in the online world quite critical, two-thirds of them (66 %) reported that they have shared negative information about a company over the internet, double comparing to Americans. (Coyner, 2007).

South Korean governments invested into internet economy extensively, supporting it practically and even rhetorically. (Lee, Trimi, & Kim, 2013) After the 1997 economic crisis, efforts to invest in internet-economy and new media have risen, broadband networks were built.

The governments started to build a specific type of nationalism based on the success of South

Korea in the world of technologies. (Lee, Trimi, & Kim, 2013; Ok, 2011) Being technological- centric society could be now considered as the national norm. (Coyner, 200; Ungson et al 1997;

Rojas et al., 2003; Lee, 2003, Jeong & King, 1997)

Korean are very competitive, especially in Area of choosing right school and having good performance there. (OECD,2005). Stress on securing well-paid job, ensuring promotion 43

there, do everything in hurry is very high. Stress on completion could be expressed by faster adoption of certain technologies as motive to adopt. Specific case is education where increased stress on studying could lead to higher IT proficiency and thus higher rates of adoption of internet technologies. (KISDI, 2002; Lee & Ungson, 2008; “Stiff competition”, 2017;

Maguire, 2016).

Korean could be considered from consumer point quite ethnocentric, over 90 % cars which Koreans use are Korean, Samsung and LG electronics dominates mobile phones and home appliances market, their locally made cosmetics is also very popular. (Mac, 2015)

Compared to for example Chinese, South Korean prefer domestic products more. (Tsai et al.,

2013)

South Korea had in 2006 the second highest number of bloggers in the world, from the ten most popular blogs in the world South Korea hosted three. Posting even more blog post daily was quite common in that time. (Edelman-Korea, 2006). Koreans use blogs mainly for building and maintaining a current social relationship than for, for example activism. quite a typical tendency for societies with higher levels of collectivism. (Choi, 2006; Kim, 2006; Kim

& Yun, 2007; Ok, 2011) South Korean blogging world was quite long led by social media network Cyworld, which included blogging feature too. (Choi, 2006),

9.2 Cyworld

Cyworld is a quite old social network, older than Facebook or Twitter, coming in similar time as Myspace, see the logo of Cyworld at Figure 11. During its existence it experienced a long period of success in South Korea, before it failed with the entrance of other social media platforms in the Korean market.

Figure 10. Official logo of Cyworld with emoticon inside and red and orange colours. Logo from Yeahoo7. (2011, July 5). Cyworld. Retrieved November 8, 2018, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyworld#/media/File:Cyworld.jpg

Cyworld started as page showing list of members from the same school or hometown, other features were built gradually. (Dong-hyung, 2004) It started to be increasingly popular in the time where users needed for their presence still some kind of programming knowledge letting it hard for an user to joint and communicate. (Lee, 2004)

Cyworld was rising in popularity, from 2002 to 2003 was Cyworld such a trend that term cyholic was used representing an extensive activity of Koreans on the platform. (Ghedin,

2013) In 2005 more than 11 million homepages were created on the platform, when every user has visited on average 700 pages a month. (Chae, 2005) In 2007 90 percent of teenagers and people in their twenties were registered there. (Coyner, 2007)

Having Cyworld account was in that time among younger generation almost a norm, not having it could be considered anti-social. (Lee & Ungson, 2008) Real identity is enforced, use real name and submit Korean resident identification number, when people wanted to register was mandatory. (Choi, 2006) 45

From the practical point, the platform was based on user´s avatar and minihomes called Minihomepy, see Figure 11 and 12. (Dong-hyung, 2004; Ghedin, 2013; Sicard, 2018)

Figure 11. Social room minihomepy in Cyworld: Example of look No.1. Pictures from Pei- chieh. (2008, November 14). Cyworld decided to leave US market. Retrieved November 8,

2018, from https://aiko0324.wordpress.com/tag/cyworld/

Figure 12. Social room minihomepy in Cyworld: Example of look No.2. Pictures from Pei- chieh. (2008, November 14). Cyworld decided to leave US market. Retrieved November 8,

2018, from https://aiko0324.wordpress.com/tag/cyworld/

Minihomepy was an extension of the real world, reflecting in not only in practical, functional manner but also visual, expressing relationship by graphic and animations. (Tong- hyung, 2010). The border between it and the real world was very thin. (Dokdo, 2012) In

research mentioned by Choi (2006) users considered mini-hompies as their own spaced and augmented self, showing higher levels of identification with it.

Figure 13. Rise of Facebook and decline of Cyworld in South Korea from November 2009 to

May 2012. Graph from Martin, R. (2012, June 28). Facebook Showing Solid Growth in Japan and Korea. Retrieved November 8, 2018, from https://www.techinasia.com/facebook-japan- visitors-month

From the beginning until now the most active users were woman teens in their early

20s. The focus of network on relationships and cutely made avatars and homes together with some fashionable accessories made this platform attractive. (Dokdo, 2017; February 23) To decorate your room in Cyworld virtual currency, exchangeable for real money, which was called dotori, was used. Buying new background posters, items like furniture or playing music there was conditioned by using it. (Ghedin, 2013; Hyun-lee, 2004)

The feeling of ownership of items further build a sense of commitment and attachment to the service. (Choi, 2006; Ghedin, 2013) Three main reasons for decorating were reported, provide a pleasant environment to visitors, entertainment and self-expression, last, not typical value for societies with higher levels of collectiveness. (Choi, 2006)

Cyworld even included the function for asking a friend to buy them certain item to minihomepis, or put such items in wish boss on user´s page which could everybody see creating social pressure to that, forcing certain users to do it as a result of their increased relationship building need. (Hyun-lee, 2004) The pages on Cyworld had even their own level of friendliness and sexiness based on the number of gifts person gives or receives, building something like it prestige, motivating users to five more to look more like good people and seek attention more too. Jealousy and feeling of competition could have been easily raised. (“Koreans cyberstip”,

2005) Cyworld also measured a popularity of individual users by putting function measuring number of visitors on the page. The number was a sign of popularity among users. To some people this number meant subject of their interest and it was arousing a sense of competition among them and potentially more or less popular, “successful” users. (Kim, n.d)

Communication between communities and groups was just very hardly possible in

Cyworld. (Edelman-Korea, 2006) Although forming a new relationship in Cyworld is not impossible, 55 % of questionnaire participant who tried it reported that such a relationship stayed strictly online, was not reflected in the real world. (Choi, 2006)

As South Korea is relationship-based culture, communities are important to them.

(Choi, 2006, 2006). Five out of 10 Korean pages had a function of community, showing the importance of community building in Korea. (Koreanclick, 2002–2007, Lee & Ungson, 2008)

For example, Korean students tend to use SNS to maintain current social network and gain useful information and social support there. (Choi, 2006; Kim, Sohn, & Choi, 2011)

Around 70 percent of connections on social media in South Korea are family members and 48

close friends according to Kim, Sohn, & Choi (2011), comparing to US where only a very small part. Such a focus could have been beneficial at the beginning of platform in South Korea, but soon later it started to be a barrier for development. (Hye-min, 2011)

Cyworld gives users an option to control access to certain content, areas of minihomepies. Such a thing is in S. Korea very important and it is very common. As for example, 30 percent of Cyworld identify themselves to be only diary recorders, keeping there often intimate information about themselves, need to protect them is rising. (Hyun-lee, 2004;

Hwang, Kim, & Cho, 2008; Ok, 2011) Cyworld also offered access features reflecting Korean

“Chons” system, dividing other people, mainly family member based on the level of their blood relatedness with users. Visiting profiles of people in close chon circles first when logging in to the the platform was common practise among many Koreans. (Choi, 2006; Lee & Ungson,

2008)

9.3 Kakao

Kakao is a complex system of serviced providing texting, calling, sharing multimedia, making online payment book restaurant, hotels or play games and read a manga, though,

KakaoTalk messenger it the main. (Ramirez, 2018; Williams, 2018, Rousse-Marquet, 2013)

All data in Kakao are encrypted, polling and scheduling features for members in the chatroom are accessible. (Williams, 2017)

When KakaoTalk was introduced in March 2010 it started to be popular almost instantly, reaching 1 million users by September, at the end of the year 5 million, in April 2011 number of users already doubled to 10 million. (Mac, 2015) During the year of 2013 the time spent on Kakao was rising rapidly. When in July 2012 it was 175 minutes, in July 2013 it was already 302 minutes. (Rousse-Marquet, 2013) Users have spent on average 849.5 minutess in app after three years during November 2016. (Frier, 2016) 49

Kakao had in at the end of 2012 70 million registered users around the world, extremely and mainly popular in South Korea where 90 % of the population uses it, to have it is factually a norm. (Rousse-Marquet, 2013) For seeing the graph of development of user base check Figure 15. As of September, 2016 KakaoTalk kept 49.1 million active users worldwide.

(„What is Kakao“, 2017)

Figure 14. Growth of Kakao Users internationally from March 2010 to April 2013. Graph from

Wee, W. (2013, May 3). KakaoTalk’s Growth Chart: Hitting 90 Million Users Soon. Retrieved

November 8, 2018, from https://www.techinasia.com/number-of-kakaotalk-users

As in LINE people has here different stickers sets, which could be beside other options collected and purchased and come up with new updates. They call them Kakao Friends and introduced them on 2013. Introduction of KakaoFriend come on 2013. (Woo-hyun, 2017)

These characters are as well as LINE friends in Japan widely popular, in research by

KOCCA published by Korea Herald conducted on 1200 domestic costumers, Kakao Friends ranked as first in popularity with 14.3 percent of votes. (Woo-hyun, 2017) Sending them is very common and demanded. (Rousse-marquet, 2013) Same as Japanese-Korean LINE Kakao sells a wide range of merchandise. (Woo-hyun, 2017) Discussion about sticker is included mainly in Japanese LINE part.

Apps allow you to buy and physical gifts within the app in 2017 there was around

68 000 of them available. Via KoreaTalk is now possible to send almost anything accessible in classical stores. (Woo-hyun, 2017)

On March 2012 Kakao Story app was launched giving user option to public status update and share content to their friends on KakaoTalk. After week 9, 2 million of people installed the app. In May same year 9,44 million users logged into the app. (Rousse-marquet,

2013) Integration of contact from KakaoTalk to Kakaostory exists. (Frier, 2013)

9.4 Band

Band is recently popular platform which enables send reminders, set deadlines, organize events. Sharing of media is private always sticking to independent groups. Groups could reflect a natural social community of users but also be totally separated. (Band Blog, n.d.) From January to May Band 2018 had the highest monthly active user among other social media networks. Band´s target segment is men in their 40s and 50s. Almost two-thirds of overall time spent at Band (67 %) was spent in Band by this segment, these users usually started to use the platform as a result of a direct invitation. (Dong-hwan, 2014; Jin-yong, 2018; Shin,

2016)

10. Diffusion of social media in Mainland China

10.1 Introduction

Majority of Chinese social networks were created after the year of 2015 following the founding of Facebook at the West. The establishment of Qzone, Xiaonei (later change to

Renren) emerged. Soon Sina Weibo, nicknamed as Chinese Twitter and WeChat messenger followed too. (Wang, 2016, Jin, 2018). In China were social media built from the beginning primary on mobile phones, as the land basically leapfrogged time period of PCs. (Chan, 2015)

In 2016 over 91 % of the online population had social media account in China, while in the U.S. the figure it was 67 %, internet usage on mobile phones is also quite high. (Wang,

2016, Jin, 2018). China has interconnected social media system imprinted in all main online industries, gaming, video stream, news feeds. Having social features in a majority of services is a norm. (Jin, 2018, CNNIC, 2018) And an impact of such a media on customers is high. One study showed that 68% of consumers in China say their shopping choices are influenced by social media. (Enberg, 2018) Currently, short videos sharing and watching is on Chinese SNS trend, time spend watching them grows rapidly in China, in 2016 it was for example three times.

(Chen & Deng, 2018)

Mentioning public support too, Chinese government invests into digital infrastructure massively, supporting a building of optical cables, technological companies and services, stressing in its five-year plans. („E-commerce in China “, 2017; „Statistical Report on Internet

“, 2018).

10.2 QQ

Before WeChat, owned as well as QQ owned by same company Tencent, outstripped

QQ with an 889 million MAUs in 2016, QQ had been the most prevailing social media platform in China. It was welcomed not only from the instant message feature, but also the personalized 52

Qzone and customized characters. (Chan, 2015; Wang, 2016, “Wechat”, n.d.) QQ with limited functions existed already in 1999, its growth was long and stable peaking in 2016 with 899 million users, comparing to 20é6 when it had one quarter 233 million. (Cheng & Deng, 2018)

For example, each QQ account has the right to adopt a pet, which you could give name to, choose gender, decide where he was raised and how much volume it was allowed to eat.

Beside pets, people can develop their own characters and choose various outfits, hairstyle, skin color and the appearance of the characters, representing how they look like in a virtual space.

In the selling centre, users can buy decorative things to decorate their Qzone by online currency, where the young generation was obsessed in decorating their rooms which represent their personal and cultural identity. (Chiu, 2018; Wang, 2016)

Figure 15. Characters on QQ. Graph from QQ秀是我们这一代人的时尚启蒙课吗？. (2017,

September 25). Retrieved November 14, 2018, from http://www.sohu.com/a/194365680_162522

Half-anonymity is another characteristic of the social media in this period, as QQ account is formed by unique QQ number, and it's common for users to add strangers by interest

group or through an imbedded feature called "floating bottle", which strangers sent and received their messages by. (Chen & Deng, 2018, Wang, 2016)

It's also typical for young generations to have a sorted-out group, where they have dozens of hundreds of friends ranging from relatives to unknown strangers but "online friends".

Names of groups are often quite creative. Generally is QQ compering to Wechat quite an open platform, however group acces could be quite restricting.(Honigman, 2016; Wang, 2016).

10.3 Wechat

WeChat is the most used social media platform in China with over 1,040 million users representing 88 % of Chinese smartphone users, 82 % of its user use it more than an hour each day, this figure is expected to grow bigger in 2018. (Jin, 2018). Already in March 2012 WeChat had exceeded 100 million registered user accounts, with the rise of smartphone use even

WeChat user base rose to today´s numbers. (Deng & Chen, 2018)

Wechat launched in January 2011 and although it first a few months was lagging, when voice messages feature was introduced the situation change. After May 2011 when it was introduced Wechat user based started to rise rapidly, appealing to a wide range of people. At the end of 2017 the number of daily voice messages reached 6.1 billion. This feature is in high degree popular even among seniors and business people as they do not need to type. (Deng &

Chen, 2018; Jin, 2018)

In China tradition to give red envelopes with money exists and WeChat used this as an opportunity for its growth. They introduced red pockets feature in Wechat enabling sending money directly to individual and even group chats, all online. Red Packet became an overnight success, during the introduction of the feature in 2014 just during holidays 40 million of red pockets with money was sent, one year later that number reached 3.2 million. („How Wechat changes life“, 2016; Deng & Chen, 2018; Chao, 2017) 54

WeChat moments is the feature for posting diverse photos and videos and content.

This feature is focused especially on visual objects and visual style of social media communication, texting is important less. (Jin, 2018). This factualy daily status feature is quite private. When somebody gives likes or writes comments under someone post, this is seen just by that person and mutual friends, not to friends of friends or the general public. For making content accessible wider it is necessary to set up own group. („Tech tip“, 2015)

WeChat uses apps within an app model. Apps normally downloadable independently could be added to Wechat as modules, making access to them fast and easy. Because of that almost every online accessible function is included there, from playing chess, to paying or booking doctor appointments. (Deng & Chen, 2018; Chan, 2015; Plotnick, 2018)

Advanced group management, as well as wide-range of sticker, were important to the success of WeChat too, similarly as in case of Kakao or Line. (Brennan, 2015; Chao, 2017;

Hariharan, 2017)

10.4 Weibo

Chinese social network Weibo, formerly often named as „Chinese Twitter “, (because of similar concept and same 140 characters limit, which was though lifted in 2016), today according to many authors more like a mixture of many western platforms with its own specific features. (Hallanan, 2017; Wang, 2017) is used nearly by one third of the whole population the penetration among young users (aged 17-24) is even higher, with half of them have Weibo account, usage rate among people with a university degree and from an urban area is also higher.

Its monthly active users have reached 431 million in June 2018, with a net addition of around 70 million users compared to last year. (China Social Media Trends, 2018; Jin, 2018,

„Sina Weibo“, n.d.)) In last months Weibo tries to focus on short-video and video streaming to attract users to spend on it more time. Following such a trend in China. (Lau, 2018) 55

A crucial element of Weibo is Key opinion leaders, strongly influential personnel in

China benefiting from low trust in traditional media in China, who tend to raise the hot topics of discussions or lead the social trend by posting. (Liang, 2018; „The ultimate“, 2017.) Bigger key opinion leaders usually have millions or dozens of million followers, while “micro- influencers” around 10,000 and 20,000. Young generations are the major fans groups of KOLs, they follow them to get recommendations to buy products that are used by their beloved KOLs, engage online with their idols extensively. (Jin, 2018; „China Social Media Trends“, 2018)

The tendency to follow opinion leaders is in China increased by distrust in traditional media controlled by the government, thus having lower credibility, as well as many fake product´s and health safety scandals of Chinese companies. KOL and close relationship then turns out to be the most credible source of information for many Chinese. (Hallanan, 2017;

Lamp, 2016; Liang, 2018, Plotnik, 2018; Verot, 2017) Verified KOL has on Weibo privilege rights, like posting Weibo stories or offer many sponsor post options. (Hallan, 2017)

Chinese believe in recommendations of influencers really intensively, according to the research of A.T. Kearney from May 16, 2018, as much as 78 % of them is receptive to recommendations of celebrities, when 64 % to online micro-influencers and online celebrities.

The highest values from studies nations as you can see below. (Enberg, 2018)

Figure 16. Receptiveness towards media brand promotion tactics in May 2017, national comparison. Graph from Enberg, J. (2018, August 2). What’s the Difference Between a KOL and a Wanghong? Retrieved November 11, 2018, from https://www.emarketer.com/content/what-s-the-difference-between-a-kol-and-a-wanghong

CONCLUSIONS

11. Discussion

During literature research these topics emerged as important and relevant towards diffusion of innovation theory. Advanced group management, public support towards digital technologies and experience with them, privacy, an importance of relationships, cultural compatibility, building SNS as an ecosystem, uncertainty avoidance as a motive for use and adoption.

Management of groups in SNS is stressed in all three East Asian nations, LINE,

KakaoTalk, Wechat, Mixi, Band or Cyworld group features are made on the platform are made very visible and are widely used, when the focus is placed primarily on maintenance of current social networks, compared to Western SNS. Beside stress on group building and management, two other feature of East Asia SNS appears to be important. Blogs oriented on a relationships popular in S. Korea and Japan being integral part of their social media sides like Mixi or

Cyworld. And Brand characters used on LINE, KakaoTalk and in a lesser degree on Wechat too. These characters have its own stories and to be affected emotionally by them looks to be very easy. Characters building and connecting are very important in other platforms like QQ or Cyworld.

Especially in Japan the privacy issue is crucial, anonymity let to the preference of SNS

Mixi and Twitter there. Even in South Korea this might have been an issue in case of SNS

Cyworld offering wide option towards content access. Chinese tends to be in this more benevolent. As privacy concerns correlate with uncertainty avoidance and China is compared to Korea and Japan quite uncertainty tolerant it tends to be logically consistent. (Brashear,

Milne, & Kashyap, 2016; Trepte et al., 2017)

In the case of Japan, its high uncertainty avoidance was expressed in behaviour after the 2011 earthquake, when the Japanese started to adopt social media widely, to avoid the risk of unfunctional communication services.

Especially in South Korea the support for digital technologies is wide, a government supports them, society too, making penetration of SNS smoothers there. In China the support from people and government is also high, mobile technologies are there priority, people go to

SNS to find there their favourite influencers to give them shopping and life recommendations.

In Japan, the situation is similar too. All these states are producers and heavy users of electronic too, just Japan partly lags probably because of its demographic structure, when older people are less likely to be strong digital technologies users.

The main East Asian SNS LINE, Kakao and Wechat are today ecosystems including very wide serviced inside. No many independent apps, but everything in one from one provider.

Besides chatting, food and gift delivery, banking, booking hotels or taxi.

East Asia SNS tend to be culturally customized, besides earlier mentioned issues like privacy and group management and blogging features, it reacts on cultural specific of their domestic countries. In China Wechat used red pocket function, reflecting the tradition of giving money in China, LINE and Kakao talk creates special stickers sets for public holidays and actual societal trends, not—real name use of SNS is in Japan very popular but included in S.

Korea SNS too. (Cyworld). There is even S. Korea competitive culture included, in case of

Cyworld through revealing user´s minihome spaces and his/her popularity or even by stickers which are paid and could be collected and used as an expression of status too.

Culturally inconsistent SNS not customized to local customs tended to struggle in

Japan (Facebook mainly). In S. Korea was Facebook and Instagram success, though it does not dominate the market, Eastern and even Western networks hold a good position and factually complement itself. In the case of Mainland China, I cannot judge as Western SNS are banned. 59

Some SNS in Asia tended to have rapid development, LINE, Kakao or Wechat grown rapidly from the beginning, as well as Mixi and Cyworld. The main limitation was az the beginning more technological background (ownership of smartphones and internet connection) then unacceptance. More struggle some development had Facebook in Japan, growing very slowly then got wider userbase, even Twitter has grown quite slow, though almost two times more successful than Facebook there.

In South Korea development of Facebook was faster, as well as Instagram which has grown rapidly. (“Facebook, Instagram and Facebook”, 2018; “Number of Facebook users”,

2017; “Primary Social Media, 2017) This implies that cultural differences in Korea among

Western and Easter SNS might not be so significant factor in adoption, or just might not be so big. The pattern of wide and fast adoption after reaching certain mass of users is observable on the majority of analysed SNS.

12. Conclusions In this part I try to answer my research question - How sociocultural context influenced a diffusion of social media innovation in South Korea, Japan and Mainland China?

– based on knowledge I acquired during my literature research.

East Asian social media ecosystem developed to correspond with cultural values and norms in East Asia nations, some aspects of the system probably more helped the diffusion of

SNS there, some made opposite. Public support as heavy use of digital technologies occurring in all three analysed states according to theory should help with adoption of new technologies, together with the cultural compatibility of some SNS there.

From the possible factors influencing the development the stress on groups and relationships building quite emerges, through group features, personified stickers characters, stress on current social networks which could be connected with high scores of all observed

nations on Hofstede´s dimension of collectivism (Japan: 46, Korea: 18, China: 20) usually expressed by slower initial adoption and rapid later development.

Uncertainty avoidance has according to theory negative effect on diffusion, this relationship is especially observable on the case of Japan (UA score: 92), when strong privacy concerns (correlated strongly with uncertainty avoidance) occurred and contributed to struggles of more open social media in Japan, as well as the catastrophe of earthquake 2011. In S. Korea

(Score: 85) such a relationship is less clear, when although older Cyworld SNS worked with privacy concerns a lot, current successful SNS Kakao, Facebook, or Instagram, do not devote to this such an increased attention. In the case of China, privacy concerns do not look to be a case which could be connected with its low levels of uncertainty avoidance (30). (“Hofstede

Insights”, n.d.)

The high-context culture of the observed nation could be express in the tendency of their main SNS to create a complex ecosystem of services, extensive blogging features or stress on relationship management in wide range of social groups and use of stickers, stress on videostreaming migh be expression of high-context culture too.

In the case of Japan, also the effect of high age of the population was probably significant, leading to higher reluctance toward new technologies, expressed for example by still high rate of use of feature phones.

From Hofstede´s other three dimensions - long-term orientation, masculinity or power distance - I was not able to derive any convincing conclusions, in long-term orientation and masculinity all three states scores high, however result of the impact on diffusion are according to theory mixed. Power distance is the highest in China, where holders of power support digital technologies, so a potentially negative impact of this dimension, in this case, does not look convincing.

13. Limits

This work has, of course, some limits. As the main, I consider that this research is ,because of a language barrier and word limit, mainly qualitative so for stronger conclusion validation of suggested conclusions by quantitative research would be needed.

Another limitation is potential critique of Hofstede´s research and his dimensions, as well as Bass or Rogers theory of diffusion of innovation. As I use correlations towards this concept in my work, if those are not true, the validity of this literature research would be lower.

Because of word limit and partially too wide research topic, some tendencies and social networks with data about them were omitted (Facebook, Twitter, Daum in case of S.

Korea and in general). If there were more of them in my work, more conclusions could be made.

Certain “Western bias” could also be an issue, as a member of relatively individualistic society from Europe I perceive things in East Asia differently than natives, or people from different nations. I have spent some time in those societies but it is not probably enough. For higher validity of my conclusions, probably more people from different parts of the world would need to work on this text with me.

14. References

Active social network penetration in selected countries as of January 2018. (2018, January).

Retrieved November 9, 2018, from

https://www.statista.com/statistics/282846/regular-social-networking-usage-

penetration-worldwide-by-country/

Active social network penetration in selected countries as of January 2018. (2018, January).

Retrieved November 9, 2018, from

https://www.statista.com/statistics/282846/regular-social-networking-usage-

penetration-worldwide-by-country/

Alkailani, M., & Kumar, R. (2016). Impacting innovativeness: The role of interpersonal

influences and cultural dimensions on consumer innovativeness. Journal of Strategic

Innovation and Sustainability, 11(1), 62-78.

B., Francisco (2013, June 28). Making Friends And Studying Japanese With Japan's Ultra

Popular Social Network, LINE. Retrieved November 5, 2018, from

https://www.tofugu.com/japan/line-social-network-in-

japan/?fbclid=IwAR0Nueot52p0pXgIV3c2Hzya2NiyTgauUfYR5da77IcWO6Rmnx

qyq0vREY8

Bakardjieva, M. (1992). Home satellite TV reception in Bulgaria. European Journal of

Communication, 7(4), 477-489

Band Blog. (n.d.). Retrieved November 5, 2018, from https://blog.band.us/author/bandglobal/

Bartels, J., & Reinders, M. J. (2010). Social identification, social representations, and consumer

innovativeness in an organic food context: A cross-national comparison. Food quality

and preference, 21(4), 347-352.

Bass, F. M. (1969). A new product growth for model consumer durables. Management science,

15(5), 215-227.

Bass, F. M. (2004). Comments on “a new product growth for model consumer durables the

bass model”. Management science, 50(12_supplement), 1833-1840.

Becker, M. H. (1970). Sociometric location and innovativeness: Reformulation and extension

of the diffusion model. American sociological review, 267-282.

Berger, J., & Heath, C. (2007). Where consumers diverge from others: Identity signaling and

product domains. Journal of Consumer Research, 34(2), 121-134.

Boyd, d. and J. Heeter (2006) ‘Profiles as Conversation: Networked Identity Performance on

Friendster’, paper presented at the 39th Hawaii International Conference on System

Sciences (HICSS-39), Kauai, HI.

Brashear, T., Milne, G., & Kashyap, V. (2016). 1 Internet Culture And Information Privacy

Concerns In Developing Countries. EnANPAD, 1-17. Retrieved November 14, 2018,

from

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/7460/17c94f6f650567fc05d761126941100dc2e0.pd

Brennan, M. (2015, August 14). How to Manage Your WeChat Groups: WeChat Essential Tips.

Retrieved November 11, 2018, from https://chinachannel.co/how-to-manage-your-

wechat-groups-wechat-essential-tips/?fbclid=IwAR0N1OQR-

QBsX_hYGoOX6XDHX7bGmYAy3kZmFFvIHDk6JfUXkEUqIVbXdX4

Brown, L. A., Malecki, E. J., & Spector, A. N. (1976). Adopter categories in a spatial context:

alternative explanations for an empirical regularity. Rural Sociology, 41(1), 99.

Bukowski, A., & Rudnicki, S. (2018). Not Only Individualism: The Effects of Long-Term

Orientation and Other Cultural Variables on National Innovation Success. Cross-

Cultural Research, 1069397118785546.

Burt, R. S. (1987). Social contagion and innovation: Cohesion versus structural equivalence.

American journal of Sociology, 92(6), 1287-1335.

Cardon, P. W., & Marshall, B. A. (2008). National culture and technology acceptance: The

impact of uncertainty avoidance. Issues in Information Systems, 9(2), 103-110.

Cashmore, P. (2006, July 09). Mixi, Japan's Biggest Social Network. Retrieved November 5,

2018, from https://mashable.com/2006/07/08/mixi-japans-biggest-social-

network/?europe=true#UTVMaP.47uqx

Coca, N. (2018, May 31). Why Japan Loves Twitter More Than Facebook. Retrieved

November 5, 2018, from https://www.ozy.com/acumen/why-japan-loves-twitter-

more-than-facebook/86545

Coleman, J. S., Katz, E., & Menzel, H. (1966). Medical innovation: A diffusion study. Bobbs-

Merrill Co.

Coyner, T. (2007). The Power of Cybermarketing in Korea. Korea Times On Line (May 25,

2007).

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/ www/news/special/special_view.asp?newsIdx=2314&

categoryCode=175.

Coyner, T. (2007). The Power of Cybermarketing in Korea. Korea Times On Line (May 25,

2007).

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/special/special_view.asp?newsIdx=2314&c

ategoryCode=175

Coyner, T. (2007). The Power of Cybermarketing in Korea. Korea Times On Line (May 25,

2007).

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/ www/news/special/special_view.asp?newsIdx=2314&

categoryCode=175.

Craig, C. S., Douglas, S. P., & Grein, A. (1992). Patterns of convergence and divergence among

industrialized nations: 1960-1988. Journal of International Business Studies, 23(4),

773-787. cyberspace: Social networking in Cyworld]. Korean Journal of Consumer and Advertising

Psycholoy, 9

Czerniak, J., & Smygur, V. (2017). National Culture as a Determinant of Innovativeness.

Handel Wewnętrzny, (4 (369) Tom I), 50-58.

Czinkota, M. R., & Ronkainen, I. A. (1998). Internetional Marketing, Dryden Pres. Fort Worth,

etc, 427.

Danko, W. D., & MacLachlan, J. M. (1983). Research to accelerate the diffusion of a new

invention-the case of personal computers. Journal of advertising Research, 23(3), 39-

43.

De Mooij, M. (2013). Global Marketing and Advertising, Understanding Cultural Paradoxes,

4th.

Dee Dickerson, M., & Gentry, J. W. (1983). Characteristics of adopters and non-adopters of

home computers. Journal of Consumer research, 10(2), 225-235.

Dekimpe, M. G., Parker, P. M., & Sarvary, M. (2000). Global diffusion of technological

innovations: A coupled-hazard approach. Journal of Marketing Research, 37(1), 47-

59.

Deng, I., & Chen, C. (2018, August 16). How WeChat became China’s everyday mobile app.

Retrieved November 11, 2018, from

https://www.scmp.com/tech/article/2159831/how-wechat-became-chinas-everyday-

mobile-app

Deng, I., & Chen, C. (2018, August 16). How WeChat became China’s everyday mobile app.

Retrieved November 11, 2018, from 66

https://www.scmp.com/tech/article/2159831/how-wechat-became-chinas-everyday-

mobile-app

DiMaggio, P., & Powell, W. W. (1983). The iron cage revisited: Collective rationality and

institutional isomorphism in organizational fields. American sociological review,

48(2), 147-160.

Dokdo. (2012, February 23). Cyworld to Build Version of Cyworld Where Cyworld is Popular.

Retrieved November 5, 2018, from

http://dokdotimes.blogspot.com/2012/02/cyworld-to-build-version-of-cyworld.html

Dong-hwan, K. (2014, March 31). Naver Band trips rival Kakao with new gaming platform for

smartphones. Retrieved November 5, 2018, from

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2014/03/511_154433.html

Dong-hyung, L. (July 22, 2004). Interview with the creator of Cyworld: The dream of a

countryside boy Retrieved November 21, 2012, from

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyworld#Minihomepy_2

Duranti, G. & Di Prata, O. (2009). Everything is about time: does it have the same meaning all

over the world? Paper presented at PMI® Global Congress 2009—EMEA,

Amsterdam, North Holland, The Netherlands. Newtown Square, PA: Project

Management Institute.

Dwyer, S., Mesak, H., & Hsu, M. (2005). An exploratory examination of the influence of

national culture on cross-national product diffusion. Journal of International

Marketing, 13(2), 1-27.

Edelman-Korea. (2006). A survey: Power to the people: Edelman Regional Stakeholder Study.

Seoul, Korea.

Eliashberg, J., Tapiero, C. S., & Wind, J. Y. (1983). Diffusion of new products in

heterogeneous populations: incorporating stochastic coefficients. 67

Enberg, J. (2018, August 2). What’s the Difference Between a KOL and a Wanghong?

Retrieved November 11, 2018, from https://www.emarketer.com/content/what-s-the-

difference-between-a-kol-and-a-wanghong

Erumban, A. A., & De Jong, S. B. (2006). Cross-country differences in ICT adoption: A

consequence of Culture?. Journal of world business, 41(4), 302-314.

Ettema, J. (1989). Interactive electronic text in the United States: Can videotex ever go home

again. Media use in the information age. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 105-123.

Evans, I. (2018, August 13). Which Japanese Social Media Platforms Are Right For My Brand?

Retrieved November 9, 2018, from http://www.wordbank.com/blog/international-

marketing/japanese-social-media/ examination of social identity theory in North American and East Asian cultural contexts.

Social Psychology Quarterly, 166-183.

Facebook, Instagram and YouTube* User Penetration in South Korea, 2018 (% of internet

users). (2018, July 6). Retrieved November 18, 2018, from

https://www.emarketer.com/Chart/Facebook-Instagram-YouTube-User-Penetration-

South-Korea-2018-of-internet-users/220369

Feder, G., & O'Mara, G. T. (1982). On information and innovation diffusion: A Bayesian

approach. American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 64(1), 145-147.

Ferreira, A. (2018, January 7). The social media evolution and prediction for Japan. Retrieved

November 5, 2018, from https://www.infocubic.co.jp/en/blog/social-media/social-

media-evolution-prediction-japan/?fbclid=IwAR0d2A_3VYsas-

4u14VJmSryrPVQR6sX1yQzyGVch9_vKx84Sok0xdhCAD

Frank, L., Sundqvist, S., Puumalainen, K., & Taalikka, S. (2001). Cross-cultural comparison

of innovators: empirical evidence from wireless services in Finland, Germany and

Greece. In ANZMAC Conference. 68

Frier, S. (2013, December 23). With $200 Million in Revenue, South Korea's Top Messaging

App Is All Smiley Faces. Retrieved November 5, 2018, from

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-22/with-200-million-in-revenue-south-

korea-s-top-messaging-app-is-all-smiley-

faces.html?fbclid=IwAR360KnDFPFyiRRIb350iXO9siSL16PpueC2lw01bRwtKcrF

5F5gNHHUtkc

Ganesh, J., & Kumar, V. (1996). Capturing the cross-national learning effect: An analysis of

an industrial technology diffusion. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science,

24(4), 328-337.

Gatignon, H., & Robertson, T. S. (1985). A propositional inventory for new diffusion research.

Journal of consumer research, 11(4), 849-867.

Ghedin, G. (2013, April 3). The story of Mixi in Japan: The rise, the fall and the Facebook

takeover. Retrieved from http://www.digitalintheround.com/japan-mixi-facebook/

Gilhooly, R. (2012, July 25). Why Japan finally fell for Facebook. Retrieved November 5,

2018, from https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21528756-400-why-japan-

finally-fell-for-facebook/

Golota, H. (2018, April 10). Twitter: Why so Popular in Japan? Retrieved November 5, 2018,

from https://www.globalme.net/blog/twitter-why-so-popular-in-japan

Gong, W. (2009). National culture and global diffusion of business-to-consumer e-commerce.

Cross cultural management: an international journal, 16(1), 83-101.

Granovetter, M. (1983). The strength of weak ties: A network theory revisited. Sociological

theory, 201-233.

Greve, H. R. (1998). Performance, aspirations, and risky organizational change. Administrative

Science Quarterly, 58-86.

Griffith, D. A., Hu, M. Y., & Ryans, J. K. (2000). Process standardization across intra-and 69

inter-cultural relationships. Journal of International Business Studies, 31(2), 303-324.

Hägerstrand, T. (1965). A Monte Carlo approach to diffusion. European Journal of

Sociology/Archives Européennes de Sociologie, 6(1), 43-67.

Halkos, G. E., & Tzeremes, N. G. (2013). Modelling the effect of national culture on countries’

innovation performances: A conditional full frontier approach. International review of

applied economics, 27(5), 656-678.

Hall, E. T. (1976). Beyond Culture. Garden City, Nueva York.

Hallanan, L. (2017, July 27). Weibo Stories: The good, the bad, and the ugly. Retrieved

November 11, 2018, from https://technode.com/2017/07/27/weibo-stories-the-good-

the-bad-and-the-ugly/

Hallanan, L. (2017, July 27). Weibo Stories: The good, the bad, and the ugly. Retrieved

November 11, 2018, from https://technode.com/2017/07/27/weibo-stories-the-good-

the-bad-and-the-ugly/

Hariharan, A. (2017, April 12). On Growing: 7 Lessons from the Story of WeChat. Retrieved

November 14, 2018, from https://blog.ycombinator.com/lessons-from-wechat/

Helsen, K., Jedidi, K., & DeSarbo, W. S. (1993). A new approach to country segmentation

utilizing multinational diffusion patterns. The Journal of marketing, 60-71.

Herbig, P. A., & Miller, J. C. (1991). The effect of culture upon innovativeness: A comparison

of United States and Japan sourcing capabilities. Journal of International Consumer

arketing, 3(3), 7-53.

Hirschman, E. C. (1980). Innovativeness, novelty seeking, and consumer creativity. Journal of

consumer research, 7(3), 283-295.

Hofstede Insights (China, South Korea, Japan). (n.d.). Retrieved November 18, 2018, from

https://www.hofstede-insights.com/country-comparison/china,japan,south-korea/

Hofstede, G. (2001). Cultural consequences. Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA. 70

Hofstede, G. (2011). Dimensionalizing cultures: The Hofstede model in context. Online

readings in psychology and culture, 2(1), 8.

Hofstede, G., & Bond, M. H. (1988). The Confucius connection: From cultural roots to

economic growth. Organizational dynamics, 16(4), 5-21.

Honigman, B. (2016, January 7). Should Your Brand Be on These Popular Asian Social

Channels? Retrieved November 14, 2018, from

https://sproutsocial.com/insights/asian-social-channels/

How WeChat changes lives of Chinese users. (2016, January 28). Retrieved November 11,

2018, from http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/beijing/2016-

01/28/content_23294578.htm

Hwang, S., Kim, J., & Cho, H. (2008). Cybergonggansokeui gwangye mecgi: Cyworld

yiyonghendonge

Hye-min, P. (2011, January 21). Why Cyworld Failed to Become a Global Network. Retrieved

November 5, 2018, from

http://www.koreafocus.or.kr/design2/layout/content_print.asp?group_id=103416

Hyun-lee, S. (2004, December 31). Souped-up blog takes South Korea by storm. Retrieved

November 5, 2018, from

https://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/31/technology/soupedup-blog-takes-south-korea-

by-storm.html

Chae, J.Y. (2003). Blog, Cyworld booming. Digital Times. Available at: www.dt.co.kr.

Accessed November 1, 2006.

Chan, C. (2015, August 6). When One App Rules Them All: The Case of WeChat and Mobile

in China. Retrieved November 11, 2018, from https://a16z.com/2015/08/06/wechat-

china-mobile-first/

Chao, E. (2017, February 1). How WeChat Became China’s App For Everything. Retrieved

November 11, 2018, from https://www.fastcompany.com/3065255/china-wechat-

tencent-red-envelopes-and-social-money

Charles, K. (2015, November 28). 5 things U.S. techies need to know about Japan’s social

media ecosystem. Retrieved from https://venturebeat.com/2015/11/28/5-things-us-

techies-need-to-know-about-japans-social-media-

ecosystem/?fbclid=IwAR1PlUejU0C0o4M_yzRO_dLkrxjCDk06hdwzsDQ7kglo-

3MDH9YYy-K04dc

Chen, C., & Deng, I. (2018, September 3). QQ, the grandaddy of China’s social media scene,

gains new life by appealing to Generation Z. Retrieved November 11, 2018, from

https://www.scmp.com/tech/article/2162288/qq-grandaddy-chinas-social-media-

scene-gains-new-life-appealing-generation-z

China Social Media Trends & Insights for Marketing Profs. (2018). Retrieved November 11,

2018, from https://www.chinainternetwatch.com/tag/social-media/

Chiu, K. (2018, July 3). What the death of QQ Pets tells us about China’s internet

transformation. Retrieved November 14, 2018, from

https://www.abacusnews.com/digital-life/what-death-qq-pets-tells-us-about-chinas-

internet-transformation/article/2153592

Choi, J. H. J. (2006). Living in cyworld: Contextualising cy-ties in South Korea. In Uses of

blogs (pp. 173-186). Peter Lang.

Information Society Development Institute.

Inoue, O. (1996). Advertising in Japan: Changing times for an economic giant. Frith, KT.

International Journal of Public Opinion Research, 6(4), 323-341.

Jain, S.K., & DALAL, A. (2015). Impact of Culture on Consumer Innovativeness : a

comparative Study of Consumers in Singapore and Australia. 72

Jensen, R. (1982). Adoption and diffusion of an innovation under uncertain profitability.

Journal of economic theory, 27(1), 182-199.

Jeong, K., & King, J. (1997). Korea’s national information infrastructure: Vision and issues.

In B. Kahin & E., Wilson, III, (Eds.). In National information infrastructure initiatives

(pp. 112–149). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Jeuland, A. P. (1981). Parsimonious Models of Diffusion of Innovation: Part A: Derivations

Jin, J. (2018, August 30). China Social Media Landscape 2018. Retrieved November 11, 2018,

from https://cn-en.kantar.com/media/social/2018/china-social-media-landscape-

2018/

Jin-young, C. (2018, June 22). What is the Most Popular SNS App in South Korea? Retrieved

November 5, 2018, from

http://www.businesskorea.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=23206

Jin-young, C. (2018, June 22). What is the Most Popular SNS App in South Korea? Retrieved

November 5, 2018, from

http://www.businesskorea.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=23206

Johansson, J. K. (2000). Global marketing: foreign entry, local marketing & global

management.

Kaigler-Evans, K., Leavitt, C., & Dickey, L. (1978). Source similarity and fashion newness as

determinants of consumer innovation. ACR North American Advances.

Kaigo, M. (2012). Social media usage during disasters and social capital: Twitter and the Great

East Japan earthquake. Keio Communication Review, 34(1), 19-35.

Kalish, S., Mahajan, V., & Muller, E. (1995). Waterfall and sprinkler new-product strategies

in competitive global markets. international Journal of research in Marketing, 12(2),

105-119.

Karahanna, E., Straub, D. W., & Chervany, N. L. (1999). Information technology adoption 73

across time: a cross-sectional comparison of pre-adoption and post-adoption beliefs.

MIS quarterly, 183-213.

Kelly, K. (2018, August 2). Japanese people don’t trust others on social media, survey finds.

Retrieved November 5, 2018, from

https://japantoday.com/category/features/lifestyle/japanese-people-don’t-trust-

others-on-social-media-survey-finds?comment-order=popular

Kim, D. J. (2008). Self-perception-based versus transference-based trust determinants in

computer-mediated transactions: A cross-cultural comparison study. Journal of

Management Information Systems, 24(4), 13-45.

Kim, K. H., & Yun, H. (2007). Cying for me, Cying for us: Relational dialectics in a Korean

social network site. Journal of computer-mediated communication, 13(1), 298-318.

Kim, N. (n.d.) A study of the peeping desire in Korean-type Blog (focused on Cyworld

Minihompy). Retrieved 5 November, 2018, from

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyworld

Kim, Y., Sohn, D., & Choi, S. M. (2011). Cultural difference in motivations for using social

network sites: A comparative study of American and Korean college students.

Computers in human behavior, 27(1), 365-372.

KISDI. (2002). Digital Economy of Korea 2002. Seoul, Korea: Korea

Kissinger, H. (2002). Does America need a foreign policy?: Toward a diplomacy for the 21st

century. Simon and Schuster.

Kolb, R. W. (Ed.). (2018). The SAGE Encyclopedia of Business Ethics and Society. SAGE

Publications.

Konuş, U., Verhoef, P. C., & Neslin, S. A. (2008). Multichannel shopper segments and their

covariates. Journal of Retailing, 84(4), 398-413.

Koreanclick. (2002–2007). Home page, February, 2007. http://www.koreanclick.com. 74

Koreans cybertrip to a tailor-made world. (2005, May 9). Retrieved November 5, 2018, from

https://www.smh.com.au/national/koreans-cybertrip-to-a-tailor-made-world-

20050509-gdl9tt.html

Kumar, V., & Krishnan, T. V. (2002). Multinational diffusion models: An alternative

framework. Marketing Science, 21(3), 318-330.

Kumar, V., Ganesh, J., & Echambadi, R. (1998). Cross‐national diffusion research: what do

we know and how certain are we?. Journal of Product Innovation Management: AN

INTERNATIONAL PUBLICATION OF THE PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT &

MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATION, 15(3), 255-268.

Kumar, V., Sunder, S., & Ramaseshan, B. (2011). Analyzing the diffusion of global customer

relationship management: A cross-regional modeling framework. Journal of

International Marketing, 19(1), 23-39.

Kwon, J., Kim, D., & Koh, C. E. (2016, January). A Comparative Study of National Culture

and Innovation: Effects of Cultural Dimensions on Traditional Innovation and Online

Innovation. In System Sciences (HICSS), 2016 49th Hawaii International Conference

on (pp. 3615-3624). IEEE.

La Ferle, C., Edwards, S. M., & Mizuno, Y. (2002). Internet diffusion in Japan: Cultural

considerations. Journal of Advertising Research, 42(2), 65-79.

Lamp, B. (2016, January). 5 Key Features of Chinese Social Media. Retrieved November 11,

2018, from https://www.jeffbullas.com/5-key-features-chinese-social-

media/?fbclid=IwAR0gm4aN6IUO2Eh743VvUkve69zw-

yt6JjqvrfBMma5T0R2ausA14PmkPmY

Lau, C. (2018, September 7). Weibo Still Has Plenty of Growth Ahead. Retrieved November

11, 2018, from https://investorplace.com/2018/09/weibo-still-has-plenty-of-growth-

ahead/ 75

Lee, C. (1990), “Determinants of national innovativeness and international market

segmentation”, International Marketing Review, Vol. 7, pp. 39-49

Lee, R. (August 26, 2004). Without Ram Lee, there would be no 'cyjil'. Retrieved November

4, 2018, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyworld#Minihomepy_2

Lee, S. (2016, June 29). The Bottom Line: How Japan’s Line App Conquered Hearts and

Smartphones across Asia. Retrieved from https://www.referralcandy.com/blog/line-

marketing-strategy/

Lee, S. G., Trimi, S., & Kim, C. (2013). The impact of cultural differences on technology

adoption. Journal of World Business, 48(1), 20-29.

Lee, S. M. (2003). Korea: From the land of morning calm to ICT Hotbed. Academy of

Management Executive, 17(2): 7–18

Lee, S. M., & Ungson, G. R. (2008). Towards a theory of synchronous technological

assimilation: The case of Korea's Internet economy. Journal of World Business, 43(3),

274-289. – pretty cool one resource

Liang, L. (2018, May 17). The rise of the influencers and 'retailtainment' in China. Retrieved

November 11, 2018, from https://www.thenational.ae/business/economy/the-rise-of-

the-influencers-and-retailtainment-in-china-1.730981

Line (software). (n.d.). Retrieved November 9, 2018, from

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_(software)?fbclid=IwAR12KGnqrONxj99fzsdj9P

ABi0S8RnPuYSqA23sVZrberOnIM46XnZc-D-o

Lynn, M., & Gelb, B. D. (1996). Identifying innovative national markets for technical

consumer goods. International Marketing Review, 13(6), 43-57.

Mac, R. (2015, March 23). How KakaoTalk's Billionaire Creator Ignited A Global Messaging

War. Retrieved November 5, 2018, from

https://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanmac/2015/03/02/kakaotalk-billionaire-brian-kim-

mobile-messaging-global-competition/#5767a3f7fdd3

Maguire, C. (2016, October 24). Stress dominates every aspect of life in South Korea.

Retrieved November 9, 2018, from https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-

style/abroad/generation-emigration/stress-dominates-every-aspect-of-life-in-south-

korea-1.2837362¨

Matthew. (2014, March 5). Mixi in Japan: Will They Maintain Their Hold? Retrieved

November 5, 2018, from https://mavsocial.com/will-mixi-maintain-its-hold-on-

japan/?fbclid=IwAR2qrwSwguC2qEgQcmL1f0JRANinjYAx5q6PNTv-

AqjGwBQQLzlGFj559Ls

McCracken, H. (2015, February 19). How Japan’s Line App Became A Culture-Changing,

Revenue-Generating Phenomenon. Retrieved November 5, 2018, from

https://www.fastcompany.com/3041578/how-japans-line-app-became-a-culture-

changing-revenue-

generat?fbclid=IwAR07NoSHqbb_uioF99Zv2BXnH02dk9oqTQUww9Jth8WkwCS

9USLSVKaTRvo

Menzel, H. (1960). Innovation, integration, and marginality: a survey of physicians. American

sociological review, 704-713.

Midgley, D. F. (1977). Innovation and new product marketing. Croom Helm.

Midgley, D. F., & Dowling, G. R. (1978). Innovativeness: The concept and its measurement.

Journal of consumer research, 4(4), 229-242.

Mixi: Rise and fall of Japan’s first large SNS. (2015, March 18). Retrieved November 5, 2018,

from https://tokyoexplained.wordpress.com/2015/03/18/mixi-rise-and-fall-of-japans-

first-large-sns/?fbclid=IwAR3-

_Vl5YnmJw2QP12YDii4UaBY4CKu8TpUhVrtc49z8Z7wpLb70pcm5HPM 77

Mori, Y. (2007) ‘Nihon no SNS Riyou ha mou Genkainanoka?’ [‘Do Mixi’s registered users

hit the ceiling?’], URL (consulted Mar. 2009):

http://japan.cnet.com/column/mori/story/0,2000055916,20344483,00.htm

Nakata, C., & Sivakumar, K. (1996). National culture and new product development: An

integrative review. The Journal of Marketing, 61-72. natanan social network hwaldong yangsande dehan tamsek [Self and community experience in

Nath, R., & Murthy, N. R. (2004). A study of the relationship between Internet diffusion

and culture. Journal of International Information Management, 13(2), 5.

Neely, C. (2016, January 07). Japan’s Top Social Media Networks for 2016. Retrieved

November 5, 2018, from https://www.humblebunny.com/top-social-media-networks-

in-japan-2015-year-in-review/

Neely, C. (2018). Japan’s Top Social Media Networks for 2018. Retrieved November 5, 2018,

from https://www.humblebunny.com/japans-top-social-media-networks-2018/

Nelly, C. (2017, January 12). Japan’s Top Social Media Networks for 2017. Retrieved from

https://www.humblebunny.com/japans-top-social-media-networks-

2017/?fbclid=IwAR21Hc59V91wpEYSHMVR3BQ4NaFmTDBPtZSpfflxyokEeIY

OEZz2K2X24Cc

Nikkei. (2016, August 18). Japanese spend least time on social media worldwide. Retrieved

November 5, 2018, from https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Japanese-spend-least-time-

on-social-media-worldwide

Number of Facebook users in South Korea from 2015 to 2022 (in millions). (2017). Retrieved

November 18, 2018, from https://www.statista.com/statistics/304833/number-of-

facebook-users-in-south-korea/

Number of visitors to the United States from Japan from 2002 to 2022 (in millions)*. (2016).

Retrieved November 9, 2018, from

https://www.statista.com/statistics/214798/number-of-visitors-to-the-us-from-japan/

Nussey, S., & Ingram, D. (2018, February 28). In Japan, Twitter sees a surge of users - and

revenue. Retrieved November 5, 2018, from https://www.reuters.com/article/us-

twitter-japan/in-japan-twitter-sees-a-surge-of-users-and-revenue-idUSKCN1GC17T

Oh, I., Jang, W., & Kim, S. (2018). Selling trust in cyber space: social networking service (SNS)

providers and social capital amongst netizens in South Korea. Asia Pacific Business

Review, 24(2), 196-211.

Ok, H. (2011). New media practices in Korea. International Journal of Communication, 5, 29.

Ostaszewski, V. (2017, January 20). Localizing Mobile Apps: A Case Study of LINE

Messenger. Retrieved from https://www.asiapacific.ca/blog/localizing-mobile-apps-

case-study-line-messenger

Ostaszewski, V. (2017, January 20). Localizing Mobile Apps: A Case Study of LINE

Messenger. Retrieved from https://www.asiapacific.ca/blog/localizing-mobile-apps-

case-study-line-messenger

Palmer, D. A., Jennings, P. D., & Zhou, X. (1993). Late adoption of the multidivisional form

by large US corporations: Institutional, political, and economic accounts.

Administrative science quarterly, 100-131.

Park, J. (2018, January 25). Why is every messaging app under the sun trying to sell stickers

to you? Retrieved November 5, 2018, from https://www.koreaexpose.com/korea-

messenger-app-character-mercha ndising-line-friends/

Peres, R., Muller, E., & Mahajan, V. (2010). Innovation diffusion and new product growth

models: A critical review and research directions. International Journal of Research

in Marketing, 27(2), 91-106. 79

Peters, M. P., & Venkatesan, M. (1973). Exploration of variables inherent in adopting an

industrial product. Journal of Marketing Research, 10(3), 312-315.

Phillips, L. A., Calantone, R., & Lee, M. T. (1994). International technology adoption:

Behavior structure, demand certainty and culture. Journal of Business & Industrial

Marketing, 9(2), 16-28.

Plotnick, O. (2018, July 11). Why KOL Marketing Is so Effective in China. Retrieved

November 11, 2018, from https://mavsocial.com/why-kol-marketing-is-so-effective-

in-china/

Primary Social Media Platform Used by Social Media Users in South Korea, 2016 & 2017 (%

of respondents). (2017, August 23). Retrieved November 18, 2018, from

https://www.emarketer.com/Chart/Primary-Social-Media-Platform-Used-by-Social-

Media-Users-South-Korea-2016-2017-of-respondents/210301

Putsis Jr, W. P., Balasubramanian, S., Kaplan, E. H., & Sen, S. K. (1997). Mixing behavior in

cross-country diffusion. Marketing Science, 16(4), 354-369.

Radwanick, S. (2011, August 24). Japan Internet Users Spend Most Time on Blogs Worldwide.

Retrieved November 5, 2018, from https://www.comscore.com/Insights/Press-

Releases/2011/8/Japan-Internet-Users-Spend-Most-Time-on-Blogs-

Worldwide?cs_edgescape_cc=CZ

Ramirez, E. (2018, January 16). Kakao Will Use Wildly Popular South Korean Webtoons To

Build An Audience In Japan & China. Retrieved November 5, 2018, from

https://www.forbes.com/sites/elaineramirez/2018/01/16/kakao-will-use-wildly-

popular-south-korean-webtoons-to-build-an-audience-in-japan-

china/#373d147849c6

Reynolds, T. (2015, June 17). LINE, the Pioneer of Stickers, Officially Launches Keyboard

App "Emoji LINE". Retrieved November 5, 2018, from 80

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/line-the-pioneer-of-stickers-officially-

launches-keyboard-app-emoji-line-300100485.html

Rinne, T., Steel, G. D., & Fairweather, J. (2012). Hofstede and Shane revisited: The role of

power distance and individualism in national-level innovation success. Cross-cultural

research, 46(2), 91-108.

Robert, K. M. (1964). Social Theory and Social Structure: Rev. Ed.

Robertson, T. S. (1971). Innovative behavior and communication. Holt McDougal.

Rodgers, G. (2017, July 31). Saving Face and Losing Face. Retrieved November 5, 2018, from

https://www.tripsavvy.com/saving-face-and-losing-face-1458303

Rogers, E. M. (2003). The diffusion of innovation 5th edition

Rogers, E. M., & Shoemaker, F. F. (1971). Communication of Innovations; A Cross-Cultural

Approach.

ROUSSE-MARQUET, J. (2013, March 21). KakaoTalk, the Korean messaging app turned

social phenomenon. Retrieved November 5, 2018, from

https://www.inaglobal.fr/en/telecommunications/article/kakaotalk-korean-

messaging-app-turned-social-phenomenon

Russel, J. (2013, October 3). Why is every messaging app under the sun trying to sell stickers

to you? Retrieved November 5, 2018, from

https://thenextweb.com/mobile/2013/10/03/why-is-every-messaging-app-under-the-

sun-trying-to-sell-stickers-to-you/

Russels, J. (2016). Understanding Line, the chat app behind 2016’s largest tech IPO. Retrieved

November 5, 2018, from https://techcrunch.com/2016/07/14/understanding-line-the-

chat-app-behind-2016s-largest-tech-ipo/?fbclid=IwAR34t9Obl3-

CZrUyCVPLauGFkYOPbzl4tF8oWkJdOyNm2yZxxIbBWerYEhE&guccounter=1

Seargeant, P., & Tagg, C. (Eds.). (2014). The language of social media: Identity and community

on the internet. Springer.

Shane, S. (1993). Cultural influences on national rates of innovation. Journal of Business

Venturing, 8(1), 59-73.

Shane, S. A. (1992). Why do some societies invent more than others?. Journal of Business

Venturing, 7(1), 29-46.

Shih, C. F., & Venkatesh, A. (2004). Beyond adoption: Development and application of a use-

diffusion model. Journal of marketing, 68(1), 59-72.

Shimp, T. A., & Sharma, S. (1987). Consumer ethnocentrism: Construction and validation of

the CETSCALE. Journal of marketing research, 280-289.

Shin, J. (2016, December 19). South Korea’s Latest Social Networking Trends by Age Groups.

Retrieved from http://koreabizwire.com/south-koreas-latest-social-networking-

trends-by-age-groups/72387

Sicard, J. (2018, January 31). SOCIAL MEDIA IN SOUTH KOREA IS AS ACTIVE AS YOU

COULD IMAGINE. Retrieved November 5, 2018, from

https://dareasia.com/en/social-media-looks-like-

korea/?fbclid=IwAR3wAHQFfuZ8WCBbW8YcpY5UxXFWLCuoAAdf2hf3Gxy_Jr

VR1k6oRnIAMmM

Sina Weibo. (n.d.). Retrieved November 11, 2018, from

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sina_Weibo

Singh, S. (2006). Cultural differences in, and influences on, consumers' propensity to adopt

innovations. International Marketing Review, 23(2), 173-191.

Smartphone penetration rate as share of the population in South Korea from 2015 to 2022*.

(2016). Retrieved November 11, 2018, from

https://www.statista.com/statistics/321408/smartphone-user-penetration-in-south- 82

korea/?fbclid=IwAR3dP1qSb7hryvgHk-WwKS1E4ei7xgvfBBkrAyDZy5T-

wCgLpzDBjd2iEBg

Social Media in Japan 1: Twitter vs Mixi vs Facebook. (2015, November 6). Retrieved

November 5, 2018, from

https://www.dentsuisobar.com/japandigital/2015/11/06/social-media-in-japan-1-

twitter-vs-mixi-vs-facebook/?fbclid=IwAR3f-

SZA8K8LgcJ4rlQIMWJCZiiYOIVEPWSNg118ltWE21yMJeLBu_6kgLs#_edn4

Social Media in Japan 1: Twitter vs Mixi vs Facebook. (2015, November 6). Retrieved

November 5, 2018, from

https://www.dentsuisobar.com/japandigital/2015/11/06/social-media-in-japan-1-

twitter-vs-mixi-vs-facebook/?fbclid=IwAR3f-

SZA8K8LgcJ4rlQIMWJCZiiYOIVEPWSNg118ltWE21yMJeLBu_6kgLs#_edn4

Steenkamp, J. B. E., Hofstede, F. T., & Wedel, M. (1999). A cross-national investigation into

the individual and national cultural antecedents of consumer innovativeness. The

Journal of Marketing, 55-69.

Stiff competition, uneven playing field drive South Koreans to seek to move abroad. (2017,

December 11). Retrieved November 9, 2018, from

https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/stiff-competition-uneven-playing-field-

drive-south-koreans-to-seek-to-move-abroad

Straub, D. W. (1994). The Effect of Culture on IT Diffusion: E-Mail and FAX in Japan and the

US. Information Systems Research, 5(1), 23-47.

Stremersch, S., & Tellis, G. J. (2004). Understanding and managing international growth of

new products. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 21(4), 421-438.

Stuard, J. (2013, June 4). Facebook users in Japan losing interest and heading for the exits.

Retrieved November 5, 2018, from https://soranews24.com/2013/06/04/facebook-

users-in-japan-losing-interest-and-heading-for-the-exits/

Sundqvist, S., Frank, L., & Puumalainen, K. (2005). The effects of country characteristics,

cultural similarity and adoption timing on the diffusion of wireless communications.

Journal of business research, 58(1), 107-110.

Sweney, M. (2010). Mark Zuckerberg: Facebook’almost guaranteed’to reach 1 billion users.

The Guardian, 23.

Takada, H., & Jain, D. (1991). Cross-national analysis of diffusion of consumer durable goods

in Pacific Rim countries. The journal of marketing, 48-54.

Takahashi, T. (2010). MySpace or Mixi? Japanese engagement with SNS (social

networking sites) in the global age. New media & society, 12(3), 453-475.

Talukdar, D., Sudhir, K., & Ainslie, A. (2002). Investigating new product diffusion across

products and countries. Marketing Science, 21(1), 97-114.

Tapiero, C. S., Eliashberg, J., & Wind, Y. (1987). Risk behaviour and optimum advertising

with a stochastic dynamic sales response. Optimal Control Applications and Methods,

8(3), 299-304.

Tech tip – Your guide into Wechat Moments. (2015, June 12). Retrieved November 11, 2018,

from https://blog.wechat.com/2015/06/12/tech-tip-your-guide-to-wechat-moments/

Tellefsen, T., & Takada, H. (1999). The relationship between mass media availability and

the multicountry diffusion of consumer products. Journal of International

Marketing, 77-96.

Tellis, G. J., Yin, E., & Bell, S. (2009). Global consumer innovativeness: Cross-country

differences and demographic commonalities. Journal of International Marketing,

17(2), 1-22. 84

The Ultimate Guide to 'Key Opinion Leader'f Marketing in China. (2017, July 12). Retrieved

November 11, 2018, from https://www.marketingtochina.com/ultimate-guide-key-

opinion-leader-marketing-china/

Thomson, R., & Ito, N. (2012). The effect of relational mobility on SNS user behavior: A study

of Japanese dual-users of Mixi and Facebook. 国際広報メディア・観光学ジャー

ナル= The Journal of International Media, Communication, and Tourism Studies, 14,

3-22.

Tokyofriend48. (2014, May 27). Japanese tourists’s most popular countries? Retrieved

November 9, 2018, from https://www.japan-guide.com/forum/quereadisplay.html?0

114548

Tong-hyung, K. (2010, November 22). Cyworld fights back Facebook-Twitter onslaught with

C-Log. Retrieved from

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/tech/2010/11/133_76767.html

Toto, S. (2008). Japan's Mixi: A Social Network As A Purely Local Phenomenon. Retrieved

November 5, 2018, from https://techcrunch.com/2008/07/20/japans-mixi-a-social-

network-as-a-purely-local-phenomenon/

Toto, S. (2014, March 3). Monster Strike: The Story Behind The Game That Made Mixi A

Billion Dollar Company (Again). Retrieved November 5, 2018, from

https://www.serkantoto.com/2014/03/03/monster-strike-mixi/

Trepte, S., Reinecke, L., Ellison, N. B., Quiring, O., Yao, M. Z., & Ziegele, M. (2017). A cross-

cultural perspective on the privacy calculus. Social Media+ Society, 3(1),

2056305116688035.

Uhl, K., Andrus, R., & Poulsen, L. (1970). How are laggards different? An empirical

inquiry. Journal of Marketing Research, 51-54.

Ungson, G. R., Steers, R. M., & Park, S. H. (1997). Korean Enterprise: The quest for

globalization. Boston: Harvard Business SchoolPress.

V. Rojas, J. Straubhaar, D. Roychowdhury, O. and Okur, “Communities, Cultural Capital, and

the Digital Divide,” in Media Access: Social and Psychological Dimensions of New

Technol-ogy Use, E.P. Bucy and J.E. Newhagen, eds. (Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence

Erlbaum, 2003), pp. 107-30.

Van den Bulte, C., & Stremersch, S. (2004). Social contagion and income heterogeneity in new

product diffusion: A meta-analytic test. Marketing Science, 23(4), 530-544.

Van Everdingen, Y. M., & Waarts, E. (2003). The effect of national culture on the adoption of

innovations. Marketing Letters, 14(3), 217-232.

Vana Rojas, V., Straubhaar, J., Roychowdhury, D., & Okur, O. (2003). Communities, cultural

capital, and the digital divide. MEDIA ACCESS, 107.

VanDamia, K. (2015, September 15). LINE for Brands. Retrieved November 5, 2018, from

https://www.ignitesocialmedia.com/content-creation/line-messaging-application-for-

brands/

Venkatesh, V., & Davis, F. D. (2000). A theoretical extension of the technology acceptance

model: Four longitudinal field studies. Management science, 46(2), 186-204.

Verot, O. (2017). The Golden Age of Social Media Influencers (WangHong) in China.

Retrieved from https://maximizesocialbusiness.com/golden-age-social-media-

influencers-wanghong-china-25168/

Viloria, G. (2012, December). How the “Shy” Japanese are Using Social Media. Retrieved

from https://blog.btrax.com/how-the-shy-japanese-are-using-social-media/

Vishwanath, A., & Goldhaber, G. M. (2003). An examination of the factors contributing to

adoption decisions among late-diffused technology products. New media & society,

5(4), 547-572. 86

Wang, X. (2016). Social media in industrial China (p. 236). UCL Press.

Wang, Y. (2017, June 7). The Rise Of Weibo: Lessons Twitter Can Learn From Chinese

Upstart. Retrieved November 11, 2018, from

https://www.forbes.com/sites/ywang/2017/06/06/the-rise-of-weibo-lessons-twitter-

can-learn-from-chinese-upstart/#3e03774020b0

Wang, Y. (2017, June 7). The Rise Of Weibo: Lessons Twitter Can Learn From Chinese

Upstart. Retrieved November 11, 2018, from

https://www.forbes.com/sites/ywang/2017/06/06/the-rise-of-weibo-lessons-twitter-

can-learn-from-chinese-upstart/#3e03774020b0

Weimann, G., & Brosius, H. B. (1994). Is there a two-step flow of agenda-setting?.

Wejnert, B. (2002). Integrating models of diffusion of innovations: A conceptual framework.

Annual review of sociology, 28(1), 297-326.

What Is Kakao and Why Should You Care? (2017, June 7). Retrieved November 11, 2018,

from https://medium.com/@madebyalive/what-is-kakao-and-why-should-you-care-

fcb430bc61d0

Wiedersheim-Paul, F., Olson, H. C., & Welch, L. S. (1978). Pre-export activity: The first step

in internationalization. Journal of International Business Studies, 9(1), 47-58.

Williams, M. (2017, December 1). What You Should Know About KakaoTalk. Retrieved

November 5, 2018, from https://www.addthis.com/blog/2017/12/01/what-you-

should-know-about-kakaotalk/#.W-CKReKNx7N

Wong, K. (2015). 2015 Travel Trends & Statistics: Outbound Japanese Tourism. Retrieved

from https://blog.btrax.com/2015-travel-trends-statistics-japanese-tourists/

Woo-hyun, S. (2017, April 19). Kakao Friends become most beloved characters in Korea.

Retrieved November 5, 2018, from

http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20170419000702 87

Yalcinkaya, G. (2008). A culture-based approach to understanding the adoption and diffusion

of new products across countries. International Marketing Review, 25(2), 202-214.

Yamagishi, T., Cook, K. S., & Watabe, M. (1998). Uncertainty, trust, and commitment

formation in the United States and Japan. American Journal of Sociology, 104(1),

AJSv104p165-194.

Yamamoto, A. (2007, December 6). Japan's Bloggers: Humble Giants of the Web. Retrieved

November 5, 2018, from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-

dyn/content/article/2007/12/05/AR2007120502751_3.html??noredirect=on&sid=ST

2007120502854

Yaveroglu, I. S., & Donthu, N. (2002). Cultural influences on the diffusion of new products.

Journal of International Consumer Marketing, 14(4), 49-63.

Yeniyurt, S., & Townsend, J. D. (2003). Does culture explain acceptance of new products in

Yuki, M. (2003). Intergroup comparison versus intragroup relationships: A cross-cultural

Zhang, K. (2008). Ubiquitous technology for language learning: The U-Japan movement in

higher education. Journal of Computing in Higher Education, 20(2), 81-91

15. List of Figures

Figure 2. S-shaped graph of innovation diffusion development as suggested by Rogers (2003).

Graph from Nathan (2014, April 23). Dangerous S-Curves Ahead! Retrieved

November 1, 2018, from http://thecomputerboys.com/?p=676

Figure 2. Diffusion of innovation in time divided based on p and q effect. Reprinted from

Rogers, E. M. (2003). The diffusion of innovation 5th edition, 251.

Figure 3. Comparison of high-context and low-context cultures. Table from Malicki, B. (2017,

November 7). Three Business Culture Differences That Affect Communication.

Retrieved November 1, 2018, from http://blog.jana.com/blog/three-business-

cultural-difference-that-affect-communication

Figure 4. Distribution of innovators categories in society. Graph from Smith, A. (2018, July

18). Fintech growth and the diffusion of innovation. Retrieved November 1, 2018,

from https://yellcreative.com/fintech-growth-and-the-diffusion-of-innovation/

Figure 5. Rise of Mixi in Japan during 2004 and 2006. Orange colour represends number of

users. Graph from ひろざわだいき. (2017, February 14). トップ mixi のプレスリ

リースから読み解く、SNS サービスの機能とユーザー数~プレスリリース 2

年分まとめ ~. Retrieved November 9, 2018, from

http://hirozawadaiki.hatenadiary.jp/entry/2017/02/14/091041

Figure 6. General look of Mixi page. Picture from Takahashi, T. (2010). MySpace or Mixi?

Japanese engagement with SNS (social networking sites) in the global age. New

media & society, 12(3), 453-475.

Figure 7. Comparison of LINE and KakaoTalk from 2016 with logos and number of users that

time. Table from KH 디지털 2. (2016, September 6). [DECODED: KAKAO]

KakaoTalk’s domestic glory falls short overseas. Retrieved November 5, 2018, from

http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20160906000923

Figure 8. Use of Sticker set with motive of „Brown“ character. Picture from Download LINE

App to get INR 50 free talk time. (2014, March 26). Retrieved November 9, 2018,

from http://www.theunbiasedblog.com/2014/03/download-line-app-to-get-inr-50-

free-talk-time.html

Figure 9. Rise of Facebook and Twitter in Japan, Twitter has from the beginning lead.

Graph from Yarow, J. (2012, January 6). CHART OF THE DAY: Theres Only

One Place In The World Where Twitter Is Bigger Than Facebook. Retrieved 89

November 9, 2018, from https://www.businessinsider.com/theres-only-one-

place-in-the-world-where-twitter-is-bigger-than-facebook-2012-1

Figure 10. Official logo of Cyworld with emoticon inside and red and orange colours. Logo

from Yeahoo7. (2011, July 5). Cyworld. Retrieved November 8, 2018, from

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyworld#/media/File:Cyworld.jpg

Figure 11. Rise of Facebook and decline of Cyworld in South Korea from November 2009 to

May 2012. Graph from Martin, R. (2012, June 28). Facebook Showing Solid Growth

in Japan and Korea. Retrieved November 8, 2018, from

https://www.techinasia.com/facebook-japan-visitors-month

Figure 12. Social room minihomepy in Cyworld: Example of look No.1. Pictures from Pei-

chieh. (2008, November 14). Cyworld decided to leave US market. Retrieved

November 8, 2018, from https://aiko0324.wordpress.com/tag/cyworld/

Figure 13. Social room minihomepy in Cyworld: Example of look No.2. Pictures from Pei-

chieh. (2008, November 14). Cyworld decided to leave US market. Retrieved

November 8, 2018, from https://aiko0324.wordpress.com/tag/cyworld/

Figure 14. Growth of Kakao Users internationally from March 2010 to April 2013. Graph from

Wee, W. (2013, May 3). KakaoTalk’s Growth Chart: Hitting 90 Million Users Soon.

Retrieved November 8, 2018, from https://www.techinasia.com/number-of-

kakaotalk-users

Figure 15. Characters on QQ. Graph from QQ秀是我们这一代人的时尚启蒙课吗？. (2017,

September 25). Retrieved November 14, 2018, from

http://www.sohu.com/a/194365680_162522

Figure 16. Receptiveness towards media brand promotion tactics in May 2017, national

comparison. Graph from Enberg, J. (2018, August 2). What’s the Difference 90

Between a KOL and a Wanghong? Retrieved November 11, 2018, from

https://www.emarketer.com/content/what-s-the-difference-between-a-kol-and-a-

wanghong

16. List of main authors

Bass, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 12, 14, 15, 24, 25, 29, 30, 78, 79

Hall, 5, 7, 21, 22, 23, 87

Hofstede, 7, 9, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 29, 33, 76, 77, 78, 88, 99, 101

Rogers, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 30, 31, 33, 39, 78, 99, 107