Communications in Humanities Research

- The Open Access Proceedings Series for Conferences


Communications in Humanities Research

Vol. 10, 31 October 2023


Open Access | Article

A Study of Online Subcultural Groups' Emotional Climate under the Interaction Ritual Chains Theory

Zefeng Gu * 1
1 Chongqing Normal University

* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Communications in Humanities Research, Vol. 10, 27-33
Published 31 October 2023. © 2023 The Author(s). Published by EWA Publishing
This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Citation Zefeng Gu. A Study of Online Subcultural Groups' Emotional Climate under the Interaction Ritual Chains Theory. CHR (2023) Vol. 10: 27-33. DOI: 10.54254/2753-7064/10/20231223.

Abstract

With the popularity of the internet, more and more social events and issues can be widely disseminated and discussed by people online. In a certain social background, a specific emotional climate will be naturally formed among internet users who share the same views or interests or cultural backgrounds, especially among online subcultural groups. Through the literature review, there is a large amount of research on online subcultural groups and research on emotional climate; however, there is very little study of online subcultural groups’ emotional climate. Therefore, this study will adopt the Interaction Ritual Chains theory to explore the online subcultural groups’ emotional climate. The research question is how the online subcultural groups’ emotional climate is generated. By taking online subcultural groups in two types of websites - the Bilibili website and pro-anorexia websites- as cases, the process of generating the online subcultural groups’ emotional climate can be summarised. This paper finds that multiple and multi-level emotion sharing triggered by a specific event among group members is the process of forming interaction ritual chains, and the reason why members’ emotion sharing triggered by a specific event enables the group to generate an emotional climate is that the emotional energy and symbols produced by the interaction ritual created in emotion sharing are successfully shared by the group members, which can influence the emotional energy of groups that on a social dimension can be seen as emotional climate.

Keywords

online subcultural groups, emotional climate, interaction ritual chains theory

References

1. Wu, D. & Yan, S. J. (2016). Exploring the interactive ritual chain model of online subcultural groups. Modern Communication (Journal of Communication University of China) (03), 17-20.

2. De Rivera, J., Kurrien, R. ,& Olsen, N. (2007). The Emotional Climate of Nations and Their Culture of Peace. Journal of Social Issues, 63: 255-271. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4560.2007.00507.x

3. De Rivera, J., & Páez, D. (2007). Emotional climate, human security, and cultures of peace. Journal of social issues, 63(2), 233-253. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4560.2007.00506.x

4. Wang, J.S. (2013). Social emotions in the perspective of social mentality. Journal of Yunnan, Normal University (Philosophy and Social Science Edition) (05), 55-63.

5. Collins, R. (2004). Interaction Ritual Chains. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

6. Chen, Y., Cao, S.Q., & Wang, T. (2013). A new genus of the genus Phyllostachys. Perspectives on bullet screen websites and bullet comments: A youth subculture perspective. Youth Quest (06), 19-24. http://doi.org/10.13583/j.cnki.issn1004-3780.2013.06.006

7. Deng, X. (2015). The analysis of bullet screen videos from the perspective of interactive ritual chain - taking Bilibili.com as an example. Journalism (13), 14-19. http://doi.org/10.15897/j.cnki.cn51-1046/g2.2015.13.002

8. McClelland, K. (1985). On the social significance of interactional synchrony. Unpublished paper, Department of Sociology, Grinnell College.

9. Maloney, P. (2013). ONLINE NETWORKS AND EMOTIONAL ENERGY, Information, Communication & Society, 16(1), 105-124, https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2012.659197

Data Availability

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study will be available from the authors upon reasonable request.

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Volume Title
Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Educational Innovation and Philosophical Inquiries
ISBN (Print)
978-1-83558-043-1
ISBN (Online)
978-1-83558-044-8
Published Date
31 October 2023
Series
Communications in Humanities Research
ISSN (Print)
2753-7064
ISSN (Online)
2753-7072
DOI
10.54254/2753-7064/10/20231223
Copyright
31 October 2023
Open Access
This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited

Copyright © 2023 EWA Publishing. Unless Otherwise Stated