Mobile Mediated Communication: Emoji Usage and Play Frame

Abstract

Emoji has already become a ubiquitous language for Mobile Mediated Communication (MMC) worldwide. And emoji usage has many implications from text messaging to social interaction. It helps users convey emotional information via nonverbal cues. Although prior sentiment analyses provide clear pictures of emoji usage, the expression intensity of an emoji varies from one to another in different speech community. Besides, the communicative functions emoji serves might depend on mediated platforms. Therefore, present study aims to describe how college students apply QQ emojis to engage in their social networks. Based on the collected chatting records, QQ emojis displayed prominent appeal and courtesy functions in push, notice and questionnaire request and the expression intensity proportionately correlate with the use frequency. Finally, the notion of play interprets emoji usage, arguing that the effects emoji brings, is as much a result of users' preference as it is born to satisfy the needs of communicating visually in telephony.