Chapter 1 Introduction

This book firstly defines WeChat as a small-circle social media tool and then attempts to complement the theoretical pillars of Activity Theory with the Attention, Interest, Search, Desire, Action, Like, Share and LoveModel （AISDALSLove）[1] and create a new survey technique that is based on traditional information system development studies. Then this study explores how information promoters apply new marketing techniques to attract WeChat users’ attention as well as how WeChat users adapt for their daily communicative activities in context. The contribution of this study is threefold as below:

1. First, it makes a contribution to the scanty literature related to investigating and evaluating the application of WeChat in the social media advertising field, exploring, in the two case study settings, both the utilizations and constraints presented by WeChat official accounts.

2. Second, this book introduces an innovative use of Activity Theory and AISDALSLove model as the research framework for understanding how WeChat official accounts both mediate advertising activities and are appropriated by their users.

3. Third, this book demonstrates an empirical finding of the two-way process of tool mediation. The contributions are expected to be beneficial for conducting the design, application and evaluation of WeChat in social media advertising settings.

The core research question of this book is: How do people transferring information, such as information promoters, perform in order to achieve their goals in the small-circle social media of WeChat? This core research question is explored through the following three sub-questions:

1. How do information promoters design/push the contents for the consumption of WeChat users within the framework of Activity Theory?

2. What are information promoters’ objectives and how do they perform to achieve these objectives?

3. How are these objectives perceived by WeChat users from the perspective of the AISDALSLove model?

This book focuses on these questions because they are able to reveal that the factors through which WeChat is integrated into its users’ （both information promoters and users） activities are dependent on sociocultural contexts. In order to investigate if WeChat could be used effectively as an advertising tool, and if WeChat changes the users’ activity, this book examines both how WeChat is actually employed by the information promoters, and evaluates the use of WeChat from the perspective of users, who are using WeChat in a changing real-world situation.