Users’ Behaviour under the Uneven Gender Ratio of Social Media Platforms

Taking Hupu and Xiaohongshu as Examples

¹ School of European Language and Culture Studies, Dalian University of Foreign Languages, Beijing, 100085, China
² International college Beijing, China Agricultural University, Beijing, 10083, China
³ College of Humanities, Xi’an Conservatory of Music, Fuzhou, 350000, China

^* Corresponding author. Email: 2020314130314@cau.edu.cn
^† These authors contributed equally.

Abstract

Up to now, in order to satisfy the increasingly abundant needs of users, there have been many kinds of social media applications, some of which are targeted at specific gender groups. Xiaohongshu and Hupu are two social media platforms in China, which are dominated by female and male users respectively over the past decade. Apart from the difference in function and form, the most important difference between the two platforms is the gender difference of the target audience, which is obvious. This article will take these two social platforms as examples and adopts quantitative research method to ask questions about users’ behaviours through questionnaire survey, so as to understand users’ behaviours when gender ratio is imbalanced. Research shows that users have a universal understanding of gender differences on the platform, and most of them are close to the dominant gender group in user behaviour. In the background of new media, if the community structure is not changed, social platforms with large gender differences among users will regularly deepen gender stereotypes, and users’ sense of belonging will also fluctuate.