Social Support and Communication Behavior in Massive Multiplayer Online Role-playing Games: A Study of “World of Warcraft “ in Taiwan

• Main Authors: Chun-Jen Chiu, 丘淳仁
• Other Authors: 作者未提供
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2009
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/42bd2v

碩士 === 銘傳大學 === 傳播管理研究所碩士班 === 97 === Under the computer-mediated communication, there are more and more methods to communicate with others. The MMORPG (Massive Multi-player Online Role Playing Game) is one of the most popular systems in internet activities. This study aims to examine the correlation between social support and communication behavior of the MMORPG World of Warcraft users in Taiwan. Through in-depth interviews and questionnaire method, the study defines the user’s habitual behavior of communication and the types of social support in the World of Warcraft. The results indicated the both real life social support and social support in game were positive relation with communication and social contact ability. Although in-game hours is the key factor with how much social support the player acquired, real life social support had a negative relation with in-game social support at the in-game hours factor. Players have more in-game social support when they spending more time in World of Warcraft, but losing real life social support at the same time.