Abstract
This study compared messages posted on Sina Weibo which is the most popular micro-blog in China, and Japanese messages on Twitter. This study employed two data sets for content analysis: (1) messages regarding “the kelp rumor” and (2) random samples from Weibo and Twitter Japanese messages. The results show that Weibo users are more likely to re-tweet messages vertically from popular users to ordinary users, while Japanese Twitter users are more likely to use the micro-blog for personal communication, showing a higher mutuality of follower relationships. These differences explain why information is quickly and widely diffused on Weibo. Results of Logistic regression indicate that the use of the image and popularity of the users are significantly correlated with the use of re-tweets on Weibo.
