![]() ![]() Chen/Mao/Qiu note that WeChat’s reach beyond its initial target group needs yet to be verified: ![]() WeChat’s user interface is available in multiple languages, which makes it accessible as a tool for expatriates to support them in all of their endeavors in China, regardless whether professional or private. This makes it also useful also to those new to China, arriving and being unfamiliar with its (digital) culture and possibilities. The ever-growing number (literally hundreds of thousands) of so-called micro-apps (apps within the WeChat app, see below) makes WeChat the focal place for everyone based in China to go about one’s online business. It is widely considered a very influential platform: “If future events take place that fundamentally change China, then there is still a fair chance they may occur on the super-sticky platform of WeChat.” (Chen/Mao/ Qiu 2018: 101) In practice, one could for the most part regard it as the Chinese internet, since most users won’t ever need to leave the app, regardless of what their online business might be (cf. Used by more than one billion people, it combines the functionalities of WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and many more apps used separately in other (mainly Western) cultures. Designed as an “all-in-one mobile application” (Zhou/Hentschel/Kumar 2017: 3), it quickly evolved into the most far-reaching, dominating application on the Chinese internet. The messaging application WeChat (微信, Wēixìn, ‘micro message’) was introduced by the Tencent corporation (腾讯, Téngxùn) in 2011.
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