


































Communication, Society and Media 
ISSN 2576-5388 (Print) ISSN 2576-5396 (Online) 

Vol. 7, No. 1, 2024 

www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 

28 

 

Original Paper 

Exploring the Mobility of the New Media Platform Little Red 

Book 

Sixian Li
1*

 

1 
London College of Communication, University of the Arts London, London, the United Kingdom 

* 
Sixian Li, London College of Communication, University of the Arts London, London, the United 

Kingdom 

 

Received: May 10, 2024           Accepted: May 18, 2024        Online Published: May 28, 2024 

doi:10.22158/csm.v7n1p28                       URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v7n1p28 

 

Abstract 

Little Red Book is an new emerging platform. Some researchers are focusing on this platform, but they 

intend to discuss the commercial values of it. The mobility of the little red book is rarely noticed. But 

the intrinsic connection between platforms and mobility is an important issue, and this theme is an 

important aspect of media, culture and mobility. This article is trying to explore the relationship 

between new platform Little Red Book and mobility. This article begins by exploring the ways in which 

the Little Red Book facilitates the flow of ideas and self-mobility, followed by a discussion of the ways 

in which it restricts mobility in some ways. 

Keywords 

Little Red Book, mobility, platform, privacy, User-Generated Content 

 

1. Introduction 

The chapter reviews the key literature concerned with the relationship between Little Red Book and 

Mobility. Numerous scholars have conducted extensive research in Little Red Book and Mobility. 

Much of the current literature on Little Red Book pays particular attention to its commercial properties 

and values. Although a considerable body of research has been carried out on Little Red Book’s 

business model and marketing strategy, much less is known about the relationship between Little Red 

Book and Mobility. This review critically evaluates Little Red Book can enable the Mobility in a bid to 

address the gap. The relationship between platform and mobility is essential for a wide range of 

researches. This topic is an important aspect of Media, Mobility and Culture. Recently, researchers 

have shown an increased interest in platform, mobility. 

 



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This chapter begins with the ways in which application Little Red Book promote the Mobility of ideas 

and “the self”. This is followed by analyzing some aspects Little Red Book limits Mobility. Finally, 

draw the study conclusion, summarize the ideas and lead to the subsequent research. 

 

2. Little Red Book Can Enable Mobility 

2.1 Little Red Book Promotes Mobility among Audience Groups 

Little Red Book can promote mobility among audience groups. 

Jia Guo (2022) proved that Little Red Book is a female-focused social media and e-commerce platform. 

Little Red Book can provide a platform for young women to share ideas and thinking. According to the 

2022 Little Red Book data report by China Media Industry Research—Qian-Gua Database, women 

currently account for 88.37% of Little Red Book, while men account for 11.61%. The Little Red Book 

platform is dominated by women, and users of the Little Red Book platform are trending younger, with 

their ages mainly concentrated in the 18-34 age group. More than 56% of users come from the four top 

tier cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. Urban white-collar workers and elite women 

in the workplace are the main user groups, with strong spending power and strong consumer demand 

(2020 Little Red Book Data Report, 2022). 

As of September 2022, the number of active monthly users of Little Red Book broke 100 million, and 

70% of these users are post-90s, with 300 million notes about life and 8 billion notes exposed in a 

single day. The top three user focus points are 9.98% for fashion, 9.85% for beauty and 8.05% for food. 

Fashion and beauty are still the main trend of Little Red Book users. 

From the data it is clear that young women make up a large proportion of Little Red Book users, they 

have decent jobs, higher spending power and high consumer demand, and tend to express themselves in 

a community dominated by such a female group. Elmira and Chloe claimed that the growth of 

Instagram continues, with the majority of its users being young women (2017). 

First of all, the content on Little Red Book covers many topics related to women’s interests and hobbies, 

such as fashion, beauty, food. So female users are more likely to express their views and experiences on 

these topics. 

Secondly, social platforms are generally used as spaces for interaction and communication between 

users. Women tend to be more active socially and prefer to share their lives, experience and feelings 

with others, including sharing shopping experiences, beauty tips and life insights on Little Red Book. 

Thirdly, women usually pay more attention to emotional expression and communication in their daily 

lives, and are more willing to express their emotions and opinions through text, pictures and 

expressions than men. As a graphic-based platform, Little Red Book provides a wealth of expression 

methods, making it easier for female users to express themselves in the way they prefer. 

 



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Last but not least, on Little Red Book, female users may share many common experiences and interests 

with each other, and they may want to share their stories and experiences to connect with other users 

and gain empathy and support. 

In brief, Little Red Book can promote mobility among audience groups. 

2.2 Little Red Book Enables Mobility in its Content 

Little Red Book can enable mobility in its content. It enables the mobility of ideas, the mobility of “the 

self”. Little Red Book can provide a platform for users to discuss problems, situations, solutions, ideas 

with each other and so on. Little Red Book, as an online virtual community, the major content is note. 

Most of the notes contain pictures and text. Notes include ideas and thinking of users usually. 

On the one hand, users express their thinking and ideas by writing notes, editing notes posting notes, 

sharing notes. When users post their notes on the Little Red Book, in general, the push algorithm in the 

platform mechanism associates the content with the publisher’s friends, the publisher’s location, and 

pushes the notes to the publisher’s friends, other users in the publisher’s vicinity, and other users who 

frequently click to read and view such content. 

The Little Red Book has many different types of notes, users have different purposes to write notes. 

They can write notes to ask other users for answers, share their own travel experience with others, 

introduce good products to users, make friends with others, interact with other users, give other users 

suggestions about places, trip plan, destinations. If they have bad experience after travelling, they will 

write notes to point out the weaknesses and shortcomings of places and give reference to others. Some 

users may even take notes posted by other users and put them into their own content, asking others for 

their opinion and expressing their own opinion on other users’ notes. In a virtual online community like 

Little Red Book, users exchange ideas and enable the mobility of ideas in this way. 

Peter, A. (2004) proved that in the sociology of Zygmunt Bauman, contemporary society, labelled 

consumer society by Bauman, is viewed as liquid modernity, which underlines mobility as indicative of 

our time. 

Besides, after opening Little Red Book, several columns of different items will be displayed on the 

main screen. At the bottom there are five columns, from left to right: Home, Video, Messages, Me, in 

the center is Posting. Users can see other users’ notes with pictures and text in the “Home”. In “Home”, 

due to the limitations of the device, not all the contents of the notes are displayed on the screen, only 

the cover, title, publisher and number of likes are displayed. Although at first glance the user does not 

fully see the content of other users’ notes, the type of note and the content involved can be inferred 

from the title, the cover. Publishers’ thinking and ideas are usually showed by the title words, the cover 

pictures because title, cover are also the parts of notes. 

The second column is “Video”, users can see different types of short and long-form videos. Even 

though notes are more common in Little Red Book, videos can also be another method to express ideas 



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and thinking.  

The central is “Posting”, users can choose photos from phones or shoot for notes. When users open 

“Posting”, Little Red Book provide hot template and layout for users to choose. Users who use hot 

template generally get more views. 

If users are not sure about their notes, Little Red Book has “Draft” for them to save and change. 

It helps publishers to consider the content of their notes without worrying about them not being saved, 

they can post their notes after considering. So Little Red Book enables the mobility of ideas in its 

content.  

The fourth column is “Messages”, users can receive notification from platform or receive private 

messages from other users. Users also can join some chat groups to talk with others about life, movies, 

sports, products and so on. 

The fifth column is “Me”, users can see their own posts, collects, likes.  

They can find followers, friends, users they are following. Users can edit profile to show others ideas 

and thinking in “Me”. 

On the other hand, little Red Book can enable the mobility of “the self”. For example, some users may 

encounter problems and confusion with clothing and dressing and they post notes to collect other users’ 

opinions. Herbert Blumer (2015) proved that Mead regarded the distinctive mark of all societies, 

human or otherwise, to be the formation of social acts by their members. Some users show themselves 

to others, others give them advice to change. Corrado and Giacomo (2010) proved that the mirror 

mechanism radically challenges the traditional view of the self and of the others. Some users are 

influenced by other users and adapt themselves. 

As I have said, Little Red Book can enable mobility. 

2.3 Little Red Book Facilitates Mobility through the Platform’s Own Functions 

Little Red Book can enable mobility of ideas and thinking through its own functions. 

As an online virtual community, it has lots of social features, such as following, liking, commenting on 

notes. Little Red Book provides a community for users to use, they can easily join other users’ chat 

group, read and browse publishers’ notes and leave comments in the comments section. Users can 

connect with others by sharing ideas, discussing topics. They just need to open this platform Little Red 

Book on their phone screen. 

Park and Kang (2021) proved that personal identity had a significant positive effect on quasi-social 

interactions in the life culture and politics sectors. 

Like: Users can like UGC they like on Little Red Book to show their approval and liking of the content. 

The Like feature encourages users to interact with the content, prompting them to engage and express 

their interests and preferences on the platform. At the same time, likes also increase the exposure of 

UGC, making more users pay attention and participate, thus increasing the mobility of UGC. 



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Commenting: Little Red Book allows users to comment on UGC, where they can ask questions, answer 

and share their experiences. The commenting function encourages interaction and communication 

between users. Users can interact with other users and share their insights and experiences through 

comments, thus promoting the formation of social circles on the platform and increasing the interaction 

and fluidity of UGC. 

Retweeting: Users can retweet UGC of interest to their own personal pages or share it with other users. 

At the same time, re-posting also helps users expand their social relationships and form a chain of UGC 

spreading among users, thus increasing the fluidity of UGC. 

Algorithm recommendation: Through personalized algorithm recommendation function, Little Red 

Book recommends UGC with high relevance to users based on their interests and behaviors. This 

personalized recommendation makes it easier for users to find the content they are interested in, 

increasing their participation and interactivity in UGC, thus promoting the fluidity of the platform. 

Interactive reward mechanisms: Little Red Book also has some interactive reward mechanisms, such as 

check-ins, points and punch cards, to encourage users to interact on the platform. These interactive 

reward mechanisms motivate users to actively participate in UGC activities such as likes, comments 

and retweets, increasing users’ activity and participation on the platform, thus promoting the fluidity of 

the platform. 

In short, through the above functions, Little Red Book drives users to interact, share, spread and engage 

in UGC on the platform, thus Little Red Book enables mobility. 

2.4 Little Red Book Enables Mobility by User-Generated Content (UGC) 

Little Red Book enables mobility of ideas by User-Generated Content (UGC). 

User-generated content: Little Red Book allows users to create and share various forms of UGC, 

including product reviews, shopping tips, beauty tutorials, fashion collaterals and more. These UGCs 

enrich the content on the platform and attract more users to interact with them, thus promoting the 

fluidity of the platform. Users can post UGC to share their shopping and usage experiences, as well as 

gain inspiration and advice from other users’ UGC. 

Social interaction: Little Red Book encourages users to engage in social interaction on UGC, such as 

liking, commenting and sharing. Users can leave comments, ask questions or share their experiences 

under UGC, interact with other users and form social circles. This social interaction enhances user 

stickiness, prompting users to continue interacting on the platform and sharing more UGC, thus 

improving the mobility of the platform. 

E-commerce shopping: UGC content on Little Red Book is usually related to shopping, where users 

can find their preferred products and purchase them directly through the platform. Greater value 

uncertainty in platforms with User-Generated Content than in platforms based on firm-generated 

content (Hemang Subramanian, Sabyasachi Mitra, & Sam Ransbotham, 2021). Product reviews and 



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trial tips in UGC play a role in guiding users’ shopping decisions. In the process of browsing and 

shopping, users will interact with other users and share shopping tips and shopping experiences, thus 

forming a shopping community and increasing the mobility of the platform. 

Community operation: Little Red Book attracts a group of users with the same interests by creating 

several communities that target specific interests and topics. Community members can discuss, share 

and interact together in the communities, forming a social network among users. Community 

administrators regularly organize online and offline events to encourage community members to get to 

know and interact with each other, increasing the mobility of the platform. 

To put it simply, Little Red Book enables mobility of ideas by User-Generated Content (UGC). 

 

3. Little Red Book can limit mobility 

3.1 Little Red Book Limits Mobility in Content Review 

Little Red Book limits mobility of ideas and thinking in content review. 

Little Red Book has a strict content review policy to regulate the content posted by users on the 

platform, which includes restrictions on certain types of notes, such as politically sensitive topics, 

violent pornography, inappropriate wording, illegal content will be subject to different degrees of 

restriction. 

Flow restriction on the Little Red Book platform means that within a certain period of time, Little Red 

Book restricts the frequency, quantity or manner in which users access, operate or post content in order 

to control the flow of the platform or maintain the stable operation of the platform. Flow restriction is a 

common management measure for many internet platforms, aiming to prevent malicious behavior, 

reduce spam, protect user experience and maintain the normal operation of the platform. 

Jun, L. and Jingyi (2020) proved that censorship programs being oriented more toward multimedia 

content like images than the text content of multimedia posts. 

Firstly, limit the number of times a user performs a certain type of operation, such as posting content, 

liking, commenting, following, etc., within a certain period of time to prevent behavior such as volume 

swiping, cheating and bots. 

Secondly, limit the number or frequency of users publishing content within a certain period of time to 

prevent publishing a large amount of spam, illegal content or infringement. 

The specific ways and restrictions of the Little Red Book platform to restrict traffic may vary according 

to the platform’s policies and rules, and will usually be judged based on a number of factors such as the 

user’s behavioral patterns, account history, IP address and device information. When users encounter 

flow restrictions, they may be prompted by the system to wait for a period of time before they can 

continue to operate, or they may need to complete additional verification steps, such as verification 

codes, SMS verification, etc. Users should comply with the rules and restrictions of the Little Red 



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Book platform and avoid using any illegal means to bypass the flow restriction measures, otherwise 

they may face penalties such as account banning and content deletion. 

In short, Little Red Book limits mobility of ideas and thinking in content review. 

3.2 Little Red Book’s Information Cocoon Limits the Mobility 

Little Red Book’s Information Cocoon limits the ideas of mobility. 

The term “information cocoon” in the Internet usually refers to the filtering and screening of users’ 

information flow by certain platforms or social networks, limiting users’ access to information to a 

specific range, so that they can only see content related to their interests, preferences or browsing 

history, thus forming a kind of information "cocoon" that limits users’ access to diverse information and 

views. 

A similar information cocoon may exist on the Little Red Book platform. As a social shopping platform, 

Little Red Book uses algorithms to personalize users’ information flow based on their personal interests, 

topics they follow, browsing history and other information, limiting their exposure to a specific range 

of content in order to provide content that better matches their interests. Such personalized 

recommendations may result in users seeing content on Little Red Book mainly related to their interests, 

while their knowledge of other areas or opinions may be more limited, thus creating a kind of 

information cocoon phenomenon. 

The information cocoon may have a number of potential impacts on users, such as potentially leading 

to users getting caught up in filtering and sifting through information and lacking a diverse range of 

information and perspectives, which may affect their overall knowledge and understanding of the 

world. 

As I have said, Little Red Book’s Information Cocoon limits the ideas of mobility. 

3.3 Little Red Book Limits Mobility by its Privacy Features 

Little Red Book’s privacy features limit the mobility. 

As a social shopping platform, Little Red Book involves the protection of users’ personal privacy 

information, which is very important. In order to protect the privacy rights of users, Little Red Book 

may impose restrictions on privacy features to prevent abuse, infringement of user privacy or violation 

of relevant laws and regulations. 

The following are some of the situations in which Little Red Book may impose restrictions on privacy 

features: 

Privacy settings: Little Red Book may impose restrictions on users’ privacy settings, such as limiting 

the frequency of changing the privacy settings of users’ accounts and restricting certain modifications 

to users’ privacy settings, in order to prevent users from changing their settings frequently and 

bypassing privacy protection measures. 

 



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Access to privacy information: Little Red Book may restrict users’ access to other users’ privacy 

information, such as restricting the viewing of other users’ profiles, restricting the viewing of other 

users’ follow lists, fan lists etc., in order to protect users’ personal privacy. 

Privacy information posting: Little Red Book may restrict the content posted by users with privacy 

information, such as restricting the posting of content with sensitive information such as other people’s 

mobile phone numbers, ID numbers, bank account numbers etc., in order to protect the privacy of 

users. 

Privacy verification: Little Red Book may require users to undergo privacy verification in certain 

operations, such as mobile phone number verification and real name authentication, to ensure the 

authenticity and legitimacy of users’ identities when using the platform. 

That is to say, Little Red Book limits mobility by privacy features. 

 

4. Conclusion and Limits 

Overall, these studies highlight the need for exploring the topic about Little Red Book can enable the 

mobility. Considering all of this evidence, it seems that Little Red Book Enables the mobility of ideas 

and “the self”. However, such studies remain narrow in focus dealing only with Little Red Book 

Platform, mobility. There remain several aspects of Little Red Book limited mobility about which 

relatively little is known. A more systematic and theoretical analysis is required for Little Red Book 

and Mobility. One of the tough challenges for all researchers in this domain is lacking of related 

theories about the relationship between Little Red Book and Mobility. So it is necessary to draw on 

other relevant research theories, use a new research methodology, look at the topic and issue from a 

new perspective, and conduct an in-depth discussion and research. 

 

References 

Guo, J. (2022). The postfeminist entrepreneurial self and the platformisation of labour: A case study of 

yesheng female lifestyle bloggers on Xiaohongshu. Global Media and China, 7(3), 303-318. 

Retrieved from 10.1177/20594364221095896 

Peter, A. (n.d.). Review Essay Liquid Modernity: Bauman on Contemporary Welfare Society. Acta 

Sociologica, 47(2). https://doi.org/10.1177/0001699304043854 

Elmira, D., & Chloe, R. (2017). Exploring the credibility of online celebrities’ Instagram profiles in 

influencing the purchase decisions of young female users. Computers in Human Behavior, 68, 1-7. 

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2016.11.009 

Park, & Kang. (2012). The Effects of Types of Self-Identity on Quasi-social Interactions and 

Information Sharing Intentions with Facebook Opinion Leaders. Journal of Digital Convergence, 

19(6), 225-232. https://doi.org/10.14400/JDC.2021.19.6.225 

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Hemang, S., Sabyasachi, M., & Sam, R. (2021). Capturing Value in Platform Business Models That 

Rely on User-Generated Content. ORGANIZATION SCIENCE, Articles in Advance, 1-20. 

Retrieved from 10.1287/orsc.2020.1408 

Herbert, B. (2015). The Future of the Sociological Classics (RLE Social Theory) (p. 169). 

https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003074304 

Corrado, S., & Giacomo, R. (2010). Through the looking glass: Self and others. Consciousness and 

Cognition, 20(1), 64-74. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2010.11.012 

Jun, L., & Jingyi. (2020). More than plain text: Censorship deletion in the Chinese social media. J 

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