With the increasing role of digital platforms in shaping community integration, developing culturally contextualized and theoretically grounded measurement tools to assess digital engagement and community attachment is essential, especially for urban migrant populations. Grounded in Media System Dependency (MSD) Theory and Communication Infrastructure Theory (CIT), this pilot study validates a four-factor measurement framework comprising WeChat usage intensity, WeChat dependency, participatory communication, and community attachment. Drawing on adapted and refined scales, data were collected from 98 urban migrants in Xi’an, China, and analyzed through AMOS-based covariance structural equation modeling (CB-SEM). The measurement model demonstrated satisfactory reliability, convergent validity, and discriminant validity, with all factor loadings surpassing recommended thresholds and model fit indices (CFI, TLI, RMSEA, SRMR) indicating good fit. Importantly, this study distinguishes between usacge intensity and psychological dependency, offering a nuanced framework that integrates MSD and CIT in a platform-specific urban migration context. While findings remain exploratory due to the small sample size, the study provides methodological contributions by demonstrating cross-cultural scale adaptation and measurement validation procedures. The validated framework serves as a methodological foundation for future large-scale and longitudinal research investigating the dynamics between social media engagement, participatory communication, and community attachment.
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