Beyond the Wall: Mapping Twitter in China

Sonya Yan Song,Robert Faris,John Kelly

doi:10.2139/ssrn.2685358

Abstract

In this paper, we map and analyze the structure and content found on Twitter centered around users in mainland China. This study offers a rare look at the activity of Chinese Internet users on a platform that is largely unregulated by the state and only reachable through the use of tools that circumvent state-mandated Internet filters. For Internet users that reside in mainland China, Twitter offers access to news from around the world and a wealth of ideas and perspectives that might otherwise be unavailable there, as well as a platform for building online communities that is not under direct control of the government. This study of Chinese Twitter — to our knowledge the first such study — offers a unique window into the online activities and global connections of Chinese Internet users who actively circumvent content restrictions. Based on a mixed-methods approach, combining social network analysis and a qualitative review of the content and activity of Chinese Twitter, we are able to map and provide detailed accounts of the topically based clusters that form among these networks. We identify 36 clusters that focus primarily on three areas: politics, technology, and entertainment. From one perspective, the discourse in the politically engaged portions of Chinese Twitter suggests that Twitter serves an alternative public sphere. The political group is formed of journalists, lawyers, human rights activists, and scholars, who are free to discuss topics typically not permitted in China, such as the Tiananmen Square protests, Tibetan and Uyghur issues, political scandals, and pollution. Yet China’s Internet repression is clearly succeeding. Chinese Twitter falls well short of supporting a broadly accessible networked public sphere. The proportion of the Chinese populace with direct access to the debates, communities, and shared resources on Twitter is relatively small, and the avenues by which such discourse might find its way into mainstream political discussion are severely constrained. The firewall between Twitter and the much larger social media platforms in China remains a formidable barrier.

Highlights

Sonya Yan Song is a Ph.D. candidate in Media and Information at Michigan State University
Based on 367 cases drawn from the political cluster, we found that 25% of users included what appears to be their real face, which is close to the results of the automated assessment
This study confirms that Twitter is used by residents of mainland China to follow popular accounts that are not found on Sina Weibo or other Chinese microblogging platforms

Summary

METHODOLOGY

The analytical basis for this report is a mixed methods research protocol: qualitative content analysis of Chinese Twitter supported by algorithmically drawn network maps and a diverse set of quantitative metrics calculated for each of the clusters in the network. Lawyers, writers, filmmakers, and scholars, many of whom live outside China, appear in this cluster They pay attention to Chinese media operated overseas, e.g.,. The list of users with the most followers from this network consists primarily of political activists and journalists, and includes popular figures from the technology and entertainment world. Sina Weibo has the largest user base in the region, including the most famous names hailing from mainland China, and from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore. H In Appendix 1, we present an analysis of location at a more detailed level, showing the approximate distribution of users within China and other countries

E ACG Shanghai

CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS

33 TIME ZONE

Findings

37 HEATMAPS