Abstract
This paper examines China’s recent initiative on international social media and assesses its effectiveness in counteracting Western dominance in international communication. Analysing data collected from the Twitter platform of three public accounts run by China’s state news media CGTN, People’s Daily and Xinhua News, it finds that their news agenda about China focuses on the country’s top leaders and achievements, while that about other countries is on breaking news. Their China-related tweets receive more positive replies than their non-China-related tweets, but tweets about China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, receive fewer positive replies than soft news items. Analysis of Twitter data of the #southchinasea hashtag finds that China’s media mainly compete with US sources for influence. China’s state media influence the news agenda on the issue by active and persistent tweeting and drawing retweets. However, US sources are more influential as a whole in setting the news agenda and amplifying certain news events. The study finds evidence that forces seemingly unfriendly to both China and the US attempt to skew the news agenda of #southchinasea using manipulated accounts.
Highlights
Western dominance of international communication (MacBride et al, 1980) manifested as a real diplomatic issue for China in the 1990s, after Western television news beamed images of the injured and dead next to rolling military tanks in the streets of Beijing in early June 1989 to the living rooms of audiences around the world
To counteract the negative image created by such reports – which China described as ‘demonisation’ (Li, 1998), and which resulted in punitive diplomatic measures by other countries – China strengthened its external communication in the decade afterwards
To counteract Western domination of global communication, China has adopted a proactive strategy in its external communication as it grows in economic strength, and aspires to set its own frame of global discourse
Summary
This paper examines China’s recent initiative on international social media and assesses its effectiveness in counteracting Western dominance in international communication. Analysing data collected from the Twitter platform of three public accounts run by China’s state news media CGTN, People’s Daily and Xinhua News, it finds that their news agenda about China focuses on the country’s top leaders and achievements, while that about other countries is on breaking news. Their China-related tweets receive more positive replies than their non-China-related tweets, but tweets about China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, receive fewer positive replies than soft news items.
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