Chinese Social Media Platforms and Microblogging in the Context of Public Diplomacy

Abstract

The term “digital public diplomacy” that appeared in the 21st century owes much to the emergence and development of the concept of Web 2.0 (interactive communication on the Internet). The principle of network interaction, in which the system becomes better with an increase in the number of users and the creation of user-generated content, made it possible to create social media platforms where news and entertainment content is created and moderated by the user. Such platforms have become an expression of the opinions of various groups of people in many countries of the world, including China. The Chinese segment of the Internet is “closed”, and many popular Western services are blocked in it. Studying the structure of Chinese social media platforms and microblogging, as well as analyzing targeted content is necessary to understand China’s public opinion, choose the right message channels and receive feedback for promoting the country’s public diplomacy. This paper reveals the main Chinese social media platforms and microblogging and provides the assessment of their popularity, as well as possibility of analyzing China’s public opinion based on “listening” to social media platforms and microblogging.