Social Network In China Research Articles

Creating a speech portrait of a modern Chinese teacher in online media

The purpose of the study is to identify the speech characteristics of modern Chinese teachers. The object of the study is the blog(s). Special attention is paid to the visual and auditory design of the video material: the presence of music, the design of the room, the style of the blogger's clothes, the manner of speech. The desire to show their own market attractiveness against the background of competitors, the desire to become popular and have their own audience on the Internet motivates bloggers to show authority in a variety of ways. The research material was two commercials of English language courses on the "bilibili" platform. The coronavirus infection has pushed the Chinese government and private educators to develop online teaching platforms, among which the bilibili video hosting can be cited as example. Users of this platform have the opportunity not only to watch videos, but also to purchase video courses on various topics. The work uses a descriptive method (observation, interpretation, generalization). In the course of the study, the speech analyzer programs Text-Analyzer and Cathoven were used, with the help of which the approximate level of oral text on the CEFR scale was determined. As a result of the analysis, the main features of the speech portrait of the teacher-blogger were highlighted, and the importance of the image on the Internet for attracting an audience was emphasized. The main contribution of the author is a comprehensive study of the image of a modern teacher in Chinese linguoculture. Along with the economic boom and the development of social networks in China, there has been a reassessment of traditional values. The penetration of Western mass culture has had a strong impact on the population, especially on the younger generation, who use the Internet to a greater extent and consume entertainment and educational content. This influence has not spared modern Chinese teachers. Studying the image of a Chinese teacher in modern realities will help to update information about Chinese culture, its synthesis with modern mass culture and traditional Confucian values.

"Guanxi" Versus Social Network in China: The Perspective of Independent Directors' Connections

The social exchange theory posits that economic and social factors are crucial for successful business relationships. Numerous studies have examined interpersonal connections across cultures. Informal relationships influence economic and social exchange, such as Guanxi in China, Yongo in South Korea, and Wasta in the Middle East. In social network literature, the concept of 'network' encompasses two dimensions: network relation and network structure. The connections among directors affect a company's efficiency from a network perspective. This study conceptualises "Guanxi" and social networks to illustrate the similarities and differences between these two concepts and how Chinese Guanxi differs from Western preconceptions concerning social networks. Given that both "Guanxi" and social networks involve social connections, it is essential to note that Guanxi does not exclusively relate to social networks or merely serves as an alternative term for social networks. Additionally, this study focuses on independent directors' social networks created by serving on multiple boards and reviews the literature on independent directors' connections in China. The methodology employed to accomplish the conceptual definition and distinction was based on a comprehensive literature review that consisted of comparative studies and analyses of other scholars' perspectives and theoretical frameworks. Guanxi" is a distinctive characteristic of Chinese culture, specifically about informal relationships. Guanxi, or "personal connections," is valued by the Chinese more highly than networking, information, and institutions, which Westerners prioritise. In the "Guanxi" concept, emphasis is placed on social capital within the circle of friends, family, and close associates. This study argues that researchers must recognise subtle differences in how informal inter-organisational directors' relationships are developed and utilised in social network and "Guanxi" concepts.

Referral bonuses in global talent acquisition: the role of social networks in China and the US

Referral bonuses in global talent acquisition: the role of social networks in China and the US

CHINA AND EUROPE: INFORMATION GEOPOLITICS IN THE ERA OF NEW MEDIA

The article is devoted to the (geo-)political strategies of the EU and China in the modern communication space mediated by Internet technologies. As the main features of this space, the authors highlight the presence of a single and indivisible offline and online society; the permanent and progressive nature of communication; the use of new information exchange technologies; the introduction of new communicators into the environment through manipulation and influence techniques; the development of free exchange of ideas and information, regardless of borders. The authors note that political communication today directly expresses the essence of the information society and thus - both its new opportunities and risks for the promotion of ideological meanings and the realization of power goals. In recent years, the unconditional hegemony of the West in the global communication space has been replaced by sharp competition with China. At the same time, the participants of this competition seek to restrict access to their spaces of information sources from the competitor. The authors show how this works using the example of European and Chinese media. Separately, the article analyzes the emerging turn towards a new global communication subject to Chinese influence. In a comparative perspective, the key features of the European communicative space in modern political realities are indicated. Further, the article shows that the creation of its own social network in China (WeChat), as well as the improvement of the interaction process within the Chinese community (the opening of blogging sites, etc.), led to the spread of internal ideologically significant networks outside the PRC. This attracted representatives of other regions and states to the cultural environment of this country. The authors conclude that due to this process, there is not only competition for dominance in the global communication space, but also a tendency to improve the interaction of countries in all spheres of life.

The Characteristics and the Influencing Factors of Rural Elders’ Social Networks: Evidence from China

Due to the immature formal care system, social networks have provided a new way to solve the support dilemma for Chinese rural elders. With few studies exploring social networks from a multi-dimensional perspective, this study aimed to comprehensively explore the characteristics and associated factors of rural elders’ social networks in China. Data were drawn from a national survey of 1126 rural elders in China. An Ordinary Least Squares linear regression model was used to analyze the factors associated with network size, network heterogeneity, and network strength (the weak link strength). The results showed that rural elders’ social networks in China presented the characteristics of a smaller size, a lower heterogeneity, and a weaker strength of “the weak link” (that is, the tendency to associate with external network members). Individual factors, family factors, and community factors, especially income, marital status, and number of children, were important influencing factors of characteristics of China’s rural elders’ social networks. These findings highlighted the importance of family, children, and formal support in rural China, offering implications for policy-making and service delivery. More attention should be paid to the relevant factors to enrich the social networks of rural elders and to ensure their happy lives in later years.

A Longitudinal Study on the Addictive Behaviors of General Population before and during the COVID-19 Pandemic in China

By using nationally representative longitudinal data, this study investigates the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the addictive behaviors (smoking and drinking) of the general population in China. From the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) 2018 and 2020, we extract a sample of individuals over 16 years of age in China, consisting of 14,468 individuals and 28,936 observations. We decompose the sample into three age groups, that is, ages between 16 and 39, ages between 40 and 59 and ages above 60. The bootstrap method is used to estimate the confidence interval of the difference in the mean of addictive behaviors, and logit models are used in the regression analysis. Our results show that the COVID-19 pandemic reduces the smoking behavior of individuals above 40 years of age, and that it reduces the drinking behavior of individuals above 16 years of age. However, the pandemic increases the smoking behavior of individuals between 16 and 39 years of age. These results may be closely related to the characteristics of COVID-19 (that is, a respiratory system disease), the working and economic pressures of young Chinese and the role of drinking alcohol in building and maintaining social networks in China.

Social and Literary Function of the Gift Exchange Narrative inJin Ping Mei

AbstractGift exchange is necessary to maintain guanxi, a ubiquitous system of social networks in China, which has drawn little academic attention in Chinese literary criticism. The narrative of gift exchange for guanxi permeates Jin Ping Mei. Through gift exchange, the central character, Ximen Qing, achieved his fortune and success. This article sets out to discuss the social and literary function of gift exchange narratives in terms of plot and characterization from the perspective of guanxi. It argues that the necessary asymmetry in gift exchange, as a part of guanxi, propels narrative development, creates suspense that arouses the reader's curiosity, and leads narrative coherence. Without direct psychologizing of characters' minds, the narrative of gift exchange offers glimpses into the inner worlds of the characters by combining an instrumental purpose and sentimental means.

Jin Ping Mei: A Story of Guanxi

No fiction is without a narrative of human relationships. In Chinese literary history, the stories represented by Jin Ping Mei are especially seen as dealing with human relationships. Some researchers have interpreted Jin Ping Mei from the perspective of human relationships; however, the generic concept cannot describe social connections in Chinese culture. The concept of guanxi, the ubiquitous and quotidian social network in China, better describes the specific human relationships in this fiction. Guanxi as a Chinese cultural phenomenon originating from Confucianism is effective in procuring resources through instrumental and sentimental mechanisms. In Jin Ping Mei, which is centered on Ximen Qing, a guanxi network connects all the characters. Ximen Qing’s fortune is built on guanxi manipulation. Guanxi, however, which was expected to embody Confucian values, violated Confucian principles in the late Ming context. Jin Ping Mei marks a turning point for attitudes toward guanxi in literary representation, and this derogatory attitude persisted in the narrative of fiction throughout the Qing dynasty.

Examining online social behavior changes after migration: An empirical study based on OSN big data

With fast urbanization and decreasing transportation cost, migration becomes more common. Previous studies have shown the important role of social networks in the process of migration, but little is known about the effect of migration on social networks. To fill the research gap, this study examines the effect of migration on online social behaviors (in terms of network evolution and social interaction), as well as the moderating effect of migrants' characteristics. We collect a four-month big dataset with 2.29 million records from one of the largest online social networks in China. We apply the propensity score matching combined with the difference-in-differences method to compare online social behavior changes after migration. Our results show that, for network evolution behavior, migration positively impacts on the number of tie formation, but non-significantly impacts on the number of tie decay; for social interaction behavior, migration increases the number of contacts but decreases the number of messages. We also find some moderating effects of migrants’ characteristics, including gender, age, and degree. This study provides big data empirical evidence and some new insights to our understandings of the impact of migration on online social network behavior.

Discovering Spammers in Social Networks

As the popularity of the social media increases, as evidenced in Twitter, Facebook and China's Renren, spamming activities also picked up in numbers and variety. On social network sites, spammers often disguise themselves by creating fake accounts and hijacking normal users' accounts for personal gains. Different from the spammers in traditional systems such as SMS and email, spammers in social media behave like normal users and they continue to change their spamming strategies to fool anti spamming systems. However, due to the privacy and resource concerns, many social media websites cannot fully monitor all the contents of users, making many of the previous approaches, such as topology-based and content-classification-based methods, infeasible to use. In this paper, we propose a novel method for spammer detection in social networks that exploits both social activities as well as users' social relations in an innovative and highly scalable manner. The proposed method detects spammers following collective activities based on users' social actions and relations. We have empirically tested our method on data from Renren.com, which is the largest social network in China, and demonstrated that our new method can improve the detection performance significantly.

ІНТЕРНЕТ-МЕМИ ЯК РЕТЛЯНСЛЯТОРИ КУЛЬТУРИ У КИТАЙСЬКОМОВНОМУ МЕДІАПРОСТОРІ

The secrecy of the Chinese Internet makes it a unique ecosystem that operates separately from world trends. Along with the development of original social networks in China, Internet memes have entered the media arena, which not only broadcast the mood of network users but also preserve significant cultural and social phenomena. Currently, the field of Internet memes as cultural retransmitters in the Chinese-language media space is unexplored by Ukrainian scientists, which determines the relevance of this article. The main goal of the paper is to study the cultural phenomena that migrated to the Internet in the form of memes, their origin and structure. The object of the study is the 30 Internet memes that, according to the National Center for Monitoring and Study of National Language Resources of the People's Republic of China, were most popular in Chinese social networks in 2017-2019. On the example of three popular memes: 皮皮虾, 我们走 (shrimp, let's go), 确认过眼神 (I can see by the look in the eyes), 996工作制 (working system 996) we traced the history of memes, and summarize them by this structure: meme type + source + function. Also, the following features of Internet memes were highlighted and suggested: virality, emotionality, relevance, humour and media. Internet memes have become a real megaphone for ordinary citizens who are not afraid to discuss diverse topics, even despite all the secrecy and censorship of the Chinese network. Nowadays, memes aren’t just some funny pictures you see every day while scrolling your social media, there are a story and a history behind every meme. During the past three years, Chinese users were using memes to raise critical topics such as #米兔 (#Rice bunny) that was a Chinese way to support #MeToo campaign started in 2017. Girls and women stood up for each other to protest against sexual harassment and sexual assault. By coming up with the idea of using a homophone #米兔 (#Rice bunny), that sound just like #MeToo but was harder to track by Chinese government, Chinese girls and women weren't left behind. Posting memes about 996 was also a way to protest against overtime working that was so extensively supported by the two biggest Internet magnates in China. Taking into count the speed of development and changing of the Internet meme trends, we are not allowed to underestimate the importance of their role in every society. Perhaps, for Chinese Internet users memes are one of the limited ways to the freedom of speech, since it is harder to find the original source and a creator.

Intelligent Prediction of Private Information Diffusion in Social Networks

In the information age, leaked private information may cause significant physical and mental harm to the relevant parties, leading to a negative social impact. In order to effectively evaluate the impact of such information leakage in today’s social networks, it is necessary to accurately predict the scope and depth of private information diffusion. By doing so, it would be feasible to prevent and control the improper spread and diffusion of private information. In this paper, we propose an intelligent prediction method for private information diffusion in social networks based on comprehensive data analysis. We choose Sina Weibo, one of the most prominent social networks in China, to study. Firstly, a prediction model of message forwarding behavior is established by analyzing the characteristic factors that influence the forwarding behavior of the micro-blog users. Then the influence of users is calculated based on the interaction time and topological structure of users relationship, and the diffusion critical paths are identified. Finally, through the user forwarding probability transmission, we determine the micro-blog diffusion cut-off conditions. The simulation results on Sina Weibo data set show that the prediction accuracy is 86.9%, which indicates that our method is efficient to predict the message diffusion in real-world social networks.

Whither guanxi and social networks in China? A review of theory and practice

ABSTRACT The analysis of guanxi and social networks is well-established but heated debates continue on its utility in Chinese business and management. Many argue that it offers an emotionally sensitive, network-based form of resource allocation, uniquely fitted to China’s distinctive national culture. Others assert that it impedes open-market competition and merit-based reward, factors assumed to be essential for the optimal functioning of capitalist economies. Our collection of research offers new empirical insights and nuanced conceptual development on these debates, demonstrating the continuing relevance of guanxi in the 21st century. This is achieved through examining multinational enterprise corporate performance, governance structures in Chinese private firms, organizational justice in Chinese banks, entrepreneurial learning and knowledge acquisition and the gendered nature of guanxi in the workplace. Important theoretical and practical implications from these studies are highlighted, as well as the key implications for future research. The collection is dedicated to the memory of our dear friend, mentor and colleague, Professor Malcolm Warner, who passed away during its development.

A multi-criteria spatial approach for mapping urban ecosystem services demand

• A multi-criteria approach integrating demand for ecological and cultural services. • We quantified the consumption of green spaces using check-in data. • We applied the demand for ES to optimize the ecological security pattern in central Beijing. A growing number of studies have mapped the demand for ecosystem services (ES). Recently, demand for ES has been broadened to include cultural services in addition to ecological services, especially for urbanized areas. In this study, a multi-criteria approach is proposed that synthesizes the available ecological and cultural services to map the demand for ES: including 1) soil erosion sensitivity, 2) geological hazard sensitivity, 3) water management, 4) vegetation coverage, 5) permanent farmland, 6) accessibility, 7) population density, 8) direct use of green spaces, and 9) cultural heritage. The cultural services demand describes the desire or preference, and consumption or direct use of cultural services, e.g. recreation and cultural heritage. Most studies discussed only the desire or preference for cultural services because of the difficulty quantifying the actual consumption of these cultural services. This research gap was filled using the check-in data collected from WeChat (a major social network in China). Each criterion was assigned a weight so that the ecological services demand, the cultural services demand, and the overall ES demand could be quantified. The results suggest that in general, the mountainous areas, farmlands, and suburban areas have high demand for ecological services while public parks in urban areas show high demand for cultural services. However, the ES demand in the availability of some small green spaces in highly urbanized areas may be higher than that for large green spaces in suburban areas. This multi-criteria analysis is necessary to obtain a comprehensive assessment of ES demand, which will contribute to improving the applicability of ES in real-world decision making, e.g. green space planning and conservation.

A Two-Stagse Approach for Social Identity Linkage Based on an Enhanced Weighted Graph Model

Social identity linkage refers to identify the accounts belong to the same person across different social networks. This work can assist in building more complete social profiles, which is valuable for many social-powered applications. In this paper, we propose a two-stage approach to improve the efficiency and accuracy of large-scale social identity linkage. The first stage deals with the seed set enrichment problem and focuses on exploring a larger set of seeds with greater precision. The second stage deals with the global propagation problem and focuses on finding more matched pairs with lower computation. Moreover, we propose an enhanced weighted graph model to deeply investigate the structural characteristics. We also develop an attribute representation method to reduce the impact of missing attributes. Finally, we evaluate our method based on the datasets collected from two popular social networks in China. And the experimental results demonstrate that our method outperforms other state of the art algorithms.

WeChat: Social Network and Smart City

The work focuses on the study of WeChat (main social network in China) and its digital activity for its advanced functionalities which build intelligent society in China. The importance of this platform lies in the prohibition of Western social networks in China. For 7 years, WeChat has evolved as a “super social network”, from an instant messaging application to a hybrid including application, marketplace, payment method and operating systemz, as an integrated means rather than just social network. In today's western world, almost no network can be compared with WeChat in terms of its functionalities. It is a good example of promotion and development of the intelligent society because of its advanced functionalities. The new usage and the rapid expansion of its integrated functionality and impacts form the new communication consumption framework in China. This work shows how an intelligent society changes and develops through a social network, and detailed analysis of advanced technology and social network of WeChat to give a good example to Westren countries which want to build intelligent society.

Segregation in religion networks

Religion is considered as a notable origin of interpersonal relations, as well as an effective and efficient tool to organize a huge number of people towards some challenging targets. At the same time, a believer prefers to make friend with other people of the same faith, and thus people of different faiths tend to form relatively isolated communities. The segregation between different religions is a major factor for many social conflicts. However, quantitative understanding of religious segregation is rare. Here we analyze a directed social network extracted from weibo.com (the largest directed social network in China, similar to twitter.com), which is consisted of 6875 believers in Christianity, Buddhism, Islam and Taoism. This religion network is highly segregative. Comparative analysis shows that the extent of segregation for different religions is much higher than that for different races and slightly higher than that for different political parties. Furthermore, we study the few cross-religion links and find 46.7% of them are probably related to charitable issues. Our findings provide quantitative insights into religious segregation and valuable evidence for religious syncretism.

A Popularity Scaled Latent Space Model for Large-Scale Directed Social Network

Large-scale directed social network data often involve degree heterogeneity, reciprocity, and transitivity properties. A sensible network generating model should take these features into consideration. To this end, we propose a popularity scaled latent space model for the large-scale directed network structure formulation. It assumes for each node a position in a hypothetically assumed latent space. Then, the nodes close (far away) to each other should have larger (less) probability to be connected. As a consequence, the reciprocity and transitivity properties can be analytically derived. In addition to that, we assume for each node a popularity parameter. Those nodes with larger (smaller) popularity are more (less) likely to be followed by other nodes. By assuming different distributions for popularity parameters, different types of degree heterogeneity can be modeled. Furthermore, based on the proposed model, a comprehensive probabilistic index is constructed for link prediction. Its finite sample performance is demonstrated by extensive simulation studies and a Sina Weibo (a Twitter-type social network in China) dataset. The performances are competitive.

Public Attention to Natural Hazard Warnings on Social Media in China

Abstract Hazard warning is vital in disaster management. The rapid development of social media allows warning producers and receivers to exchange warning messages effectively and sufficiently. This study investigates the factors that influence public attention to natural hazard warning information on social media. Drawing from the protective action decision model and framing theory, this study classifies antecedents into three groups, namely, hazard information, publisher’s/reader’s characteristics, and frame setting. To test the hypotheses empirically, we select Sina Weibo, the leading social network in China, as the research context. From this platform, 3452 warning messages issued by authorities in the target area are collected. We code each message based on its attributes that are related to our study for linear regression analyses. Results show that all the factors related to publisher’s/reader’s characteristics exert significant effects on public attention. However, the affected range indicated by a warning message and the formality of the message’s language are not significantly related to public attention to the message.

On Power Law Growth of Social Networks

What is the growth dynamics of social networks, like Facebook or WeChat? Does it truly exhibit exponential early-growth, as predicted by the celebrated models, like the Bass model? How about the dynamics of links, for which there are few published models? For the first time, we examine the growth of WeChat which is the largest online social network in China, together with several other real social networks. We observe Power-Law growth dynamics for both nodes and links, a fact that breaks the textbook models featuring Sigmoid curves. We propose NetTide , along with differential equations for the growth of nodes and links. Our model fits the growth dynamics of real social networks well; it encompasses many traditional growth dynamics as special cases, while remaining parsimonious in parameters. The NetTide for link growth is the first one of its kind, accurately fitting real data, and capturing densification phenomenon. We further formulate two stochastic generators, which interpret the growth of nodes and links through survival analysis and micro-level interactions within a social network, respectively. The proposed generators reproduce realistic growth dynamics of social networks. When applied on the WeChat data, our NetTide forecasted $\geq$ 730 days ahead with 3 percent error.