Research Project
Researchers: Dr Joyce Nip (Principal investigator) , Dr Chao Sun (Associated with)
Brief description
The data archive includes a series of interactive visualisation developed for the above paper as a research tool for
better data analysis. 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 receive less positive replies than soft news items. Analysis of
Twitter data of the #southchinasea finds that China's media mainly compete with US sources for influence. China's
state media influence the news agenda of 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.
Data time period: 01 10 2016 to 24 10 2017