Public Sentiment on Chinese Social Media during the Emergence of COVID19

Lu, Yingdan; Pan, Jennifer; Xu, Yiqing

doi:10.51685/jqd.2021.013

Cited by 27 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…Our analysis shows how they consequently resonate with, rather than contradict, the official narratives. 6 The emotional turn we observe is not so much an example of citizen journalism, nor is it a case of a new modus operandi of official journalism. Instead, we read it as a further intensification of the commercialization and platformization 7 of news production in China.…”

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confidence: 79%

The politics of emotion during COVID-19: Turning fear into pride in China's WeChat discourse

Kloet

Lin

2021

China Information

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In this article, we analyse the most popular stories that circulated on WeChat public accounts concerning personalized experiences of COVID-19 in China during the first three months of 2020. Among these non-fictional online writings, we probe into ‘individual’ and mediated experiences with the coronavirus in China by questioning the visualizations and discourses of these stories and their producers, as well as the concomitant emotions they invoked. Parallel to the changing situation of the pandemic, we observe a diachronic evolution of emotions, from fear and doubt to (nationalist) pride. While articulating personalized experiences of the pandemic from disparate perspectives, the stories invariably built on, and were shaped by, the workings of the WeChat public account platform (公众平台) as evidenced by its content moderation logic and political economy. The analysis shows that emotions, rather than facts, propel the popularity of these stories. The measures taken by the state are mostly applauded, and only sometimes questioned; tragic memories are rewritten, and a political and economic order is consolidated.

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confidence: 79%

The politics of emotion during COVID-19: Turning fear into pride in China's WeChat discourse

Kloet

Lin

2021

China Information

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“…Second, the research assistants manually labeled the rest of the data and categorized it into 11 topics ( 20 ). Then, the 11 thematic indicators were grouped into three dimensions: government, public, and media ( 21 ). Taking 11 thematic indicators distributed among the government, the public, and the media as variables, and taking “the number of Weibo on the day of each thematic indicator/the total number of Weibo per day,” the number of Weibo in each topic for 40 days is obtained.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Investigating the Public Sentiment in Major Public Emergencies Through the Complex Networks Method: A Case Study of COVID-19 Epidemic

Yang

Wang

Lin

2022

Front. Public Health

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The main purpose of this study is to investigate what topic indicators correlate with public sentiment during “coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) epidemic” and which indicators control the complex networks of the topic indicators. We obtained 68,098 Weibo, categorized them into 11 topic indicators, and grouped these indicators into three dimensions. Then, we constructed the complex networks model of Weibo's topics and examined the key indicators affecting the public's sentiment during the major public emergency. The results showed that “positive emotion” is positively correlated with “recordings of epidemic” and “foreign comparisons,” while “negative emotion” is negatively correlated with “government image,” “recordings of epidemic,” and “asking for help online.” In addition, the two vertexes of “recordings of epidemic” and “foreign comparisons” are the most important “bridges” which connect the government and the public. The “recordings of epidemic” is the main connection “hub” between the government and the media. In other words, the “recordings of epidemic” is the central topic indicator that controls the entire topic network. In conclusion, the government should publish the advance of the events through official media on time and transparent way and create a platform where everyone can speak directly to the government for advice and assistance during a major public emergency in the future.

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“…Leaders of the Wuhan Central Hospital forbade doctors from wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) in order to prevent social panic, which was partly responsible for the high casualty rate amongst doctors there, including Li, who died from COVID-19 in February 2020. 5 No news articles were published about the emerging virus, and social media posts on related topics were limited and constantly censored (Lu, Pan, and Xu 2021). These early expert narratives failed to reach the broader public.…”

Section: A Managing Expert Narrativesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Xi Jinping spoke about the outbreak for the first time. In three days, social media posts about COVID-19 increased by more than 100 times(Lu, Pan, and Xu 2021).…”

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confidence: 99%

“It's (Not) Like the Flu”: Expert Narratives and the COVID‐19 Pandemic in Mainland China, Hong Kong, and the United States

Liu

2022

Sociological Forum

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We trace the crafting of expert narratives during the initial months of the COVID-19 pandemic in Mainland China, Hong Kong, and the United States. By expert narratives, we refer to how experts drew different lessons from past disease experiences in order to guide policymakers and the public amidst uncertainty. These expert narratives were mobilized in different sociopolitical contexts, resulting in varying configurations of expertise networks and allies that helped contain and mitigate COVID-19. In Mainland China, experts carefully advanced a managed narrative, emphasizing the new pandemic akin to the 2003 SARS outbreak can be managed while destressing the similar mistakes the government made during the two crises. In Hong Kong, experts invoked a distrust narrative, pointing to a potential coverup of COVID-19 similar to SARS, activating allies in civil society to pressure policymakers to act. In the United States, experts were mired in a contested narrative and COVID-19 was compared to different diseases; varying interpretations of COVID-19's consequences were exacerbated by political polarization. In expert narratives, the resonance of the past is emergent: the past becomes a site of struggle and a cultural object that is presented as potentially useful in solving problems of the present.

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Public Sentiment on Chinese Social Media during the Emergence of COVID19

Cited by 27 publications

References 38 publications

The politics of emotion during COVID-19: Turning fear into pride in China's WeChat discourse

The politics of emotion during COVID-19: Turning fear into pride in China's WeChat discourse

Investigating the Public Sentiment in Major Public Emergencies Through the Complex Networks Method: A Case Study of COVID-19 Epidemic

“It's (Not) Like the Flu”: Expert Narratives and the COVID‐19 Pandemic in Mainland China, Hong Kong, and the United States

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