Attitudes Toward Local and National Government Expressed over Chinese Social Media: A Case Study of Food Safety

Douglas Yeung ; Astrid Cevallos

RAND Corporation

RAND Corporation

关键词: Food Supply Security;    China;    Databases and Data Collection;    Analysis;    and Processing;    Food Supply;    Social Media Analysis;    The Internet;    Food Safety;   

DOI  :  10.7249/RR1308
ISBN  :  9780833092991
RP-ID  :  RR-1308-TI

学科分类：自然科学（综合）

美国|英语

来源: RAND Corporation Published Research

【 摘 要 】

Psycholinguistic analysis of Chinese-language social media can help provide insight into the attitudes of Twitter and Sina Weibo users toward local government, national government, and Western companies. Because the issue of food safety engages important themes in Chinese domestic politics — including the watchdog role of the press and the challenges of effective oversight in an authoritarian system — this analysis focused on social media content discussing the July 2014 "Husi incident," a food safety scandal involving expired meat in McDonalds and KFC. Results suggested that Chinese-language social media users expressed more anger and sadness — but also used more words indicating positive emotions or feelings of kinship — when discussing the national government than when discussing the local government.