Winning American Hearts and Minds by Xiuli Wang

Author:Xiuli Wang
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789811531842
Publisher: Springer Singapore

6.2 China’s Social Media Diplomacy Effort and Its Effectiveness

Governments around the world are establishing their presences on the world’s most widely used social media platforms to disseminate crucial information and reach the public directly. The most common platforms are Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. One might assume that China would struggle to effectively employ services that its own people don’t have access to. This is certainly not the case as China has taken up social media abroad with particular vigor. For instance, Xinhua News Agency, China’s largest and most influential news agency, established an official Twitter account in English in 2012. Posting on topics relating to Chinese policies, economy and culture on average once every ten minutes, in March 2016 it boasted over 3.5 million followers. Xinhua’s two Facebook accounts have exceeded four million “likes” combined since their establishment in 2006. Other China state-owned news outlets, such as CCTV (China Central Television), CRI (China Radio International), the People’s Daily and Global Times all have maintained a presence on international social media platforms.

In the survey of 1011 Americans of their opinion about China and Chinese culture in January 2017, the respondents were also asked “whether they have followed the Facebook and Twitter accounts of some Chinese media”. As Table 6.1 shows, a small percentage of Americans (ranging from 4.2% to 8.2%) did follow Chinese media’s social media accounts. Although the percentage is not high, it indicates that Chinese government’s social media strategy does have an influence. Unlike the traditional media such as television and newspaper, social media is unique in that it offers direct interaction with the public, and thus has greater power to reach individual people.Table 6.1Percentage of Americans who have followed the Facebook and Twitter accounts of Chinese media

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