A Comparative Study of China's Foreign Ministry Spokesperson's Use of Weibo and Twitter

Abstract

Governments around the world are embracing social networks to promote their agendas, and China is no exception. Although Twitter is blocked in China, many diplomats own Twitter accounts and actively post content. Particularly, Zhao Lijian (China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs Spokesperson) is prolific on Twitter as well as its Chinese counterpart, Weibo. This paper examines the entities mentioned in and the sentiment of Zhao's posts, delivered or not delivered to people within China, to study the similarity and differences between his use of Weibo and Twitter. This paper also compares the users' engagement with Zhao on both platforms, exploring the possible factors influencing users' engagement on both platforms.