A Soft Power Challenge, or an Opportunity? A Big Data Analysis on Chinese Soft Power during COVID-19 Pandemic

IF 1.7 2区社会学 Q2 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

Foreign Policy Analysis Pub Date : 2023-05-04 DOI:10.1093/fpa/orad011

Yerin Kim, Byungjun Kim, Min Hyung Park, Woomin Nam, Jangil Kim

引用次数: 0

Abstract

The Chinese government's rigorous efforts to enhance its soft power have confronted a major challenge during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study aimed to look at how the Chinese soft power changed throughout the pandemic using English news articles that covered China. The research took a data science approach to investigate the contents of articles using machine-learning-based sentiment analysis and Dirichlet-Multinomial Regression (DMR) analysis. The results show a gradual downturn in overall sentiment and that the topics related to political issues made the most significant impact. Nevertheless, the major increase in referencing Chinese social media implied that the sources of Chinese soft power have been diversified throughout the pandemic. In addition, this research has aimed to engage in major debates around soft power theory. Providing a multi-disciplinary approach for analyzing soft power, this research has tackled the difficulties in the quantitative conceptualization of soft power.

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软实力的挑战还是机遇?新冠肺炎疫情下中国软实力大数据分析

在新冠肺炎大流行期间，中国政府为增强软实力所做的严格努力面临着重大挑战。这项研究旨在通过报道中国的英文新闻文章来观察中国的软实力在整个疫情期间是如何变化的。这项研究采用了数据科学的方法，使用基于机器学习的情感分析和狄利克雷多项式回归（DMR）分析来调查文章的内容。结果显示，总体情绪逐渐下降，与政治问题相关的话题影响最大。尽管如此，提及中国社交媒体的人数大幅增加，这意味着在整个疫情期间，中国软实力的来源是多样化的。此外，本研究旨在围绕软实力理论展开重大辩论。本研究为分析软实力提供了一种多学科的方法，解决了软实力定量概念化的困难。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Foreign Policy Analysis INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS-

CiteScore

3.60

自引率

9.10%

发文量

期刊介绍： Reflecting the diverse, comparative and multidisciplinary nature of the field, Foreign Policy Analysis provides an open forum for research publication that enhances the communication of concepts and ideas across theoretical, methodological, geographical and disciplinary boundaries. By emphasizing accessibility of content for scholars of all perspectives and approaches in the editorial and review process, Foreign Policy Analysis serves as a source for efforts at theoretical and methodological integration and deepening the conceptual debates throughout this rich and complex academic research tradition. Foreign policy analysis, as a field of study, is characterized by its actor-specific focus. The underlying, often implicit argument is that the source of international politics and change in international politics is human beings, acting individually or in groups. In the simplest terms, foreign policy analysis is the study of the process, effects, causes or outputs of foreign policy decision-making in either a comparative or case-specific manner.