Strategies of Chinese State Media on Twitter

Abstract

How do state-controlled broadcasters reach foreign publics to engage in public diplomacy in the era of social media? Previous research suggests that features unique to social media, such as the ability to engage in two-way communication with audiences, provide state-controlled broadcasters new opportunities for online public diplo-macy. In this paper, we examine what strategies were used by four Chinese state-controlled media outlets on Twitter to reach foreign publics as the Chinese Communist Party worked to expand its public diplomacy and international media outreach e ff orts. We fi nd that all outlets increased the volume and diversity of content while none engaged in interactive, two-way communication with audiences, and none appeared to arti fi cially in fl ate their follower count. One outlet, China Global Television Network, made outsized gains in followership, and it di ff ers from the other Chinese outlets in that it was rebranded, it disseminated a relatively lower share of government-mandated narratives pertaining to China, and the tone of its reporting was more negative. These results show that during a period when Chinese state-controlled broadcasters gained followers on Twitter, outlets made limited use of features unique to social media and instead primarily used social media as a broadcast channel.