How Information Flows from the World to China

Abstract:

In this talk, we examine whether and how information flows across national borders. By developing a semi-automated system that combines deep learning and human annotation to find co-occurring content across different social media platforms and languages, we identify inflows of information from the global information ecosystem into China. We find that approximately one-fourth of content with relevance for China that gains widespread public attention on Twitter makes its way to Weibo. Traditional media outlets play a dominant role in facilitating these inflows of information, but Weibo users without institutional affiliations are also an important mechanism for transmitting information into China.

Speaker:

Prof. Jennifer Pan

Professor of Communication

Stanford University

Related Posts