Social Media as a Medium to Promote Local Perception Expression in China’s World Heritage Sites

Xiaoxu Liang, Naisi Hua, John Martin, Elena Dellapiana, Cristina Coscia and Yu Zhang
Additional contact information
Xiaoxu Liang: Department of Architecture and Design, Politecnico di Torino, Viale Mattioli, 39, 10125 Turin, Italy
Naisi Hua: School of Architecture, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China
John Martin: Sustainable Earth Institute, University of Plymouth, Plymouth PL4 8AA, UK
Elena Dellapiana: Department of Architecture and Design, Politecnico di Torino, Viale Mattioli, 39, 10125 Turin, Italy
Cristina Coscia: Department of Architecture and Design, Politecnico di Torino, Viale Mattioli, 39, 10125 Turin, Italy
Yu Zhang: School of Architecture, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China

Land, 2022, vol. 11, issue 6, 1-19

Abstract: The assessment of public participation is one of the most fundamental components of holistic and sustainable cultural heritage management. Since the beginning of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic became a catalyst for the transformation of participatory tools. Collaboration with stakeholders moved online due to the strict restrictions preventing on-site activities. This phenomenon provided an opportunity to formulate more comprehensive and reasonable urban heritage protection strategies. However, very few publications mentioned how social networking sites’ data could support humanity-centred heritage management and participatory evaluation. Taking five World Cultural Heritage Sites as research samples, the study provides a methodology to evaluate online participatory practices in China through Weibo, a Chinese-originated social media platform. The data obtained were analysed from three perspectives: the users’ information, the content of texts, and the attached images. As shown in the results section, individuals’ information is described by gender, geo-location, celebrities, and Key Opinion Leaders. To a greater extent, participatory behaviour emerges at the relatively primary levels, that being “informing and consulting”. According to the label detection of Google Vision, residents paid more attention to buildings, facades, and temples in the cultural heritage sites. The research concludes that using social media platforms to unveil interplays between digital and physical heritage conservation is feasible and should be widely encouraged.

Keywords: cultural heritage management; inclusive governance; public participation; social media; Weibo; pandemic (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/11/6/841/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/11/6/841/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlands:v:11:y:2022:i:6:p:841-:d:831468

Access Statistics for this article

Land is currently edited by Ms. Carol Ma

More articles in Land from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().