Online Discourse in the Context of COVID-19, the First Health Crisis in China after the Advent of Mobile Social Media: A Content Analysis of China’s Weibo and Baidu

Christian Carvajal-Miranda, Luis Mañas-Viniegra and Li Liang
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Christian Carvajal-Miranda: Department of Applied Communication Studies, Complutense University of Madrid, Av. Complutense, 3, 28040 Madrid, Spain
Luis Mañas-Viniegra: Department of Applied Communication Studies, Complutense University of Madrid, Av. Complutense, 3, 28040 Madrid, Spain
Li Liang: ConneXU—Social Media, Room 301, Block D, Street 7, 128 Huayuan Road, Hongkou District, Shanghai 200083, China

Social Sciences, 2020, vol. 9, issue 10, 1-15

Abstract: The COVID-19 epidemic was the first universal health crisis since China entered the era of mobile social media. When Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) broke out in 2003, it was not until almost six years later that Weibo was born, marking China’s entry into the era of mobile social media (Weixin 2020). In this context, this research analysed the role of the social media platform Weibo and the Internet search browser Baidu, in a government controlled online media environment, during the COVID-19 pandemic. In order to undertake this study, we applied the use of content and sentiment analysis to the discourse identified through the topics published during the investigation period, which encompassed 15 December 2019 until 15 March 2020. From the findings of this study, we concluded that, during the pre- and post-COVID-19 period, there was an important presence of social and lifestyle topic categories dominating the online discourse, which dramatically changed in correlation to the increasing spread of the disease. Additionally, there was a marked absence of topics in relation to economic and political information, and there was a notable absence of an official Government “voice” generating topics.

Keywords: social media; search engine; COVID-19; coronavirus disease; communication; Weibo; Baidu; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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