Questions for Yingdan Lu's talk on "Narratives of Foreign Media Ecosystems in Chinese Social Media Discussions of the Russo-Ukrainian War"

[jamesallenevans]

Post your questions regarding Yingdan Lu's 2/22 talk: Narratives of Foreign Media Ecosystems in Chinese Social Media Discussions of the Russo-Ukrainian War How do audiences living in countries with strong government censorship learn about foreign news? The prevailing expectation is that these governments act as the sole gatekeepers of information about foreign affairs. This talk presents an alternative perspective – the construction of foreign political news results from complex, transnational assemblages of online and traditional media, even in seemingly “closed” information systems such as China. However, under conditions of stringent censorship, transnational assemblages reflect pre-existing geopolitical alignments. By comparing narratives about the 2022 Russo-Ukrainian War circulating on Chinese social media with narratives found in over 24 million articles from 10,000 Chinese, Russian, Ukrainian, and U.S.-based news websites, we find, in alignment with our theoretical expectation, that Russian news websites are the largest originators and influencers of narratives related to the Russo-Ukrainian War found on Weibo, followed closely by Ukrainian news websites and more distantly by Chinese and U.S. news websites. These results show that transnational assemblages, rather than the Chinese government alone, shapes the inflow of information and construction of foreign news in a system of stringent censorship. This paper provides content-based computational frameworks for identifying multilingual, cross-country, and cross-platform digital communication, shedding light on the consequences of information control to the global information ecosystem.

Paper in invitation email (currently under review).

[franciszz992]

Fascinating topic, thanks for sharing! Do you think there might be selection bias when collecting Weibo posts on political topics as such? Could there be a dynamic process of the narrative across time, potentially shaped and guided by government propaganda? Thank you.

[Huiyu1999]

Thanks for sharing! The study covers a specific period during the Russo-Ukrainian War. However, the dynamics of social media narratives and news coverage can change rapidly, and I was wondering if the study's findings can fully capture these temporal variations or be generalizable beyond the specific timeframe analyzed. In addition, the study utilizes advanced computational methods, including large language models for narrative analysis, DP-Means clustering, and network-based influence estimation. I wonder if the performance and limitations of these models, including their ability to accurately capture semantic similarities and differences across languages and cultural contexts, could impact the results.

[ana-yurt]

Thanks for sharing! I wonder, given the enormous scale of Weibo discussion, whether the 475,231 posts sampled in this study is an exhaustive, or representative sampling of Weibo discussion. Is there possibly algorithmic bias if the data is collected via the Weibo API query?

[QichangZheng]

Thanks for sharing! The responses share a collective intrigue and reflection on the diverse perspectives offered by a study on digital communication across different languages and platforms. One point of interest is the approach to handling the varied communication environments across countries, such as differences in censorship and social norms, and how these factors are normalized for analysis. Another reflection is on the surprising discovery of narratives sympathetic towards Russia, highlighting the existence of varied global perspectives that contrast with more commonly seen viewpoints sympathetic towards Ukraine. Additionally, there's curiosity about the methodology behind generating specific data, particularly in relation to the timeline of events following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and how this aligns with the observed digital communication trends. These insights collectively underscore the complexity of global digital communication and the importance of considering multiple perspectives and contexts in research.

[yuy123337]

Thank you for sharing your insightful research! Considering the nuanced dynamics mentioned in the study regarding narratives in global media ecosystems, particularly in relation to multilingual communication and national borders, I'm curious about the envision of these findings--how to shape future research directions and practical approaches to understanding cross-cultural interactions and information flow? Also, what is the mechanism for information control on Chinese public social platforms?

[binyu0419]

Thank you for sharing! my question is: How to compare the narratives before and after the Russo-Ukrainian War? Considering that texts about Russo-Ukrainian War before the Russo-Ukrainian War doesn't exist.

[lim1an]

Thanks you for sharing this interesting research! I wonder what are the key findings regarding the narratives of the Russo-Ukrainian War circulating on Chinese social media, and how do they challenge prevailing expectations about the flow of foreign news information in China.

[HongzhangXie]

Thank you very much for sharing your interesting research. After listening to your presentation, I am very interested in your strategy for analyzing such a large amount of text from multiple countries with various language backgrounds. I am curious whether the efficiency differences in performing NLP on different types of languages could impact the research conclusions and how we can avoid potential impacts as much as possible.

Additionally, in section 3.4 of the paper, the study shows that the models have a 90-95% accuracy for identifying cross-lingual paraphrases. Is this achieved by testing one-on-one (testing whether two articles in different languages are cross-lingual paraphrases) or many-to-many (for example, testing two different language article pools and finding corresponding paraphrases in the pool)?

[yunshu3112]

Hi Yingdan, thank you for sharing your work! Do you think the IP revealing policy on Weibo transformed users' behaviors when they post on the foreign news? Thank you for your insights!

[Dededon]

Thanks for the presentation! I love the part about how government-controlled Douyin accounts act as normal private users. That is aligning with DiMaggio's institutional isomorphism theory!

[Ry-Wu]

Hi professor Lu, thank you so much for an interesting presentation on your research! I wonder how you can analyze the text if the authors of the posts use certain words with the same Pinyin as their original meaning but different characters? Thank you!

[MaoYingrong]

Thanks for your presentation! I think right now KOLs (key opinion leads) really shape the narratives on social media platforms, which role do you think they play in Weibo, and how do they navigate censorship to influence public discourse?

[boki2924]

Thank you for your presentation! Based on your findings, what future research directions do you envision for studying the interaction between government censorship, transnational media assemblages, and online discourse in shaping perceptions of foreign news in closed information systems?

[zcyou018]

Thank you for the presentation! How might international policymakers and media organizations leverage this understanding to enhance the effectiveness of cross-border information dissemination?

[66Alexa]

My question is about influence of non-Chinese news sources: The finding that Russian and Ukrainian news websites have a significant influence on the narratives found on Weibo suggests a complex information flow. How do these foreign narratives interact with or contradict the official narratives promoted by the Chinese government?

[xinyi030]

Thank you for the presentation! Here's my question: how do individual Chinese social media users contribute to shaping narratives around the Russo-Ukrainian War under strict censorship? Thanks!

[Yuxin-Ji]

Thanks for sharing your work! I think the method you used is very interesting, I am impressed by the effort you spent on data collection, fine-tuning LLMs, and implementing various algorithms. How well do you think current multilingual models are in comparing different languages? Do you think there could be information loss during this multi-lingual comparison stage? My other question is about the stance labeling, which I am working on similar tasks. You categorized the articles into pro, neutral, and against, but many passages (especially social media posts from weibo and facebook, etc.) could not be simply categorized into these three stances. For example, a post could be criticizing another person's post, but not necessarily on their stance rather their logical argument. I wonder how did you handle this issue?

[yiang-li]

Thanks for sharing the work. Given the influence of Russian and Ukrainian news websites on Chinese social media narratives, what role do platforms like Weibo play in filtering or amplifying these foreign narratives? How do these platforms navigate the tension between user interest in international events and government censorship policies?

[cty20010831]

Thanks for sharing! I am wondering how do these findings challenge or reinforce existing theories on global information flow and censorship? Specifically, what implications do these results have for understanding the resilience of public discourse in tightly controlled information environments?

[Yunrui11]

Your research on narratives in Chinese social media is fascinating. I'm curious, how do you think these findings could inform our understanding of the broader global information ecosystem, especially in terms of the impact of transnational assemblages on the construction of foreign news?

[schen115]

Thanks for your sharing this interesting topic! I was wondering in light of the findings regarding the influence of transnational assemblages on the construction of foreign news in countries with stringent censorship like China, how might this understanding inform future research on media dynamics and government censorship, particularly in regions with similar socio-political contexts?

[mingxuan-he]

Thank you for sharing this great presentation. I wonder if more information can be derived from the IP address mandate on Weibo users. Do domestic users react to Russia/Ukraine news in the same way as international users (with access to international media)? How about those physically in Russia and Ukraine?

[Adrianne-Li]

Thank you for sharing! Your talk sounds incredibly insightful. I'm curious about the technical aspects of your research, especially the computational frameworks used to analyze cross-country and multilingual digital communication. How do these methodologies open up new avenues for understanding global information ecosystems beyond political contexts?

[HzSeaski]

Thank you for sharing your research! It’s thought-provoking to see the influence of geopolitical alignment on transnational media assemblages. In a world of increasing digital connectivity, I’m wondering could the formation of transnational narrative alliances along geopolitical lines lead to more intractable conflicts and mistrust between nations?

[YutaoHeOVO]

Thank you for sharing your research. (I already asked this question during your presentation and thank you for your reply.) There are two quick questions: according to the source of news that your are referencing, I notice that there are some Russian news agencies in the Chinese domain. Could this make the result biased due to the selection of data? And another question is that according to the regulatory requirements of Chinese government, not all internet news platforms are allowed to report news. (They choose to outsource the reports from news agencies like TASS, or media like Sputnik or Russian Today.) Could the outsourcing behavior makes the discussion of Russo-Ukrainian war being more affected by news from Russia?

[MaxwelllzZ]

Thank you for sharing the work. It is interesting, highly relevant to what we have in life, and deep in thinking about power of censorship of government.

I have a question: How do the dynamics of transnational media assemblages in tightly censored environments like China impact the public's perception of global events, and what might be the long-term implications for international relations and public diplomacy?

Thank you again.

[Kevin2330]

Thank you for your work. I'm actually very interested in politics and I believe that everyone should be aware of the news because it affects everyone. My question is: Can you elaborate on the content-based computational frameworks used in your study? How did you address the challenges of analyzing multilingual content and ensuring accurate comparisons across different national media ecosystems?

[hantaoxiao]

Thanks for your sharing, How does the influence of Russian and Ukrainian news websites on Chinese social media compare in terms of content and narrative tone? Are there notable differences in how each portrays the Russo-Ukrainian War?

[ZenthiaSong]

Hello, thank you for sharing your research. You mentioned that transnational media assemblages, rather than Chinese government censorship alone, shape the construction of foreign news. How does censorship still play a role in the selective amplification or suppression of these transnational narratives?