‘Panda engagement’ in China’s digital public diplomacy

ABSTRACT

Applying a constructive journalistic paradigm, we examined how the Chinese media digitalized panda diplomacy on Twitter. By analyzing English-language, panda-themed tweets (N = 855) posted by Chinese state-owned media (Xinhua News Agency, People’s Daily, and CGTN) in 2017, we identified content types and communication engagement practices that contributed to Chinese digital diplomacy. Our findings confirm that the practice of panda engagement online is highly politicized in the context of China’s public diplomacy. Chinese media outlets use Twitter (a) to spread official discourse and views in the diplomatic arena to strengthen the government’s impact and (b) to accrue sympathy capital and increase attractiveness through strategic placement of imagery (e.g. static images, moving gifs, and video clips) and textual narrative.

KEYWORDS:

• Constructive journalism
• digital public diplomacy
• engagement
• panda
• Twitter

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributors

Zhao Alexandre Huang is a Ph.D. Candidate and Instructor in Communication Science at the Université Gustave Eiffel (formerly Université Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée). He works in DICEN-IDF laboratory. His ongoing Ph.D. dissertation focuses on China’s public diplomacy and strategic communication in Africa. He studies institutional practice, political and public communication strategies, the strategic narrative in the process of public diplomacy. His research interests include public diplomacy, strategic communication, public relations, and social media.

Dr Rui Wang is a Visiting Assistant Professor at the College of Communication, Boston University. His research interests include social media analytics, strategic communication, and international communication.

ORCID

Zhao Alexandre Huang http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1284-0862

Rui Wang http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2953-2820

Notes

1 We take care to report our findings related to engagement type because intercoder reliability for engagement type was not high (Krippendorff’s Alpha, .74).

2 Tweet: ‘@FLOTUS Melania Trump visits the Panda House at Beijing Zoo and interacts with giant #panda Gu Gu on Friday morning #TrumpInAsia’ (11/10/2017 06:25 @CGTNOfficial).

3 Tweet: ‘Wild #panda population rises from 274 in 2003 to 345 today in northwest China province http://bit.ly/2f8Fr6c’ (09/14/2017 15:47 @PDChina).