Vol. 2 No. 9 (2025)

Thematic Section: Surrounding Communications Research

Communication Practice and Challenges of the Africans in Guangzhou Issues on Chinese Social Media Platforms: A Survey Based on Big Data

Published 2025-09-30

  • Xiao Cui
    • ,
  • Li Zhu
    • ,
  • Lin Wang
    • ,
  • Mengshan Ren

Xiao Cui
School of Culture and Media, Huanghuai University, Zhumadian 463000, China

Li Zhu
Beijing Polytechnic, Beijing 100176, China

Lin Wang
State Key Laboratory of Media Convergence and Communication, Communication University of China, Beijing 100024, China

Mengshan Ren
Graduate School, Communication University of China, Beijing 100024, China

Abstract

This study examines the communication practices and challenges surround-ing the “Africans in Guangzhou” issue on Chinese social media through the lens of field theory, using big data–assisted online content analysis to inves-tigate discourse construction, emotional tendencies, and cognitive logics while identifying obstacles in information flows. Drawing on 62,877 valid data points collected from Sina Weibo, WeChat, and Zhihu between October 2009 and January 2024, the analysis shows that the issue generated a multi-the-matic framework dominated by negative discourse and consolidated a nega-tive “emotional community.” In this process, patriotism and racism became intertwined, and cultural conflict and identity were mutually articulated, pro-ducing a complex dynamic of transmission. Concurrently, poor information flow, the generalization of noise, and the agitation of influence flows intensi-fied the complexity and uncertainty of the public opinion field concerning China–Africa relations. The formation of issue-related habits and representa-tions is shown to arise from the interplay of political, cultural, economic, and technological capital, together with external threat power, within the field; ad-dressing these challenges requires collaborative governance across these forces to build a healthier relational network.

Keywords

Social Media, Africans in Guangzhou, Big Data, Communication

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