TY - JOUR

T1 - Leading with hearts and minds

T2 - Emotion contagion in China’s online activism

AU - Liu, Nian

AU - Liu, Jun

PY - 2023

Y1 - 2023

N2 - Who are the prominent actors leading the diffusion of emotional messages in China’s online activism? What roles do they play in this process in an emotion-discouraging context? In this exploratory study, we examine networked patterns of anger diffusion within the Red-Yellow-Blue kindergarten child abuse scandal on the Chinese social media Weibo. Using supervised machine learning for emotion labeling and a social network analysis approach, we identified three types of actors and profiled their distinctive roles in the process of anger contagion. Broadcasters (e.g., verified organi-zation accounts) act as both an information source and a legitimate source to elicit other users’ emotion through emotion-free informa-tion. Furthermore, emotion initiators like celebrities instigate and lead other users’ emotions, while emotion brokers like micro- celebrities build bridges between different subgroups to form a massive-scale network of emotion contagion. These actors are indispensable and complement each other for emotion contagion in China. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings on the understanding of emotion diffusion in online activism.

AB - Who are the prominent actors leading the diffusion of emotional messages in China’s online activism? What roles do they play in this process in an emotion-discouraging context? In this exploratory study, we examine networked patterns of anger diffusion within the Red-Yellow-Blue kindergarten child abuse scandal on the Chinese social media Weibo. Using supervised machine learning for emotion labeling and a social network analysis approach, we identified three types of actors and profiled their distinctive roles in the process of anger contagion. Broadcasters (e.g., verified organi-zation accounts) act as both an information source and a legitimate source to elicit other users’ emotion through emotion-free informa-tion. Furthermore, emotion initiators like celebrities instigate and lead other users’ emotions, while emotion brokers like micro- celebrities build bridges between different subgroups to form a massive-scale network of emotion contagion. These actors are indispensable and complement each other for emotion contagion in China. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings on the understanding of emotion diffusion in online activism.

U2 - 10.1080/14742837.2021.2011716

DO - 10.1080/14742837.2021.2011716

M3 - Journal article

VL - 22

SP - 728

EP - 750

JO - Social Movement Studies

JF - Social Movement Studies

SN - 1474-2837

IS - 5-6

ER -