Representation of Various Nationalities in Chinese Social Media: Comparative Analysis

This study, relying on China's racial discourse and the theory of the representation of the “other” in social media, analyzes and compares the representations of foreigners of different nationalities in the Chinese social network Zhihu with each other. Qualitative content analysis, critical discourse analysis, sentiment analysis, and comparative analysis were applied in the study, which was used to analyze 414 Chinese users' posts on three groups of foreigners: huaqiao, american, and african. Before conducting the practical part of the study, it was hypothesized that users would perceive huaqiao most positively and africans most negatively. The results of the study confirmed this hypothesis and showed that Africans were more discriminated and stigmatized than others on the Chinese social network Zhihu. Huaxiao and Americans are perceived by the Chinese in roughly the same way, with a slight advantage in favor of foreigners of Chinese origin. The discourse about each group of foreigners showed signs of exclusion, emphasizing “otherness” and opposing their community. In the huaqiao discussions, the Chinese were most interested in the reasons why they were returning to China. Users' concerns about Americans were mostly socio-political in focus. Most of all, the Chinese wanted to know about the character of Americans, their opinion of the PRC, and their level of patriotism. In discussions about Africans, the most popular topics were discrimination and stereotypes.