A Comparative Study on the Chinese Government Publicity Weibo: Shanghai vs. Tianjin

Abstract

Chinese governments have been actively employing the Internet technology to facilitate its propaganda work. Micro-blogging or Weibo of government publicity departments is one such example, which disseminates local official information authoritatively. However, while some of the publicity Weibo have actively gained much influence, others have been rather dormant. To explain this difference, we take the publicity Weibo of Shanghai and Tianjin as examples, and compare them in details. We find that, though sharing similar administrative and economic backgrounds, publicity Weibo of Shanghai garners more information from other governmental departments and public organizations, and responds more rapidly to local emergencies. Moreover, we argue the quality of publicity Weibo largely depends on the local government’s attitude towards government Weibo’s importance in political communication and public administration, and its management concept of government Weibo. Local emergencies may also speed up the development of government Weibo.

政府宣传微博是传统政府宣传工作的新运用，也是中国政务微博中的重要一支。然而，处于相同的大环境下，不同城市的宣传微博却拥有迥异的影响力。为了解释这一差距，本文用内容分析法，从信息来源、栏目安排、议题设置等方面比较了影响力上相差较大的“@上海发布”与“@天津发布”。我们发现，虽同属发布型微博，“@上海发布”信息源更多来自于政府部门和公共机构，栏目设置更便民，突发事件报道更为及时。我们认为，主要原因是两个政府对政务微博的重视程度和管理理念的差别。同时，突发事件也一定程度推动了政务微博的发展。