Research On The NAS Effect Of "A Community With Shared Future For Mankind" Concept On Twitter

For a long time,the agenda-setting theory has been widely used in the research on the effect of news media reports,but most of these studies focus on the coverage of concrete news events.Little attention is paid to the dissemination of abstract ideas and concepts.Therefore,this thesis takes English tweets involving "a community with shared future for mankind" concept in 2020 as the research object,examining the effectiveness of a new theory called Network Agenda Setting(NAS),also known as the third layer of agenda-setting,in the dissemination of ideas and concepts.2020 is a key year for the dissemination of "a community with shared future for mankind" concept.On the one hand,the global epidemic of COVID-19 highlighted the urgency and importance of building a community with shared future for mankind.On the other hand,an infodemic containing false information,conspiracy theories,geographical stigma and racial discrimination appeared in the online world,especially international social media platforms.In such a complex situation,Chinese media's agenda-setting power is particularly critical if they want to influence the perception and attitude of overseas audiences to the concept.The unique background motivates this thesis to analyze tweets related to "a community with shared future for mankind"concept in 2020.This thesis first uses a variety of research methods such as content analysis and social network analysis to deconstruct the agenda network of Chinese media and Twitter users on the concept.After coding,matrix generation,degree centrality calculation and network visualization,this thesis finds that the media agenda network of Chinese media is highly similar to the public agenda network of Twitter users in core structure,but there are many differences in the edge layout.Specifically,“international relations","national development","leader's words and actions","COVID-19" and "globalization" are the five major topics that both sides attach the most importance to.These topics are connected to each other,forming the core part of both agenda networks.After calculations of QAP correlation and regression,this thesis concludes that the media agenda network is significantly related to the public agenda network.And there is a strong causal relationship which indicate that NAS has a significant effect on the spread of the concept on Twitter.However,although there is a statistically causal relationship between the media agenda and the public agenda,the actual effect of the spread of the idea carried out by the Chinese media is not ideal.Network analysis of the public agenda shows that Twitter users are most likely to think of China's national development when discussing the concept.They regard it as a symbol of China's strong national strength and fail to grasp the true meaning of the concept,that is,the common development of all countries.There are also a large number of Twitter users who equate“a community with shared future”with"globalization",failing to understand the similarities and differences between the two.All this shows that the existence of NAS effect cannot be equated with the positive communication effect.This thesis reveals the feasibility of NAS theory for the dissemination of ideas and concepts,which can provide case support for the wider application of agenda-setting theory.At the same time,the structure and content of the agenda networks of Chinese media and Twitter users on the concept in 2020 is presented in this thesis,which will help Chinese media to review their own work effects and understand the trends of Twitter audiences.Therefore,this thesis can serve as a reference for Chinese media to make decisions about international communication in the future.