The International Communication Influence Formation Mechanism Of China’s Non-lingua Franca Influencers On Social Media

The increasing popularity of social media has brought new opportunities and challenges to international communication.Also,it has become an important starting point for China to compete for the right to have a voice in the international public domain.However,the long-term mistrust of overseas audiences towards Chinese mainstream media and the fact that international social networks such as Facebook and Twitter tag mainstream media accounts in China,Russia,and other countries to limit their influence makes it clear that creating influencers/opinion leaders will be an important means of international communication to reach out to overseas audiences in the long term.The existing number of research papers on influencers/opinion leaders active on international social network platforms are mostly aimed at Chinese and English influencers or other single-language influencers;therefore,they are relatively limited.In such a situation,and based on the theories of multi-step flow and network agenda setting,this paper takes 54 Facebook accounts of multilingual anchors/hosts of a media group as the research sample and explores the formation mechanism of China’s non-lingua franca(less commonly spoken languages)influencers on social media through text analysis,in-depth interviews,and case analysis.20 representative accounts are selected and through in-depth interviews with these 20 influencers,their experience in international communication as influencers of a less commonly spoken language are obtained.Then,a summary of their sources to make influence,the way of expression of multilingual influencers in international communication,and their interaction with other audiences and media,combined with the analysis of cases with good communication effects or innovative ideas based on the theories of multi-step flow,network agenda setting,and other communication theories,and finally the formation mechanism of the international communication influence of China’s nonlingua franca influencers is obtained.The study has the following findings:First,from the point of view of the communicator,the basis of the international communication influence of China’s nonlingua franca influencers is believable characters,official identity,being certain to make an influence as an individual,and knowledge about the language and culture of the target countries.Their biggest advantage is that they can eliminate the barriers caused by cross-cultural communication through the knowledge of the languages and cultural factors,and it is easier for them to establish contact with the audience in the target countries.Second,from the perspective of topic selection and expression,China’s non-lingua franca influencers often follow the agenda set by China’s mainstream media,looking for events that are most valuable to the audience as entry points and provide another personalized and subjective perspective for the grand mainline narrative of mainstream media,becoming an important addition to mainstream media agenda setting.Moreover,in the face of immediate public opinion,non-lingual franca influencers can also set their topics,respond quickly and in a targeted manner,and play an important role in monitoring,guiding,and improving public opinion.Third,from the point of view of interacting with the environment,non-lingua franca influencers can transfer their influence to a wider platform through networking with mainstream media and self-promoted media in the target countries,participating in the agenda-setting of the target countries,and completing the localization of their influence.Based on the research results,this paper also puts forward the following suggestions for China’s future international communication work:absorb civil forces,establish a non-lingua franca influencer matrix,and form a stronger voice on international social network platforms;For disseminating Chinese culture,use personalized and civilian perspective rather than the grand narrative;the communication based on the international network social platform is used as a means to realize the localization of influence and participate in the local agenda setting of the target countries.From the theoretical angle,this paper tries to fill the gap in the research on China’s non-lingua franca social media influencers in the context of international communication.To a certain extent,it has provided an improved solution to the problems of a single sample and weak theory in the previous researches on influencers/opinion leaders in China.From a practical perspective,creating social media opinion leaders will be an important means of global and localized communication with overseas audiences in the long run.This research has a significant reference for such outreach and can help relevant institutions to optimize current communication strategies,find more efficient communication methods,and strengthen communication effects.