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Measuring China’s Online Reaction to the Paris Terror Attacks

If you don't live in Beijing, you probably just didn't care

The Paris attacks have drawn some interesting reactions in Chinese media, with some commentary and online reaction complaining that Paris was hogging the media spotlight while some others used the attacks an an opportunity to re-open some old grievances with the European country.

The Nanfang reported on the negative reaction previously, but now we have some actual statistics. Guhe Media and Weibo Database released a study that offers a breakdown of user activity in China in regards to the Paris terror attacks on the micro-blogging service Weibo.

national breakdown of paris attack concern

Out of all the users in China concerned with the November 13 Paris terror attacks (by posting and writing comments), almost half (48 percent) came from Beijing (seen on the pie chart above, to the right). Other provinces were not well represented with Guangdong coming in at ten percent, Sichuan at eight, and only five percent out of all the Weibo users concerned about the Paris terror attacks in China came from Shanghai.

The statistical breakdown continued by saying male Weibo users were far more interested in the Paris attacks than their female counterparts by a 4:1 ratio (78 percent, and 22 percent, respectively).

national breakdown of paris attack concern

The study differentiated between posts that used “positive” and “negative” terms. Positive terms including “cooperation”, “hope”, “gold”, and “cute”, while negative terms included “terrorism”, “threat”, and “dead”.

Another telling detail was that among those with the most fans, no Chinese entertainment celebrity commented on the attacks. Instead, the most popular accounts to get involved in the discussion included several Weibo humor accounts like “Piggie likes to make sarcastic remarks”, and social commentators like management studies phD Chen Li.

national breakdown of paris attack concern

And, as the study showed, Chinese have been talking about terrorist group ISIS for awhile now, most noticeably last February in the aftermath of the horrific executions of two Japanese hostages. Strangely, the study does not show any online reaction to the September news that a Chinese national was being held hostage and ransomed by ISIS.

50 year-old Fan Jinghui was reported to have been executed earlier this week, an act that drew strong condemnation from China’s Foreign Ministry and President Xi Jinping.

Charles Liu

The Nanfang's Senior Editor