Are China's stars leading fans to be more nationalist - or the other way round?

Grass-roots enthusiasm has played the main role in shaping China's online nationalist narrative and has pushed celebrities to follow, according to a study published in the American peer-reviewed journal Science Advances last week. Contrary to the common perception that nationalism on Chinese social media space functions more top down and that Beijing uses social media to influence or control public opinion, the study jointly done by researchers from leading universities in the United States and Britain offered a different story. "Our findings reveal that fans exert a stronger influence on celebrities than vice versa in spreading nationalism. Fans often shape the nationalist narratives that celebrities amplify, with those aligned with specific political leanings, such as those within the state-conformist camp, having a greater influence," it said. The study was carried out by four scholars from the University of Michigan, Texas A&M University, Brown University and Cambridge University. They used a statistical method called vector autoregression to look at how celebrities and fans influenWeiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Korea Times Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Korea Times