A Study On New Media Public Diplomacy Of Foreign Embassies And Consulates In China During The COVID-19 Pandemic

The outbreak of COIVD-19 pandemic since early 2020 has rapidly evolved into a global public health emergency in a short period of time,and has made relations between countries around the world more complex.In this turbulent international situation,there are new opportunities and challenges for effective public diplomacy.It has also become more important to conduct new media public diplomacy through social media to further enhance the understanding and acceptance of target countries.Emotion research is an important part of communication psychology research,and empathy,as a psychological concept,has received increasing attention from the communication community in recent years.In new media public diplomacy activities,triggering empathy in the target country’s audience can help improve the effectiveness of message dissemination and thus achieve better communication results.Based on the five general frameworks in public health events,this paper studies the communication strategies and effects used by the United States,Japan and India in the process of new media public diplomacy through microblogs during the first year of the outbreak of the new crown epidemic in China,as well as the embodiment and role of empathic communication in it,using content analysis and sentiment analysis.In this study,we used content analysis and sentiment analysis to examine the content of blog posts related to "COVID-19 Epidemic","Epidemic" and "COVID-19" posted by the microblog accounts of the U.S.,Japanese and Indian embassies and consulates in China during the sample time period.We filtered the content of blog posts,comments,retweets and likes,and collected 305 blog posts and 76,384 comments.Through the analysis of the five general frames,we found that the U.S.Embassy in China Weibo most often used the responsibility frame in blog posts about the new crown epidemic,while the Japanese Embassy in China Weibo tended to use the human-interest frame to gain the emotional resonance of the audience.The Indian Embassy in China Weibo,on the other hand,often uses both frames together.By analyzing the impact of the microblog communication index and the five frames on the communication effect,this paper concludes that the epidemic-related blog posts published by the U.S.Embassy in China have a higher degree of coverage,and the interactive effect of the Embassy of Japan in China’s microblog is better than that of the Embassy of India in China’s microblog.In the study of empathy communication,this paper concludes that the U.S.Embassy in China’s official Weibo posts highlighting its position as a leader in the global epidemic and its image as a responsible power did not trigger strong empathy among Chinese netizens,but rather caused some anti-empathy.The Japanese Embassy in China focused on supporting China’s fight against the epidemic,highlighting its empathy for China’s suffering from the epidemic,triggering positive reactions from Chinese netizens,and also triggering empathy from Chinese audiences through the use of cultural factors.This is rare in the context of the overall tension between China and Japan in recent years.The Indian Embassy in China’s Weibo is relatively objective and neutral in terms of both the content posted and the emotional inclination of its audience.By studying the microblogs of the embassies of three countries in China,this paper argues that in the process of China’s foreign public diplomacy through new media,it should pay attention to the use of humane frameworks and release information from a localized perspective;appropriately reduce overly rigid official discourse and enhance the ability of rational empathy;in addition,it can also draw on symbiosis theory to build a framework of responsibility for China’s public diplomacy and call on countries around the world to strengthen international cooperation.