This paper investigates how Tencent, a leading Chinese internet enterprise, frames news to regulate popular nationalism, focusing on the 2012 Diaoyu (Senkaku) Islands incident. Using automated sentiment analysis of over 500,000 news comments, the study reveals that audience online nationalism is significantly influenced by Tencent news, user engagement, and emotions. Tencent initially used stimulative nationalist narratives but shifted to restrictive narratives to prevent online nationalism from jeopardizing social governance. Restrictive news decreased popular nationalism compared to stimulative news. Love, anger, and disgust increased support for China, while happiness had the opposite effect. Online nationalism, as imaginary engagement, stems from the collusion of platforms, government, and audiences, contributing to maintaining government legitimacy. The computational approach offers valuable insights into nationalism research.

Qiaoqi Zhang, Cheng-Jun Wang