Networked Framing: Chinese Microbloggers’ Framing of the Political Discourse at the 2012 Democratic National Convention

Social media use has complicated the conduct of foreign affairs by producing unintended audiences and opinions. This study examines Chinese Sina Weibo users’ framing of the political discourse of the 2012 Democratic National Convention (DNC). We found influential independent users and alternative commercial media, rather than official media, dominate the framing of the DNC political discourse on Sina Weibo. Elite Chinese microbloggers have a good understanding of U.S. electoral politics, with the “social media contest” frame and issues related to China and Asia receiving particular attention. Our exploration suggests traditional framing research needs to consider a new form of “networked framing” that relies on the interactions between elite and nonelite users and algorithmic aggregations afforded by new digital platforms.