Differentiation and unity: A Cross-platform Comparison Analysis of Online Posts’ Semantics of the Russian–Ukrainian War Based on Weibo and Twitter

Abstract

The current Russian–Ukrainian War sparked a new wave of misinformation across social media. However, there is a lack of cross-platform research approaches around war events. This article followed the path of comparative media analysis. We used a three-step method from Triangulation theory and gathered 309,260 relevant posts from both the Twitter and Weibo platforms. We found that (1) Weibo posts are synchronized with Chinese mainstream media, and there is an “Amplification” phenomenon; Twitter posts are delicate and provocative from the perspective of individual encounters; (2) the topics of Weibo are “wide and scattered,” together to form a panoramic broadcast of the conflict. While topics of Twitter formed a condemnation around the invasion war; (3) the positive and negative emotion volume has gone through three stages: “Confrontation,” “Polarization,” and “Extension” with the development of the war. Finally, though the two social media fields present different characteristics, the call for humanitarianism and peace constitutes the unity of public opinion.