Comparative Analysis of Representations of Feminism Across Chinese Social Media: A Corpus-Based Study of Weibo and Zhihu

Abstract

Studies on representations of feminism have seldom addressed the variance across social media platforms, leaving the underlying dynamics that shape feminist portrayals within this important digital context unexamined. This research contrasts representations of feminism on Weibo and Zhihu, China’s leading microblogging and question-and-answer platforms, using a corpus-based method. Employing Sketch Engine, I extracted and analyzed noun bigrams containing feminism from self-compiled corpora to explore the similarities and distinctions in representation. The results indicate that both platforms predominantly portray feminism as seeking female privilege via radical and aggressive approaches, despite Weibo’s emphasis on methods and Zhihu’s on purposes. In addition, the Weibo discourse more frequently presents feminism as an emerging social movement and employs a greater variety of distinguishing attributes to describe the movement. The findings reveal a shared public perception of feminism, while also highlighting the influence of distinct user demographics and platform architectures. This research augments the current literature by identifying the varied representations of feminism on different social media platforms and providing novel insights into its perception within the Chinese context.