Parallel Politics: Chinese Diaspora on YouTube and the 2024 U.S. Election

• In Event: Political Sociology Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Politics and the Media (Table 9)

Abstract

Chinese American voters showed a striking shift in the 2024 U.S. presidential election, with support for Donald Trump rising from 27% in 2020 to 39% in 2024 -- a 12 percentage point rise, making it the largest increase among all Asian American subgroups. During the same period, U.S.–China relations have deteriorated across all domains, alongside increasingly negative public sentiment toward each other. This interesting contrast calls for a systemic investigation of the Chinese diaspora's political attitudes in the U.S. Focusing on the information environment the diaspora is exposed to, the project analyzes political videos on YouTube, a prominent yet understudied platform for political communication. Adopting a comparative design, this study contrasts Chinese-language YouTube videos against their English-language counterparts during the 2024 election period in terms of their topics, sentiments, and user engagement patterns. Drawing on more than one million videos, we employ both computational and qualitative content analysis to investigate this parallel information environment for Chinese-speaking audiences. The findings will illuminate the online Chinese diaspora's unique characteristics, revealing their distinct narratives and frames, and offering insights into Chinese Americans’ political attitudes and identities amid tightened U.S.-China relations.

Authors

• Yinxian Zhang, CUNY-Queens College

• Yongjun Zhang, Stony Brook University