IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/scient/v129y2024i1d10.1007_s11192-023-04892-2.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

How is public discussion as reflected in WeChat articles different from scholarly research in China? An empirical study of metaverse

Author

Listed:
  • Yang Zhang

    (Sun Yat-Sen University)

  • Yinghua Xie

    (Sun Yat-Sen University)

  • Longfei Li

    (Wuhan University)

  • Yian Liang

    (Sun Yat-Sen University)

  • Houqiang Yu

    (Sun Yat-Sen University)

Abstract

Social media platforms do not blur the difference in information preferences between the general public and researchers when faced with the same heated events. This study aims to investigate the consistency between the public focus conveyed by WeChat articles and the scholarly focus reflected by CNKI papers in China, and to reveal the underlying interaction between researchers and the public. Metaverse is used as a case study. Based on articles mentioning metaverse in WeChat and CNKI, the dominant accounts and disciplines, topics discussed and studied, and sentiments related to metaverse are explored. Furthermore, WeChat articles mentioning scholarly outputs are identified to map the interaction between the public and researchers. Empirical analysis reveals that the first articles mentioning metaverse in both datasets predate the rebranding of Facebook. WeChat official accounts from the technology and finance industries post more metaverse-related articles, while researchers from journalism and information management are the main forces in academia. Both the public and academia discuss the impact of metaverse on the economy, politics, and social relations, the public also discusses the infrastructure, while academia ponders metaverse from the philosophical perspective, mass communication, and education. 60% of academic articles are mentioned by WeChat. The operators of WeChat official accounts, the public, and scholars express different sentiments. The theoretical significance lies in combining social media studies of science with bibliometric analysis. Practically, the public can take advantage to clarify the confusion related to metaverse. For policymakers, we provide scientific evidence to look for directions in the metaverse development.

Suggested Citation

  • Yang Zhang & Yinghua Xie & Longfei Li & Yian Liang & Houqiang Yu, 2024. "How is public discussion as reflected in WeChat articles different from scholarly research in China? An empirical study of metaverse," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 129(1), pages 473-495, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:129:y:2024:i:1:d:10.1007_s11192-023-04892-2
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-023-04892-2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11192-023-04892-2
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11192-023-04892-2?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Yaping Chang & You Li & Jun Yan & V. Kumar, 2019. "Getting more likes: the impact of narrative person and brand image on customer–brand interactions," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 47(6), pages 1027-1045, November.
    2. Egliston, Ben & Carter, Marcus, 2021. "Critical questions for Facebook's virtual reality: Data, power and the metaverse," Internet Policy Review: Journal on Internet Regulation, Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG), Berlin, vol. 10(4), pages 1-23.
    3. Li-San Hung & Mucahid Mustafa Bayrak, 2020. "Comparing the effects of climate change labelling on reactions of the Taiwanese public," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 11(1), pages 1-6, December.
    4. Choi, Hee-soo & Kim, Sang-heon, 2017. "A content service deployment plan for metaverse museum exhibitions—Centering on the combination of beacons and HMDs," International Journal of Information Management, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 1519-1527.
    5. Shupeng Huang & Andrew Potter & Daniel Eyers, 2020. "Social media in operations and supply chain management: State-of-the-Art and research directions," International Journal of Production Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 58(6), pages 1893-1925, March.
    6. Yu, Houqiang & Xu, Shenmeng & Xiao, Tingting & Hemminger, Brad M. & Yang, Siluo, 2017. "Global science discussed in local altmetrics: Weibo and its comparison with Twitter," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 11(2), pages 466-482.
    7. Zhou, Qingqing & Zhang, Chengzhi, 2021. "Breaking community boundary: Comparing academic and social communication preferences regarding global pandemics," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 15(3).
    8. Kim Holmberg & Han Woo Park, 2018. "An altmetric investigation of the online visibility of South Korea-based scientific journals," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 117(1), pages 603-613, October.
    9. Björn Hammarfelt, 2014. "Using altmetrics for assessing research impact in the humanities," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 101(2), pages 1419-1430, November.
    10. Rongying Zhao & Mingkun Wei, 2017. "Academic impact evaluation of Wechat in view of social media perspective," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 112(3), pages 1777-1791, September.
    11. Zhichao Fang & Rodrigo Costas, 2020. "Studying the accumulation velocity of altmetric data tracked by Altmetric.com," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 123(2), pages 1077-1101, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ying Guo & Xiantao Xiao, 2022. "Author-level altmetrics for the evaluation of Chinese scholars," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(2), pages 973-990, February.
    2. Ting Cong & Zhichao Fang & Rodrigo Costas, 2022. "WeChat uptake of chinese scholarly journals: an analysis of CSSCI-indexed journals," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(12), pages 7091-7110, December.
    3. Houqiang Yu & Biegzat Murat & Longfei Li & Tingting Xiao, 2021. "How accurate are Twitter and Facebook altmetrics data? A comparative content analysis," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(5), pages 4437-4463, May.
    4. Rafael Repiso & Antonio Castillo-Esparcia & Daniel Torres-Salinas, 2019. "Altmetrics, alternative indicators for Web of Science Communication studies journals," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 119(2), pages 941-958, May.
    5. Kaltrina Nuredini, 2021. "Investigating Altmetric Information For The Top 1000 Journals From Handelsblatt Ranking In Economic And Business Studies," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(5), pages 1315-1343, December.
    6. Houqiang Yu & Biegzat Murat & Jiatong Li & Longfei Li, 2023. "How can policy document mentions to scholarly papers be interpreted? An analysis of the underlying mentioning process," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(11), pages 6247-6266, November.
    7. Zhichao Fang & Rodrigo Costas & Wencan Tian & Xianwen Wang & Paul Wouters, 2020. "An extensive analysis of the presence of altmetric data for Web of Science publications across subject fields and research topics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 124(3), pages 2519-2549, September.
    8. Li, Hao & Hou, Jianhua, 2024. "Revalidation of the applicability of Altmetrics indicators in article-level evaluation: An empirical analysis of papers of different types of citation trajectories," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 18(4).
    9. Zhichao Fang & Rodrigo Costas & Wencan Tian & Xianwen Wang & Paul Wouters, 2021. "How is science clicked on Twitter? Click metrics for Bitly short links to scientific publications," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 72(7), pages 918-932, July.
    10. Sergio Copiello, 2020. "Other than detecting impact in advance, alternative metrics could act as early warning signs of retractions: tentative findings of a study into the papers retracted by PLoS ONE," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(3), pages 2449-2469, December.
    11. Schmidt, Christoph G. & Wuttke, David A. & Heese, H. Sebastian & Wagner, Stephan M., 2023. "Antecedents of public reactions to supply chain glitches," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 259(C).
    12. Nannan Wu & Fan Ding & Ronghua Zhang & Yaoyao Cai & Hongfei Zhang, 2022. "The Relationship between Perceived Social Support and Life Satisfaction: The Chain Mediating Effect of Resilience and Depression among Chinese Medical Staff," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(24), pages 1-15, December.
    13. Isidro F. Aguillo, 2020. "Altmetrics of the Open Access Institutional Repositories: a webometrics approach," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 123(3), pages 1181-1192, June.
    14. repec:osf:socarx:g5jrx_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Goldberg, Mitchell & Schär, Fabian, 2023. "Metaverse governance: An empirical analysis of voting within Decentralized Autonomous Organizations," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    16. Chunlin Yuan & Shuman Wang & Yue Liu, 2023. "AI service impacts on brand image and customer equity: empirical evidence from China," Journal of Brand Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 30(1), pages 61-76, January.
    17. Yu, Houqiang & Li, Longfei & Cao, Xueting & Chen, Tao, 2022. "Exploring country's preference over news mentions to academic papers," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(4).
    18. Ariana Polyviou & Ilias O. Pappas, 2023. "Chasing Metaverses: Reflecting on Existing Literature to Understand the Business Value of Metaverses," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 25(6), pages 2417-2438, December.
    19. Duong, Quang Huy & Zhou, Li & Meng, Meng & Nguyen, Truong Van & Ieromonachou, Petros & Nguyen, Duy Tiep, 2022. "Understanding product returns: A systematic literature review using machine learning and bibliometric analysis," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 243(C).
    20. Martin Grančay & Tomáš Dudáš & Ladislav Mura, 2022. "Revealed comparative advantages in academic publishing of “old” and “new” European Union Member States 1998–2018," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(3), pages 1247-1271, March.
    21. Ou, Guiyan & Zhao, Kang & Zuo, Renxian & Wu, Jiang, 2024. "Effects of research funding on the academic impact and societal visibility of scientific research," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 18(4).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:129:y:2024:i:1:d:10.1007_s11192-023-04892-2. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.