Times makes heroes or heroes shape their times? The emotion relationship between elites and masses on micro-blogging

Kaisheng Lai, Hao Chen, Limin Qi, Weining Qian, Aoying Zhou

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

Opinion leaders' researches from Communication suggested that the elites can lead the masses. But other evidence argued the discourse power of masses has been improved with the rising of masses, especially in the We-media era, which challenges the view that the masses will follow the elites blindly. We examined the relationship between elites and masses by focusing on their emotion relationship and collecting data from China's Sina Weibo. The Granger Causality Test results indicate that the emotions of economic elites have more influence on the masses than those of cultural elites. Cultural elites' emotions are even driven by the masses. Our study reveals that economic capital has more influence than cultural capital in current China, and the effect of times producing heroes is slightly stronger than the effect of heroes shaping the times overall. Our findings are meaningful for understanding and managing the development of society from interdisciplinary perspectives.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings of 2014 IEEE International Conference on Behavioral, Economic, Socio-Cultural Computing, BESC 2014
EditorsGuandong Xu, Wolfgang Nejdl, Huan Liu
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
ISBN (Electronic)9781479969807
DOIs
StatePublished - 12 Mar 2014
Event2014 1st IEEE International Conference on Behavioral, Economic, Socio-Cultural Computing, BESC 2014 - Shanghai, China
Duration: 30 Oct 20141 Nov 2014

Publication series

NameProceedings of 2014 IEEE International Conference on Behavioral, Economic, Socio-Cultural Computing, BESC 2014

Conference

Conference2014 1st IEEE International Conference on Behavioral, Economic, Socio-Cultural Computing, BESC 2014
Country/TerritoryChina
CityShanghai
Period30/10/141/11/14

Keywords

  • economic capital
  • elite
  • emotion
  • mass
  • weibo

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