Chinese Journal of Sociology

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International Visibility of Chinese Cities in the Last Three Centuries: A BigData Based Description and Regression Analysis

Author 1: CHEN Yunsong，Department of Sociology, Nanjing University；Author 2: WU Qingxi, Institute of Sociology, Party School of Jiangsu Province；Author 3: ZHANG Yi, Institute of Sociology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences   

  • Online:2015-09-20 Published:2015-09-20
  • Contact: CHEN Yunsong，Department of Sociology, Nanjing University E-mail:yunsong.chen@nju.edu.cn
  • Supported by:

    This paper was supported by The Key Programme of Philosophy and Social Sciences Studies for the Universities in Jiangsu Province“Global Visibility of Traditional Chinese Culture: Big Data Analyses”（2015ZDIXM001）.

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Abstract: This study utilizes Google Books search engine generated big data to examine the development of international visibility of Chinese cities in the last three hundred years. The visibility is measured by the frequency of a city name appeared in millions of English language books. We find that among the 294 cities in our study, Beijing, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Nanjing, Macau, Tianjin, Taipei, Chongqing, and Lhasa come up as the top ten ones with the highest international visibility. Five factors appear to affect the international profiles of Chinese cities: (1) the city’s socioeconomic importance in international relations; (2) the city’s association with historical events; (3) the city’s visibility has its life cycle; (4) the city’s geographical affiliation with other cities; (5) international visibility cannot be definitively related to the city’s history, population size and economic elements. We place the data of international visibility and media exposure under the Granger time series regression test and found that media coverage is a significant cause on the international visibility of mainland cities but not Hong Kong and Macau. The finding implies that media coverage is the major entry point for mainland cities to gain international recognition.  

Key words: city ,  big data , international fame , cultural dissemination