The Structure of the Semantic Network Regarding “East Asian Cultural Capital” on Chinese Social Media Under the Framework of Cultural Development Policy

Abstract

This study focuses on cultural and urban development policies under China’s 14th Five-Year Plan, exploring the content and semantic structure of discussions on the “East Asian Cultural Capital” project on the Weibo platform. It analyzes how national cultural development policies are reflected in the discourse system related to the “East Asian Cultural Capital” on social media and emphasizes the guiding role of policies in the dissemination of online culture. When China announced the 14th Five-Year Plan in 2021, the strategic direction and policy framework for cultural development over the five-year period from 2021 to 2025 were clearly outlined. This study employs text mining and semantic network analysis methods to analyze user-generated content on Weibo from 2023 to 2024, aiming to understand public perception and discourse trends. Word frequency and TF-IDF analyses identify key terms and issues, while centrality and CONCOR clustering analyses reveal the semantic structure and discourse communities. MR-QAP regression is employed to compare network changes across the two years. Findings highlight that urban cultural development, heritage preservation, and regional exchange are central themes, with digital media, cultural branding, trilateral cooperation, and cultural–economic integration emerging as key factors in regional collaboration.

1. Introduction

1.1. Conceptualizing Cultural Capital in the East Asian Context

As globalization accelerates, culture has become a key driver of urban development and international exchange. Since the introduction of the “cultural capital” concept in Europe in the 1980s, cultural cities have attracted increasing attention from governments and scholars worldwide, leading to the global diffusion of similar initiatives. The “East Asian Cultural Capital” project, developed within this context, focuses on China, Japan, and South Korea—three culturally dynamic countries in the East Asian region. It provides an important platform for promoting regional cultural cooperation and mutual understanding.

Despite their shared roots in the East Asian cultural sphere, China, Japan, and South Korea exhibit distinct characteristics shaped by divergent historical paths, political systems, and modernization processes. The “East Asian Cultural Capital” initiative seeks to foster cultural exchange by selecting representative cities with both shared and unique cultural backgrounds, enhancing the cultural brand of East Asian cities, and promoting the global visibility of East Asian culture.

1.2. Policy Framework: China’s 14th Five-Year Cultural City Strategy

In recent years, the Chinese government has placed great emphasis on the leading role of culture in national development and has introduced a series of supportive policies. The 14th Five-Year Plan for Cultural Development elevates the construction of “cultural cities” to a strategic priority, while promoting the integration of culture with tourism and digital media, and enhancing international communication capacities. These measures provide strong institutional support for initiatives such as the East Asian Cultural Capital. In particular, the cultural branding efforts of the 2023 and 2024 East Asian Cultural Capital projects have been implemented within this policy framework, effectively advancing the development of urban cultural tourism in China.

1.3. Weibo as a Platform for East Asian Cultural Capital Discourse

Although it has been over a decade since the development of social media platforms in the Web 2.0 era began, interactive networks and online social spaces remain indispensable as key mediators in modern information sharing and communication. Among various social media platforms, SNSs (social networking services) have gained the most attention as platforms that allow users to participate in create online profiles, share personal information, view information created by others, and content creation, providing users with diverse information and enabling them to share and communicate with other users [1,2]. Such social media platforms, which enable rapid information transmission and swift information sharing and dissemination among users, played a crucial role in the promotion, discussion, and evaluation of the “East Asian Cultural Capital” project.

Sina Weibo (https://m.weibo.cn/) is a leading social media channel in China; the number of Weibo users has increased exponentially since its inception in 2009 [3]. As of September 2024, Weibo has approximately 257 million weekly active users and is an important social media platform where Chinese internet users create, discover, and share content online [4]. Weibo has played a central role in promoting, discussing, and evaluating the “East Asian Cultural Capital” project on Chinese-language internet platforms. Information related to the “East Asian Cultural Capital” project spreads rapidly through Weibo, enabling the public to comment, share, and discuss in real time. Discussions about the “East Asian Cultural Capital” on Weibo include not only official information released by governments and cultural tourism bureaus across China but also feedback from tourists and citizens on cultural events, expressions of expectations for selected cities, and opinions on East Asian cultural exchange. Analyzing the content and discussions related to “East Asian Cultural Capital” on Weibo can provide a vast amount of research data for understanding how the project is progressing in China. Additionally, by comparing the changing content of discussions by year, it is possible to identify shifts in domestic interest and development trends regarding the “East Asian Cultural Capital” project.

1.4. Research Objectives and Significance

Therefore, this study aims to analyze discussions on the topic of “East Asian Cultural Capital” conducted by Chinese social media users on Weibo using text mining and social network analysis (SNA) techniques. Scholars combine the urban cultural development policy background with semantic network analysis methods to explore core themes, relationships between keywords, and characteristics of various meaning groups. Research on text mining of the concept of “East Asian Cultural Capital” in Chinese-language internet-based big data and related discussions is still insufficient. Previous studies have tended to focus on policy backgrounds, historical contexts, and individual city case studies, with relatively little quantitative analysis utilizing large-scale social media data. In particular, systematic big data analysis of how users perceive and respond to “East Asian Cultural Capital” on social media such as Weibo, and how this concept changes over time, is limited. Drawing on Danowski and Park’s (2025) approach, this study applies semantic network analysis to examine how discourse on “East Asian Cultural Capital” evolves over time on social media [5].

Although “East Asian Cultural Capital” is a regional cultural initiative jointly promoted by China, Japan, and South Korea, this article focuses on how China’s 14th Five-Year Plan for cultural development is reflected in social media discourse. Therefore, this study analyzes Chinese social media platforms, aims to analyze online discourse on the “East Asian Cultural Capital” using text mining techniques based on Weibo data, derive core keywords and semantic networks, and explore how this concept is positioned within China, and examines how the content and semantic structures of Weibo discussions reflect national cultural strategies. Frequency analysis, TF-IDF calculation, and connection centrality analysis are performed to identify high-frequency words and key concepts discussed on Weibo, and CONCOR analysis is used to distinguish semantic clusters. Furthermore, it also highlights the role of policy in shaping online discourse and guiding public narratives around cultural development.

2. Literature Review

2.1. Concept and Development of Cultural Capital

2.1.1. Outcomes and Impacts of the European Capital of Culture Initiative

The globalization of regions has led to a rapid increase in the number of tourists, and enhancing the brand value of cities, regardless of their size, has emerged as a key task for governments, and city officials turn to place branding techniques as a strategic approach [6]. Through cultural globalization, cities can shape their own images through cultural exports, thereby strengthening their cultural soft power and improving their city brand images. Such research has primarily focused on topics related to city brands, regional brands, and national brands.

The concept of a cultural capital originated in Europe in the 1980s. European countries established a rotating system for designating cultural capitals, starting with Athens in 1985 and continuing until 2019. The original goal was to resolve issues of diversity and identity faced by EU countries under the concept of “Cultural Europe” and the main purpose was to raise Europeans’ awareness of the “common ground” and their common characteristics [7], with the ultimate goal of fostering pride and self-esteem among European citizens. The “European Capital of Culture” project provides an international platform to showcase urban culture, highlighting the cultural characteristics of various countries and cities and promoting cultural exchange within Europe. The European Capital of Culture showcases the dynamic energy created through art and culture over the course of a year of the city and demonstrates positive results in social and economic fields. The popularity of the European Capital of Culture project can be seen in its economic growth effects in host cities [8], as well as in the economic benefits of image enhancement and increased tourism through cultural cities, which serve as a catalyst for urban economic revitalization [9,10]. These effects contribute not only to short-term increases in tourism revenue but also to long-term improvements in a city’s brand value and the promotion of cultural and creative industries. Additionally, the enhancement of a community’s cultural capacity through improved urban infrastructure and the sustained hosting of cultural events is also evaluated as an important positive outcome.

2.1.2. Implementation and Evolution of the East Asian Cultural Capital Project in China

The “East Asian Cultural City (EACC)” project was officially decided at the 2012 Korea-China-Japan Cultural Ministers’ Meeting, marking the beginning of the three East Asian countries’ active participation in the construction of cultural capitals. In 2014, Gwangju was selected as the first “East Asian Cultural Capital” in Korea, providing an opportunity to activate international cultural exchanges and promote cultural cooperation among the three countries. This project plays a crucial role in strengthening cultural solidarity within the East Asian region by selecting representative cultural cities from each country and operating various cultural events and exchange programs.

Since Quanzhou, a city in China, was designated as China’s first “East Asian Cultural Capital” in 2013, Chinese scholars have begun to focus on the impact of the “Cultural Capital” project on urban development and cultural dissemination. In 2013, Zhou Jianbiao noted that Quanzhou possesses a profound history and rich cultural heritage, as well as distinct and unique multicultural characteristics and a diverse array of cultural assets [11]. He also highlighted that through its long history of extensive international exchanges, the city has established itself as a hub for global cultural exchange. Since being selected as the Chinese host city for the 2016 “East Asian Cultural Capital” event, Ningbo has been recognized as a platform for cultural exchange among China, Japan, and South Korea. Shen Lingling (2017) stated that the “East Asian Cultural Capital” plays a crucial role in promoting cultural exchange and strengthening cooperation in East Asia [12]. Furthermore, Ningbo emphasized the need to actively utilize the “East Asian Cultural Capital” activity platform to establish the permanent brand of “East Asian Cultural Capital 2016 Ningbo,” solidify its international image as a cultural city, and continuously strengthen the international influence of Ningbo culture. Yangzhou was selected as the “East Asia Cultural Capital” in 2019 and officially awarded the title in 2020. Ge Yongfang and Zhang Wenfeng (2023) analyzed that the “East Asia Cultural Capital” brand holds significant meaning in promoting the development of a city’s cultural industry [13]. In particular, they emphasized the importance of forming unique “characteristics” in the development of Yangzhou’s cultural industry, and argued that the international influence of the brand should be actively utilized to optimize the development path of Yangzhou’s cultural industry and, ultimately, drive the high-quality growth of Yangzhou’s economy. In 2020, Luo Dongxia and Liu Min argued that the “East Asian Cultural Capital” holds significant meaning beyond tourism development in terms of strengthening cultural cooperation in the East Asian region, urban cultural construction, and cultural exchange and diplomacy [14]. They also emphasized the role of culture in promoting urban development by inheriting the diversity and long-standing traditions of East Asian culture. Furthermore, they proposed that the overall brand image of China’s “East Asian Cultural Capital” should be further enhanced as a tourist destination by combining the experiences of Korea and Japan.

2.2. The Development of Chinese Cultural Cities Under Policies

In recent years, culture-led urban development has become an important part of global economic transformation in the context of neoliberalism [15]. Led by Europe, the European Capital of Culture initiative has actively promoted the protection of urban cultural heritage, the creative economy, and multicultural development, while encouraging public participation to enhance urban competitiveness and cultural identity among European citizens. Subsequently, the cultural city model was widely adopted by Asian countries such as Singapore, South Korea, and China as an important strategy for promoting urban internationalization and participating in global competition [16,17,18].

2.2.1. The Cultural Policy in China’s Urban Development Strategy

With the deepening of China’s reform and opening up in the 1990s, the Chinese government began to emphasize “culture serving the economy.” After joining the World Trade Organization in the early 21st century, it began to vigorously support the development of the cultural industry, both in terms of policy and economics. After that, cultural and creative industries are seen as a state project frequently and have entered a period of rapid growth with the support of many local governments, based on a culture-led urban development model [19,20,21]. This is understood as a “state-led” cultural/creative city making [18,22].

In recent years, the Chinese government has attached great importance to the development and construction of cultural cities, introducing a number of policies to promote the deep integration of the cultural industry with urban planning, tourism, and rural revitalization. In particular, in the cultural development plan for the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021–2025), the Chinese government has further clarified its goal of “building a socialist cultural powerhouse,” emphasizing the combination of promoting Chinese culture abroad and enhancing national cultural soft power, accompanied by new opportunities and challenges [23]. The “14th Five-Year Plan for Cultural Development” is a guiding document for promoting cultural development during the 14th Five-Year Plan period. It systematically outlines key objectives, important policy measures, and major projects for cultural development during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, providing a strong ideological guarantee and cultural conditions for the comprehensive construction of a modern socialist country. The policy proposes to drive urban construction through cultural development, enhancing the cultural sophistication, overall image, and quality of development of cities. It calls for the accelerated construction of a number of cultural centers and cities with distinctive cultural strengths that have national influence. At the same time, the policy proposes that, in the process of building cultural cities, historical and cultural heritage should be protected, distinctive cultural landscapes should be created, public cultural digitization should be promoted, and public cultural facilities networks should be improved. This policy framework provides direction and top-level institutional guarantees for the construction and development of cultural cities.

In addition, in July 2022, the “14th Five-Year Plan for New-Type Urbanization Implementation Plan” mentioned promoting the inheritance of historical and cultural traditions and the construction of humanistic cities, as well as protecting and continuing the historical and cultural heritage of cities. It also mentioned protecting historical and cultural cities and districts, promoting the construction of national cultural parks, and strengthening the protection of world cultural heritage sites, cultural relics protection units, and archeological site parks. It can be argued that such policies represent systematic requirements for the development of cultural cities within China itself. Not only do they ensure the continuity of culture and social cohesion during the process of urban modernization, but they also highlight the important role of the cultural industry in reshaping China’s cultural and economic structure and promoting social transformation [24].

2.2.2. Policy-Driven Internationalization of Chinese Culture

At the same time, the Chinese government has not stopped formulating foreign cultural development policies for “going out.” Over the past two decades, the Chinese government has promoted its culture globally, facilitated international cultural exchanges, and enhanced China’s soft power overseas through its “going out” strategy [25]. To implement the important outcomes of the China-Japan-South Korea Leaders’ Meeting in the field of culture and tourism, align with the relevant requirements for cultural and tourism work during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, and promote the development of the “East Asia Culture Capital” brand and China’s urban cultural and tourism work, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism launched the application and selection process for the “East Asia Culture Capital” designation for the 2023–2025 period in 2021, and formulated the “Implementation Measures for the Application, Evaluation, Recognition, and Management of the ‘East Asia Culture Capital’ Designation.” This policy sets specific requirements for candidate cities. An “East Asia Culture Capital” refers to a city that possesses abundant local cultural resources and distinct local cultural characteristics, as well as a certain amount of East Asian cultural resources, East Asian cultural qualities, and reflects the spirit of East Asian culture. It should play a leading and exemplary role in promoting East Asian cultural exchange and mutual learning, and be recognized through a certain procedure. Additionally, the “East Asia Culture Capital” initiative aims to leverage the deep historical and cultural ties, shared cultural heritage, and similar cultural traditions among China, Japan, and South Korea to showcase East Asian culture on the global stage, while also preserving and promoting China’s excellent traditional culture, demonstrating the unique charm of Chinese culture, and enhancing national cultural soft power and the international influence of Chinese culture. The Ministry of Culture and Tourism oversees the relevant application, evaluation, recognition, and management of the “East Asia Culture Capital” initiative. After being selected as a candidate city, the city will systematically and innovatively carry out urban development work. The selected cities from China, Japan, and South Korea will be announced at the China-Japan-South Korea Cultural Ministers’ Meeting. During the year of selection, the selected cities will organize various cultural and tourism activities under the name of “East Asia Culture Capital.”

By participating in this project, Chinese local cities have, on the one hand, expanded their cultural influence through international cultural platforms, and on the other hand, achieved internal social integration through cultural identity and historical inheritance. It can be argued that the application and selection of “East Asian Cultural Cities” is not only an international showcase of a city’s cultural soft power but also a local response to the national cultural development strategy, particularly the implementation of cultural policies during the 14th Five-Year Plan period. Therefore, through cultural policies, the Chinese government is able to expand China’s cultural influence and soft power externally while achieving social integration internally by establishing a clear national identity [26]. Building on Park and Leydesdorff’s (2010) longitudinal study of institutional network dynamics [27], this research considers how state-led cultural initiatives—such as the East Asian Cultural Capital project—contribute to the evolution of discourse networks and the articulation of national identity in local contexts.

2.3. The Digital Public Sphere of Social Media

Social networking services (SNS) such as Facebook and Twitter are widely used around the world. Examining social media discussions may also help guide future public engagement strategies, which can help inform future policies [28]. Recent studies have shown that social media platforms play an increasingly important role in shaping public discourse and guiding urban development strategies. For example, in the context of Sustainable Development Goal 11, Twitter-based analysis has been used to track discussions related to cities and support data-driven policymaking [29]. Similarly, Twitter data has been applied to cultural planning research to develop metrics based on user-generated content, highlighting the necessity of incorporating social media data into cultural planning [30].Another study, using the Greek national project “PaloAnalytics” as an example, demonstrates how social media analysis can serve as a tool to enhance the online outreach and public engagement of cultural spaces. By analyzing trending topics on Twitter, cultural institutions can identify issues of public interest and optimize their social media engagement strategies accordingly [31].

Although earlier comparative studies have suggested that China’s overall social media use remains relatively low in the East Asian context [32], platform-specific trends paint a different picture. Sina Weibo has emerged as the leading SNS platform within China’s digital ecosystem. Weibo is an online blog service launched by the Chinese portal site Sina.com in 2009 and has since become one of the most influential social media platforms in China. As of September 2024, Weibo’s daily active users (DAU) reached 257 million, and its monthly active users (MAU) reached 587 million (2024 Weibo User Consumption Trends Report), demonstrating that Weibo continues to maintain a strong user base. The user demographic is primarily composed of young adults from the 1990s and 2000s, with a gender ratio of 55% female and 45% male, indicating a slightly higher proportion of female users.

Weibo and Twitter both use short text (Weibo posts/tweets) and images as their primary content formats, providing users with an excellent environment for quickly expressing their opinions. Although recent scholars have compared the differences between Chinese and Western companies in their use of social media platforms Weibo and Twitter [33], they are similar in terms of information dissemination and social interaction methods. Users and viewers can engage in active online communication through functions such as sharing (Retweet), commenting (Reply), and liking(Like). In terms of recommendation algorithms, the two platforms operate in a similar manner, allowing users to view the latest updates from accounts they follow as well as access popular content recommendations provided by the platform to discover diverse information. Notably, Weibo’s “Hot Search Rankings (热搜榜)” and Twitter’s “Trending” share the common feature of dynamically updating in real-time to reflect changes in user interest. Therefore, these core mechanisms of Weibo and Twitter make them comparable tools for studying public discourse and the impact of cultural policy.

3. Research Questions

This study aims to analyze the main topics and structure of discourse on China’s “East Asian Cultural Capital” project based on Chinese online discourse, particularly user posts on the Weibo platform, and to derive annual changes and strategic implications. This study proposes the following three research questions, including RQ1 and RQ2 for semantic network analysis and RQ3 for temporal comparative analysis.

The “East Asian Cultural Capital” project is a representative international project aimed at promoting cultural exchange among East Asian countries. Within China, it is closely related to strategies for building cultural brands and enhancing the image of local cities. This study aims to identify the cultural elements, cities, and policy directions that are emphasized by analyzing the words and concepts frequently mentioned on Weibo, China’s representative social media platform. Frequency analysis can identify key topics of interest and recurring discourses, while TF-IDF analysis can derive meaningful words that appear frequently and are closely associated with specific years or cities, enabling an in-depth analysis of Weibo users’ subjective importance and issue focus. Through this analysis, we hope to gain a clearer understanding of how “East Asian Cultural Capital” are perceived and disseminated in China, and how they are reflected in Chinese cultural development policies.

RQ 1.

How do the main topics and structure of discussions about “East Asian Cultural Capital” on Weibo reflect China’s cultural development policy?

The mere occurrence of words is insufficient to adequately explain the structure of discourse or the influence of specific words. Therefore, this study utilizes network analysis to identify the centrality of each keyword within its connection structure and the clusters of keywords that perform similar roles. This will enable a more in-depth analysis of the internal structure of the “Cultural Capital” discourse formed on Weibo. First, to identify the most influential core keywords within the discourse, we perform degree centrality analysis to measure how many connections a specific word has with other words. Additionally, CONCOR analysis (Convergence of Iterated Correlations) will be conducted to cluster keywords based on their interword correlations, thereby grouping keywords with similar meanings or functions. This will help derive the structural characteristics of major thematic clusters and semantic networks within the cultural discourse.

RQ 2.

What is the degree centrality between words appearing in content related to “East Asian Cultural Capital” on Weibo, and what are the structural characteristics of each group derived through CONCOR clustering?

By analyzing how discourse related to “East Asian Cultural Capital” has changed over the years, we can infer the changing patterns of China’s regional cultural policies and urban brand strategies. In particular, the strengthening of cultural exchanges between the three countries of Korea, China, and Japan, the emergence of keywords centered on cooperation, and changes in the level of focus on specific cities or cultural heritage suggest shifts in policy direction and social perception. This study conducts frequency analysis, TF-IDF analysis, connection centrality analysis, and CONCOR analysis for 2023 and 2024, respectively, and compares the results to identify changes in the centrality of specific keywords, the emergence of new clusters, and the dissolution of existing clusters, thereby confirming whether there has been a shift in strategic discourse.

Additionally, QAP (Quadratic Assignment Procedure) analysis was performed to verify the correlation between the network structures of the two periods. This allows for a statistical analysis of how similar or different the discourse network structures of 2023 and 2024 are, thereby enabling a deeper understanding of the structural variability in cultural discourse.

RQ 3.

How does Weibo content from 2023 and 2024 reflect temporal changes in China’s “East Asian Cultural Capital” project?

4. Research Methods

4.1. Analysis Subjects and Data Collection

Posts related to “East Asian Cultural Capital” published on Weibo, an important text-based social media platform in China, reflect changes in the agenda, level of interest, and attitudes toward the keyword or cultural phenomenon among the general public, official institutions, and individuals on Chinese social media. To explore the characteristics of Weibo users’ discussions surrounding this topic, this study collects and analyzes relevant content from Weibo as unstructured text data.

In this study, Bazhuayu v8.7.7.030611, a web crawling tool, was used to systematically collect posts from the Weibo platform related to “East Asian Cultural Capital (东亚文化之都)” for the years 2023 and 2024. The volume of collected data is presented in

Table 1. Amount of data collected by years.

Year	Collected Posts
2023	177
2024	156
Total	333

. Web crawling refers to the automated process of visiting webpages and extracting data using a specialized program known as a spider. Bazhuayu is a web crawling tool based on a graphical user interface (GUI) that allows users to design automated crawlers through visual flows without coding and collect structured data from websites. Researchers can set collection rules based on keywords such as “East Asian Cultural Capital” to accurately extract relevant information such as post content, posting time, and user information. The collected data can be exported in various formats such as Excel, CSV, and databases, facilitating subsequent text mining and analysis tasks.

To provide a clearer and more intuitive understanding of Weibo users’ interest and changes regarding “East Asian Cultural Capital”, this study focused on analyzing Weibo content from 2023 and 2024. The purpose of this approach is to identify changes in the main topics discussed by Weibo users in different years through year-on-year comparisons and to identify annual trends in public concerns. Additionally, Weibo discussions in each year may reflect the effects on the formation of the selected city’s cultural image and provide positive implications for predicting new viral hot topics and adjusting policies and priorities.

4.2. Analysis Methods and Procedures

4.2.1. Data Collection and Preprocessing

This study aims to analyze discussions conducted by Chinese social media users on Weibo on the topic of “East Asian Cultural Capital” using text mining and semantic network analysis (SNA) techniques, and to explore key themes, relationships between keywords, and characteristics of various meaning groups. First, the text data from the Weibo posts undergoes cleaning and analysis. During the cleaning process, special characters, link addresses, emojis, and other elements are removed, and multiple words with the same meaning are consolidated into a single term. Additionally, verbs, prepositions, pronouns, and other elements unnecessary for analysis are deleted. The data cleaning and analysis process is conducted using Textom (https://www.textom.cn/main), a big data analysis platform. Textom is a data processing solution that automatically collects various data from social media and search engines, cleans it by removing irrelevant or unsuitable keywords, and constructs matrices for analysis [34]. Unlike English and Korean, Chinese does not have spaces between words, making the word segmentation process for Chinese text more complex [35]. Therefore, Textom uses Jieba, a word segmentation tool within Textom, to segment long Chinese texts into meaningful units and provide them as foundational data for subsequent analysis. Jieba is one of the most widely used segmentation tools in the field of Chinese natural language processing. Developed in Python, it offers high segmentation accuracy, fast processing speed, and support for custom dictionaries. The Textom platform calls the built-in Jieba segmentation tool to segment consecutive characters in Chinese social media text and convert them into basic units (words) that can be used for frequency analysis, TF-IDF calculation, and semantic network modeling, thereby ensuring the accuracy and consistency of keyword extraction.

4.2.2. Semantic Network Analysis Procedures

SNA is a methodological approach that conceptualizes words as nodes within a network and interprets the semantic relationships between these words as analogous to social relationships. It is also an effective technique for visualizing relationships between words and analyzing semantic structures, generating network maps by considering both word frequency and centrality [36]. Semantic network analysis includes keyword occurrence frequency, keyword frequency-inverse document frequency (TF-IDF), and centrality studies. TF-IDF is the most widely used criterion in information retrieval and text mining, serving as a statistical indicator of the importance of a specific keyword within a document. This value is utilized to extract key keywords from documents or to determine the ranking of search results by search engines, with higher values indicating greater importance of the word [37].

Apply text mining techniques to the collected data to derive core keywords that reflect major issues by year and extract high-frequency words. To do this, we use Textom to perform frequency analysis and TF-IDF analysis on the refined data for each year. This process identifies which words appear frequently in Weibo content and which words have relatively high weights. Additionally, this allows us to analyze public interest in the project and identify the most discussed key issues and potential core problems in annual public opinion.

4.2.3. Degree Centrality in Semantic Networks

SNA is a widely used analytical technique that calculates node size and the strength of connections—typically through frequency and degree centrality—and visualizes these relationships in a network map [36]. The theoretical foundation of SNA lies in uncovering meaningful structural patterns within social (or semantic) networks. The research process is as shown in Figure 1.

Among the various metrics used in SNA, degree centrality is one of the most fundamental. It measures the extent to which a particular word (or actor) is directly connected to other nodes in the network, thereby reflecting its relative prominence or importance [38]. In this study, degree centrality is used to assess the level of connectivity of each keyword or concept within the semantic network.

4.2.4. Semantic Network and CONCOR Analysis

We perform semantic network analysis based on a co-occurrence symmetric matrix representing co-occurrence frequency values, which is generated using Textom. After exporting the matrix data generated by Textom, we analyze the semantic network of the text using the UCINET 6.765 analysis tool, which is a social network analysis software used to visualize complex relationships between nodes and conduct centrality analysis [39]. CONCOR (CONvergence of iterated CORrelations) analysis is conducted to perform semantic network analysis. CONCOR analysis measures the similarity between words based on correlation and clusters similar words to derive semantic patterns. Structural satellite analysis using CONCOR is performed based on the correlation coefficients between each actor pair. CONCOR begins by calculating correlation coefficients simultaneously for rows, columns, or rows and columns. After obtaining the correlation coefficient matrix in this manner, the same process is repeated for the correlation coefficient matrix to derive a new correlation coefficient matrix. The CONCOR matrix is used to divide the data into groups, ensuring that each cell can contain a word. After conducting CONCOR analysis, classifying the words based on their meanings, and identifying clusters, the relationships between the groups can be explored [40].

CONCOR analysis identifies node blocks based on the correlations between simultaneously occurring words in the matrix, then analyzes the relationships between blocks to form associations and clusters between keywords [37]. Finally, the results of the CONCOR analysis—including the identified clusters and their interrelations—are visualized using NetDraw 2.168, allowing for an intuitive understanding of the overall structure and thematic grouping of the discourse network. As in Jung and Park (2015), who analyzed South Korea’s public data policy through semantic network mapping [41], this study visualizes key concepts surrounding the “East Asian Cultural Capital” initiative to uncover latent structures in digital discourse.

5. Research Results

This study collected posts containing the keyword “East Asian Cultural Capital” from Weibo, a representative social media platform in China, from 2023 to 2024. Among these, posts written in 2023 and 2024 were selected as specific analysis targets and analyzed using data mining techniques. Through frequency analysis, TF-IDF analysis, semantic network visualization, and CONCOR analysis, this study identified the interests of Weibo users regarding “East Asian Cultural Capital” and the structure of the posts.

5.1. Analysis Results for 2023

For the 2023 dataset, the top 50 keywords were selected based on frequency, TF-IDF scores, and degree centrality. All numerical results were standardized before entering visualization and network analysis to enhance comparability.

Table 2. Results of standardized word frequency analysis in 2023.

Sequence	Word	Standardized Value	Sequence	Word	Standardized Value
1	Culture	1.000	26	Meizhou	0.110
2	City	0.379	27	Xi’an	0.105
3	Quanzhou	0.304	28	Harbin	0.104
4	Tourism	0.285	29	Scenic spot	0.102
5	East Asia	0.265	30	Feature	0.101
6	Development	0.245	31	Hosting	0.099
7	History	0.225	32	Tradition	0.097
8	Culture and Tourism	0.211	33	Display	0.087
9	China	0.204	34	Theme	0.086
10	Activities	0.200	35	Create	0.086
11	Achieved	0.181	36	Inheritance	0.085
12	Dunhuang	0.170	37	Cultural Heritage	0.084
13	World	0.152	38	Become	0.084
14	Yangzhou	0.144	39	Work	0.082
15	Cultural relics	0.143	40	Project	0.082
16	National	0.143	41	Cooperation	0.081
17	Construction	0.141	42	Integration	0.080
18	Shaoxing	0.138	43	Promotion	0.080
19	Nationwide	0.133	44	Important	0.080
20	Art	0.127	45	Industry	0.079
21	Jinan	0.127	46	Music	0.079
22	International	0.124	47	Vitality	0.078
23	Center	0.116	48	Tourists	0.074
24	Changsha	0.116	49	Park	0.074
25	Protection	0.110	50	Experience	0.073

shows the standardized results of the frequency analysis of content related to the keyword “Dong-A Cultural Capital” on Weibo in 2023. The analysis revealed that terms such as “culture (825),” “city (313),” “tourism (235),” “development (202),” “history (186),” “China (168),” and “activities (165)” appeared with high frequency. This suggests that the main discourse on Weibo in 2023 focused on the government-led cultural construction and cultural development of cities in the cultural capital project in China.

In particular, the fact that the keywords “culture,” “city,” and “development” are at the top indicates that policy goals such as cultural heritage protection, strengthening urban identity, and revitalizing the local economy are reflected in the discourse. Additionally, the frequent appearance of keywords related to “tourism” and “activities” suggests that cultural city projects are closely linked to the tourism industry and the activation of regional events. These results will serve as foundational data for subsequent connection centrality analysis and CONCOR analysis to deeply elucidate the discourse structure and thematic clusters.

The high frequency of words such as “history,” “cultural relics,” “Xi’an,” and “Dunhuang” suggests that the preservation and protection of historical and cultural heritage continue to play a significant role in cultural development. Cities such as “Quanzhou” and “Shaoxing” were frequently mentioned as key focus cities in China’s 2023 Cultural Capital Project. Additionally, terms like “art,” “cultural relics,” “Meizhou,” and “Harbin” also appeared with high frequency, indicating that discussions related to cultural arts are intensifying.

Table 3. Results of standardized TF-IDF analysis in 2023.

Sequence	Word	Standardized Value	Sequence	Word	Standardized Value
1	Dunhuang	1.000	26	World	0.317
2	Quanzhou	0.924	27	Art	0.309
3	Jinan	0.791	28	Vitality	0.300
4	Tourism	0.791	29	China	0.300
5	Yangzhou	0.698	30	Work	0.298
6	Development	0.624	31	Theme	0.292
7	Meizhou	0.619	32	Hosting	0.290
8	Cultural relics	0.615	33	Performance	0.290
9	Harbin	0.615	34	Utilization	0.290
10	Shaoxing	0.594	35	Enterprise	0.285
11	Culture and Tourism	0.564	36	Industry	0.285
12	Activities	0.484	37	Malanshan	0.283
13	Xi’an	0.465	38	Advance	0.279
14	Changsha	0.463	39	South Korea	0.273
15	Construction	0.442	40	Cultural Heritage	0.273
16	City	0.431	41	Trail	0.273
17	History	0.419	42	Promotion	0.273
18	National	0.383	43	Create	0.271
19	Protection	0.376	44	Display	0.264
20	Scenic spot	0.362	45	Park	0.262
21	International	0.362	46	Integration	0.262
22	Cooperation	0.340	47	Innovation	0.260
23	Nationwide	0.338	48	Cultural Relics Protection	0.258
24	Center	0.328	49	Tradition	0.256
25	Music	0.321	50	Inheritance	0.252

shows the results of the TF-IDF analysis for 2023. According to the analysis, four cities—Dunhuang, Quanzhou, Jinan, and Yangzhou—recorded high TF-IDF values and ranked at the top. This suggests that urban tourism plays an important role in the “East Asian Cultural Capital” project. These cities, as historical hubs with rich cultural and historical heritage, align with the core ideals of the East Asia Cultural Capital initiative and have consistently attracted public attention. Additionally, the appearance of cities from diverse regions such as “Meizhou,” “Harbin,” and “Shaoxing” in the top ranks demonstrates that cities with different cultural backgrounds and regional characteristics are at the center of the discourse. This signifies that the “East Asian Cultural Capital” project is not limited to specific regions but encompasses diverse cities across China, emphasizing cultural diversity.

Additionally, the 2023 TF-IDF analysis revealed that words such as “development,” “construction,” “cultural relics,” “protection,” “activities,” and “Scenic spot” had higher TF-IDF values than words like “international” and “cooperation.” These results suggest that Weibo users are more interested in domestic cultural heritage protection and urban development than in international cooperation. In particular, the prominence of the keywords “Cultural relics” and “protection” highlights that the preservation and utilization of cultural heritage have become core issues within the “East Asia Cultural Capital” project, while the high weighting of “development” and “construction” reflects expectations for regional economic revitalization and infrastructure expansion through the creation of a cultural city. Meanwhile, the relatively low TF-IDF values for keywords such as “international” and “cooperation” in 2023 suggest that the official goal of expanding international exchanges within the East Asia Cultural Capital project has not been prominently highlighted in public discourse.

Table 4. Results of standardized degree centrality analysis in 2023.

Sequence	Word	Standardized Value	Sequence	Word	Standardized Value
1	Culture	1.000	26	Important	0.363
2	East Asia	0.973	27	Display	0.354
3	Achieved	0.940	28	Inheritance	0.344
4	City	0.691	29	Protection	0.328
5	China	0.629	30	Experience	0.323
6	History	0.543	31	Cultural Heritage	0.322
7	World	0.523	32	Tourists	0.301
8	Development	0.511	33	Industry	0.298
9	Feature	0.495	34	Theme	0.275
10	Activities	0.489	35	Scenic spot	0.262
11	Tourism	0.443	36	Work	0.259
12	Culture and Tourism	0.443	37	Vitality	0.241
13	Nationwide	0.437	38	Quanzhou	0.216
14	Hosting	0.432	39	Cooperation	0.207
15	Project	0.428	40	Cultural relics	0.201
16	National	0.418	41	Park	0.142
17	Art	0.395	42	Music	0.135
18	Tradition	0.391	43	Xi’an	0.101
19	Construction	0.389	44	Dunhuang	0.092
20	International	0.373	45	Changsha	0.091
21	Promotion	0.373	46	Meizhou	0.079
22	Center	0.370	47	Yangzhou	0.063
23	Create	0.368	48	Shaoxing	0.060
24	Integration	0.368	49	Jinan	0.057
25	Become	0.364	50	Harbin	0.055

shows the results of the 2023 connection centrality analysis. According to the analysis, words such as “culture,” “East Asia,” “achieved,” “city,” “China,” “history,” “world,” and “development” recorded high connection centrality values. This indicates that these words are actively connected to other keywords within the discourse network and play a central role in discussions related to the “East Asian Cultural Capital” on Weibo. In particular, words like “culture,” “history,” and “city” are deeply involved in the formation of discourse centered on cultural identity and regional development, while the appearance of keywords like “East Asia” and “world” reflects a trend emphasizing the international connections of the East Asian Cultural Capital project. Based on these results, we plan to conduct a CONCOR analysis to examine in greater depth the structural clusters formed by the central keywords.

These research findings are highly consistent with the policy priorities outlined in the “14th Five-Year Plan for Cultural Development.” High-frequency keywords in 2023, such as “history,” “cultural relics,” “protection,” “Dunhuang,” and “Xi’an,” indicate that public opinion is highly focused on the protection of historical and cultural heritage in the process of cultural city development. This directly reflects the goal of the 14th Five-Year Plan to “protect historical and cultural heritage and build urban culture,” indicating that cultural policies are being implemented through project mechanisms at the local and societal levels. At the same time, the policy emphasizes “promoting urban development through cultural construction and enhancing development quality,” which is reflected in the frequent appearance of terms such as “development,” “construction,” “activities,” and “scenic spot,” indicating that cultural city policies are closely linked to urban infrastructure construction and tourism development. The frequent appearance of different cities in different regions also aligns with the policy orientation of “encouraging the development of a batch of cities that carry historical memories and reflect regional characteristics.”

The research results also reflect the core value of the “East Asian Cultural Capital” project, as participating cities generally possess the characteristics of “rich historical and cultural heritage and abundant cultural resources,” such as Dunhuang, Yangzhou, and Quanzhou. Their high TF-IDF values indicate that their cultural characteristics align closely with the East Asian cultural ethos and historical resources emphasized by the “East Asian Cultural Cities” initiative. However, keywords such as “international” and ‘cooperation’ have relatively low TF-IDF values, indicating that discussions in 2023 focused more on domestic-level urban development and cultural heritage protection within the “East Asian Cultural Cities” initiative, while the international exchange functions of the initiative were not sufficiently recognized.

According to the results of the 2023 CONCOR analysis (

Table 5. Results of structural equivalence classification of words in 2023.

Cluster	Word
“Historical and cultural experiences and traditional urban imagery”	“city” “China” “history” “world” “feature” “nationwide” “art” “tradition” “become” “experience” “Quanzhou” “music” “Xi’an”
“Cultural tourism and cultural heritage dissemination”	“activities” “tourism” “culture and tourism” “project” “national” “center” “important” “display” “Inheritance” “cultural heritage” “tourists” “theme” “scenic spot” “vitality” “cultural relics” “Meizhou” “Harbin”
“Industrial construction and international development”	“development” “hosting” “construction” “international” “promotion” “create” “Integration” “protection” “industry” “Work” “cooperation” “Dunhuang” “Jinan”
“Cultural Achievements and the Image of the East Asian Region”	“culture” “East Asia” “achieved” “park” “Changsha” “Yangzhou” “Shaoxing”

and Figure 2), the four main clusters reflect different discussion topics. The first cluster is related to “Historical and cultural experiences and traditional urban imagery,” focusing on themes centered around traditional culture and artistic experiences. It includes terms such as “city,” “China,” “history,” “world,” “feature,” “nationwide,” “art,” “tradition,” “become,” “experience,” “Quanzhou,” “music,” and “Xi’an.” This indicates that cities with historical backgrounds possess unique cultural characteristics, which they leverage to expand their influence and further develop modern expressions through artistic experiences. The second cluster focuses on “Cultural tourism and cultural heritage dissemination,” consisting of “activities,” “tourism,” “culture and tourism,” “project,” “country,” “center,” “important,” “display,” “Inheritance,” “cultural heritage,” “tourists,” “theme,” “scenic spot,” “vitality,” “cultural relics,” “Meizhou,” and “Harbin.” This cluster emphasizes tourism and cultural heritage protection, combining cultural theme activities with the tourism industry to revitalize cultural activities at the city level and further develop cultural policies at the national level.

The third cluster consists of “Industrial construction and international development,” comprising “development,” “hosting,” “construction,” “international,” “promotion,” “build,” “Integration,” “protection,” “industry,” “Work,” “cooperation,” “Dunhuang,” and “Jinan.” This indicates that the integration of culture and industry is linked to economic development, with culture serving as a driving force for economic growth while international cultural cooperation and exchange also play a significant role in the cultural sector. The fourth cluster focuses on “Cultural Achievements and the Image of the East Asian Region,” comprising the terms “culture,” “East Asia,” “achieved,” “park,” “Changsha,” “Yangzhou,” and “Shaoxing”. This suggests that modernized cultural development is influencing the East Asian Cultural Capital project.

Based on the results from 2023, discussions on the Weibo platform regarding “East Asian Cultural Capital” align closely with the national policy direction for cultural development and urban construction during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, reflecting that government-led cultural city development occupies a central position in the public discourse system. The protection and inheritance of traditional cultural heritage are also key topics of discussion, with a notable trend toward integrating traditional culture with modern art, and a greater emphasis on enhancing a city’s cultural appeal through the organization of events. In 2023, discussions may shift toward emphasizing concrete measures for cultural development and construction through the organization of actual cultural projects and activities. Additionally, discussions in 2023 have placed greater focus on cultural industrialization, particularly how the cultural industry can drive urban economic development and the important role of culture in enhancing a city’s competitiveness.

5.2. Analysis Results for 2024

In the 2024 data analysis, the top 50 keywords selected from word frequency, TF-IDF values, and degree centrality analysis were also selected as the analysis objects and underwent data standardization processing. According to the 2024 Weibo Data Frequency Analysis Standardization Results (

Table 6. Results of standardized word frequency analysis in 2024.

Sequence	Word	Standardized Value	Sequence	Word	Standardized Value
1	Culture	1.000	26	Economy	0.085
2	Macau	0.390	27	Enhancement	0.081
3	East Asia	0.382	28	Huzhou	0.079
4	City	0.301	29	Promotion	0.079
5	Activities	0.296	30	Dunhuang	0.079
6	Weifang	0.263	31	Theme	0.075
7	Development	0.254	32	Create	0.073
8	Cooperation	0.224	33	Video	0.073
9	Yangzhou	0.213	34	Continuous	0.072
10	International	0.199	35	Japan	0.069
11	China	0.196	36	Tourists	0.069
12	World	0.170	37	Advance	0.069
13	Achieved	0.140	38	Project	0.066
14	Country	0.139	39	As	0.064
15	Tourism	0.136	40	Important	0.064
16	Kite	0.136	41	Feature	0.064
17	Communicate	0.134	42	Cuisine	0.064
18	Culture and Tourism	0.125	43	Canal	0.064
19	Construction	0.125	44	Hold	0.063
20	Hosting	0.110	45	Launch	0.060
21	Brand	0.106	46	Weibo	0.060
22	Three countries	0.101	47	Vitality	0.060
23	China-Japan-Korea	0.101	48	Quanzhou	0.058
24	Conference	0.093	49	Strengthen	0.057
25	History	0.091	50	Innovation	0.055

), the top categories are “Culture (670),” “Macau (261),” “East Asia (256),” “City (202),” “Activity (198),” “Wei-fang (176),” “Development (170),” “Cooperation (150),” “Yangzhou (143),” “International (133)” and other terms were found to appear most frequently. Compared to the frequency analysis results from 2023, “Culture” remains the core theme of Weibo content, while the frequencies of words such as “East Asia,” “City,” and “Development” remain high. These results suggest that China’s “East Asia Cultural Capital” project is focusing on domestic cultural city development and cultural cooperation in the East Asia region. At the same time, this reflects the policy priorities outlined in China’s 14th Five-Year Plan for Cultural Development, namely “promoting urban development through culture” and “building culturally strong cities,” which continue to shape public discourse.

In 2024, “Macau,” “Weifang,” and “Yangzhou” emerged as the most frequently mentioned cities in Weibo posts, with “Macau” and “Weifang” appearing exclusively in the 2024 results. These three cities appear to have strengthened their roles as cultural capitals in 2024. Additionally, the increased frequency of terms like “world,” “international,” “cooperation,” and “development” suggests that post-COVID-19 international cultural exchanges and the development of the East Asian region have emerged as new major trends in 2024. The bar chart in Figure 3 provides a more intuitive comparison of the differences in trends between the frequency analysis results for 2023 and 2024.

According to the TF-IDF analysis results for 2024 (

Table 7. Results of standardized TF-IDF analysis in 2024.

Sequence	Word	Standardized Value	Sequence	Word	Standardized Value
1	Macau	1.000	26	Tianjin	0.252
2	Weifang	0.932	27	Quanzhou	0.252
3	Yangzhou	0.758	28	Advance	0.249
4	Kite	0.680	29	Economy	0.244
5	Activities	0.587	30	Project	0.244
6	Cooperation	0.574	31	Huzhou	0.244
7	Three countries	0.531	32	Shandong	0.242
8	Dunhuang	0.526	33	Promotion	0.237
9	City	0.501	34	Japan	0.237
10	International	0.499	35	Create	0.234
11	Development	0.479	36	Canal	0.232
12	China-Japan-Korea	0.388	37	Tourists	0.232
13	Country	0.378	38	Vitality	0.229
14	Communicate	0.338	39	Home appliances	0.227
15	Construction	0.335	40	Media	0.224
16	Brand	0.332	41	Launch	0.222
17	Conference	0.312	42	Continuous	0.219
18	World	0.310	43	Strengthen	0.217
19	Culture and Tourism	0.302	44	Consumption	0.212
20	Theme	0.295	45	Important	0.212
21	Tourism	0.290	46	Changsha	0.207
22	China	0.282	47	Chongqing	0.207
23	Hosting	0.267	48	Protection	0.207
24	Harbin	0.259	49	History	0.204
25	Enhancement	0.254	50	Organization	0.199

), “Macau” and “Weifang” emerged as cities of high importance, with Macau in particular occupying an important position in cultural exchange and dissemination as a crossroads of Chinese and Western cultures. Additionally, ‘Kite,’ which represents the most distinctive urban characteristic of Weifang, appeared in the analysis results, and ‘Dunhuang’ and ‘Yangzhou’ have appeared as important keywords for two consecutive years.

The main difference in 2024 is that the importance of words such as “cooperation,” “three countries,” and ‘international’ has increased significantly. As a result, the importance of words such as “China-Japan-Korea,” “nation,” “communicate,” “construction,” “conference,” and “world” has also increased, and cultural exchange and cooperation between China, Japan, and Korea have emerged as key topics of discussion. These changes suggest that international cooperation and regional cultural exchange will become important components of the “East Asian Cultural Capital” discussions in 2024. The bar chart in Figure 4 provides a more intuitive comparison of the differences in trends between the TF-IDF results for 2023 and 2024.

The 2024 degree centrality results (

Table 8. Results of standardized degree centrality analysis in 2024.

Sequence	Word	Standardized Value	Sequence	Word	Standardized Value
1	Culture	1.000	26	Video	0.289
2	East Asia	0.999	27	As	0.286
3	Achieved	0.830	28	Brand	0.283
4	China	0.568	29	Important	0.269
5	City	0.563	30	Tourists	0.264
6	Development	0.559	31	Macau	0.257
7	World	0.525	32	Hold	0.250
8	Tourism	0.471	33	Advance	0.248
9	Activities	0.466	34	Weibo	0.245
10	Hosting	0.440	35	Launch	0.235
11	International	0.398	36	Conference	0.221
12	History	0.382	37	Project	0.218
13	Construction	0.381	38	Vitality	0.215
14	Cooperation	0.374	39	Strengthen	0.215
15	Communicate	0.368	40	Theme	0.188
16	Culture and Tourism	0.367	41	Japan	0.182
17	Country	0.364	42	Weifang	0.168
18	Economy	0.338	43	Yangzhou	0.149
19	Enhancement	0.329	44	Canal	0.147
20	Continuous	0.327	45	China-Japan-Korea	0.134
21	Feature	0.323	46	Kite	0.105
22	Promotion	0.313	47	Huzhou	0.087
23	Create	0.309	48	Three countries	0.064
24	Innovation	0.309	49	Quanzhou	0.054
25	Cuisine	0.304	50	Dunhuang	0.042

) are similar to those of 2023, but they show that international exchange and cooperation have become even more important. While traditional core terms such as “culture,” “East Asia,” “China,” and ‘city’ continue to maintain high centrality, terms like “hosting,” “international,” “cooperation,” “communicate,” and “economy” have seen an increase in centrality, indicating that international cooperation and cultural exchange have become key themes in 2024. This aligns with the results from frequency analysis and TF-IDF analysis, indicating that Weibo users are increasingly focusing on global cultural exchange and economic cooperation.

Compared to 2023, cities such as “Macau,” “Weifang,” and “Yangzhou” became hot topics in 2024, reflecting the proactive efforts of local governments in responding to the national call for cultural city development. The emergence of these cities aligns with the national policy requirements for “developing urban thematic cultures” and “cultural diversity.” More notably, the importance of keywords such as “international,” “cooperation,” “three countries,” and ‘communicate’ has significantly increased in 2024. This trend aligns closely with the requirements outlined by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism in its “East Asia Cultural Capital” selection policy, which emphasizes “strengthening cultural identity among China, Japan, and South Korea,” “promoting cultural exchange and cooperation in Asia,” and “enhancing the international influence of Chinese culture.” This indicates that, compared to the emphasis on “domestic cultural heritage protection” and “urban development” in 2023, the public discourse landscape in the post-COVID-19 era of 2024 has clearly shifted toward “regional cultural cooperation” and “international exchange and construction,” reflecting the development logic of China’s cultural policies—balancing external promotion and internal cohesion—gaining traction at the public level. The bar chart in Figure 5 provides a more intuitive comparison of the differences in trends between the degree centrality results for 2023 and 2024.

According to the 2024 CONCOR analysis results (Table 9 and Figure 6), the first cluster is related to “cultural tourism consumption and city branding” and includes “world,” “tourism,” “culture and tourism,” “cuisine,” “brand,” “Yangzhou,” “canal.” This cluster suggests that the dissemination of Chinese culture in 2024 will exert a stronger influence not only through traditional cultural elements but also through cultural products and brands. The second cluster, related to “national cultural strategy and local project promotion,” includes “development,” “activities,” “hosting,” “international,” “construction,” “country,” “economy,” “enhancement,” “continuous,” “feature,” “promotion,” “create,” “innovation,” “as,” “tourists,” “advance,” “launch,” “project,” “vitality,” “themes,” “kite,” “Dunhuang.” This cluster shows results similar to previous years, suggesting that China’s cultural development policies, centered on the theme of “East Asian Cultural Capital,” aim to promote urban cultural development through cultural activities and enhance the connection between culture and the economy through international cooperation and innovation.

The third cluster focuses on “international cooperation and strategic exchanges in East Asian culture,” with keywords such as “cooperation,” “communicate,” “important,” “hold,” “conference,” “strengthen,” “Japan,” “China-Japan-Korea,” “three countries,” reflecting the new cultural policies for 2024. This cluster emphasizes international cultural cooperation, particularly cultural cooperation and exchange among the three countries of China, Japan, and South Korea. International cooperation and cultural exchange have become core agenda items for the East Asian Cultural Capital project. In 2024, such international cooperation will be further strengthened, playing a crucial role not only in the development of regional culture but also in the construction of a global cultural network. The fourth cluster, related to “the core of urban culture and digital transmission,” includes “culture,” “East Asia,” “achieved,” “China,” “city,” “history,” “video,” “Macau,” “Weibo,” “Weifang,” “Huzhou,” and “Quanzhou.” This group showcases cultural cooperation through the dissemination of digital culture and the unique cultural characteristics of regional cities.

Table 9. Results of structural equivalence classification of words in 2024.

Cluster	Word
Cultural Tourism Consumption and City Branding	“world” “tourism” “culture and tourism” “cuisine” “brand” “Yangzhou” “canal”
National cultural strategy and local project promotion	“development” “activities” “hosting” “international” “construction” “country” “economy” “enhancement” “continuous” “feature” “promotion” “create” “innovation” “as” “tourists” “advance” “launch” “project” “vitality” “themes” “kite” “Dunhuang”
International cooperation and strategic exchanges in East Asian culture	“cooperation” “communicate” “important” ‘hold” “conference” “strengthen” “Japan” “China-Japan-Korea” “three countries”
The core of urban culture and digital transmission	“culture” “East Asia” “achieved” “China” “city” “history” “video” “Macau” “Weibo” “Weifang” “Huzhou” “Quanzhou”

Table 9. Results of structural equivalence classification of words in 2024.

Cluster	Word
Cultural Tourism Consumption and City Branding	“world” “tourism” “culture and tourism” “cuisine” “brand” “Yangzhou” “canal”
National cultural strategy and local project promotion	“development” “activities” “hosting” “international” “construction” “country” “economy” “enhancement” “continuous” “feature” “promotion” “create” “innovation” “as” “tourists” “advance” “launch” “project” “vitality” “themes” “kite” “Dunhuang”
International cooperation and strategic exchanges in East Asian culture	“cooperation” “communicate” “important” ‘hold” “conference” “strengthen” “Japan” “China-Japan-Korea” “three countries”
The core of urban culture and digital transmission	“culture” “East Asia” “achieved” “China” “city” “history” “video” “Macau” “Weibo” “Weifang” “Huzhou” “Quanzhou”

Figure 6. Semantic Cluster Analysis of the ‘East Asian Cultural Capital’ Discourse in 2024 via CONCOR.

Figure 6. Semantic Cluster Analysis of the ‘East Asian Cultural Capital’ Discourse in 2024 via CONCOR.

When comparing the results of 2024 with those of 2023, words related to culture and development continued to occupy important positions, indicating that culture and development play a central role in the concept of “East Asian Cultural Capital.” The relationship between urban cultural development, cultural activities, and the tourism industry remained closely intertwined. However, in 2024, with the end of COVID-19 restrictions, terms related to international cooperation and the three countries of China, Japan, and South Korea saw a notable increase. Specifically, terms such as “Three countries,” “China-Japan-Korea,” and “international” occupied important positions in the 2024 TF-IDF analysis results, indicating that cultural, economic, and tourism cooperation among the three countries was emphasized in 2024. Additionally, the frequency of terms related to regional cities such as “Weifang” and “Macau” increased significantly, with regional cultural characteristics like Weifang’s “kite” becoming central to discussions. These results emphasize the importance of regional culture and its unique characteristics while reflecting the significance of international cooperation and regional cultural traits. Social media and video platforms play a crucial role in cultural dissemination, demonstrating that they have become important tools for global cultural exchange, in line with national cultural development policies promoting the digitization of public culture.

5.3. QAP Analysis

To verify the correlation between the semantic network structures observed in each period, we conducted a QAP (Quadratic Assignment Procedure) analysis (

Table 10. QAP correlation between result in 2023 and 2024.

	Result in 2023	Result in 2024
2023		0.870 *

* Significant at p < 0.01, n = 1.225.

). QAP analysis is a matrix correlation analysis technique that can verify the relationship between two variables within the same network or the structural similarity between two different networks [42,43]. QAP correlation analysis was performed to compare the similarity between the keyword co-occurrence matrices derived from Weibo data in 2023 and 2024. The results showed that the observed correlation coefficient was 0.870, and the p-value was statistically significant at the 0.05 level. This indicates that the semantic network structure between 2023 and 2024 is highly similar. In other words, the discourse on “East Asian Cultural Capital” on Weibo maintained relatively stable keyword associations over the two years.

In addition, a Multiple Regression QAP (MR-QAP) analysis was conducted by setting the 2023 co-occurrence matrix as the independent variable and the 2024 matrix as the dependent variable (

Table 11. MRQAP regression of 2024 Matrix on 2023 Matrix.

	Standardized Coefficient (β)	p-Value	R-Squared	Adjusted R-Squared
2023 Matrix	0.870	0.0002	0.757	0.757 *

* Significant at p < 0.01, n = 1.225.

).

The results of the regression analysis showed that the standardized regression coefficient for the 2023 matrix was β = 0.870, with a p-value of 0.05 or less, and the coefficient of determination (R²) was analyzed as 0.757. This indicates that the regression model can explain approximately 75.7% of the structural variation in the 2024 network, demonstrating that the 2023 network structure has a significant positive influence on the 2024 network. This indicates that the 2023 network structure possesses high explanatory power in explaining the 2024 structure. In other words, the structural characteristics of discourse related to the East Asian Cultural Capital remain consistent across years, and their continuity is statistically significant.

6. Conclusions

This study focuses on the content and semantic structure of discussions about the “East Asian Cultural Capital” project on the Chinese social media platform Weibo, and explores how national cultural and urban development policies are reflected in social media discourse. The research aims to utilize social media big data to reveal how national cultural development policies and the “East Asian Cultural City” initiative influence the cultural development of Chinese cities and their role in international cultural exchange, while also highlighting the guiding role of policies in online communication. This study collected Weibo posts from 2023 to 2024 to explore the content and changes in the concept of “East Asian Cultural Capital” on Chinese social media. Frequency analysis, TF-IDF analysis, and semantic network analysis were employed to systematically analyze the image formation of “East Asian Cultural Capital” within China, cultural exchange trends, and changes in related issues, thereby deriving the changes over the two-year period.

Although China has a long cultural history and each region has its own unique cultural characteristics, China’s cultural exports have remained stagnant in recent years. China has a huge consumer market, so the cultural capital industry tends to focus more on the domestic market than on overseas markets. As a result, China’s cultural industry lags behind South Korea and Japan, which actively promote cultural exports, and there is a lack of research on China’s cultural industry at the international level. Therefore, this study holds significant academic significance in identifying the shortcomings of China’s cultural industry and proposing measures to address them by exploring the current status of China’s “East Asian Cultural Capital.”

6.1. Cultural Policy Alignment in the Semantic Structure of Public Discourse

Based on the research findings, a frequency analysis of the collected Weibo posts reveals that words related to government-led cultural activities exhibited the highest occurrence rates from 2023 to 2024. Words such as “culture,” “construction,” “city,” and ‘development’ showed little change and appeared with high frequency, suggesting that the “East Asian Cultural Capital” project is focused on areas such as cultural construction, urban development, and cultural tourism. Additionally, the consistent mention of terms like “history,” “cultural relics,” and “cultural heritage” in 2023 highlights that the preservation and protection of historical and cultural heritage are core tasks in cultural development. Furthermore, the increased frequency of terms like “international,” “communicate,” and “cooperation” starting in 2024 signifies that, alongside the relaxation of China’s COVID-19 prevention policies in 2024, international cultural exchange and cultural development within the East Asian region have emerged as new core agendas.

In this study, TF-IDF analysis was utilized to analyze Weibo data related to East Asian Cultural Capital, thereby effectively identifying the most representative high-importance words and words with high weights in annual Weibo discussions. In particular, city names have high weights in TF-IDF analysis, with cities such as “Dunhuang,” “Yangzhou,” “Jinan,” and “Shaoxing” maintaining high importance since 2023. In 2024, the importance of “Macau” and “Weifang” increased, suggesting that these cities with deep cultural roots will have a long-term influence on discussions related to the East Asian Cultural Capital. The emergence of these cities reflects the proactive response of local governments to the national call to build cultural capitals, aligning with the policy requirements outlined in China’s 14th Five-Year Plan for Cultural Development, which emphasizes “developing urban thematic cultures” and “building a number of culturally influential central cities and distinctive cultural cities with national influence.” Each city is seeking to raise its international cultural profile by establishing its own unique cultural brand.

Additionally, terms like “cultural relics,” “protection,” and “history” and “cultural heritage” were identified in the frequency analysis and TF-IDF analysis in both two years, indicating that the integration of cultural heritage protection and tourism has emerged as a key focus area. This reflects the objectives of the 14th Five-Year Plan for New Urbanization to “protect historical and cultural heritage and preserve the historical and cultural heritage of cities,” strengthen the protection of cultural heritage and cultural relics, and promote the integration of intangible cultural heritage into urban planning and construction. In 2024, terms such as “international,” and “cooperation,” “China-Japan-Korea,” “conference,” and “communicate” ranked highly in the frequency analysis and TF-IDF analysis, aligning with the Ministry of Culture and Tourism’s East Asian Cultural Capital selection policy, which emphasizes “promoting cultural exchange and cooperation in Asia” and “enhancing the international influence of Chinese culture.” This suggests that cultural exchange has evolved into broader international cooperation and the establishment of a multilateral cultural collaboration framework. This shift in discourse is closely related to domestic and international policy developments, including the relaxation of China’s COVID-19 control measures since 2023 and the resumption of trilateral leaders’ meetings between China, Japan, and South Korea in 2024. The transformation of national-level policies on opening up to the outside world has been reflected in online social media discourse, driving a shift from a focus on cultural heritage protection within China to an active pursuit of international cultural exchange and international cultural construction. Furthermore, the importance of terms such as “video” and “Weibo” increased in the 2024 TF-IDF analysis, indicating that digital media has emerged as a core tool for cultural dissemination. This aligns with the policies outlined in the 14th Five-Year Plan for Cultural Development, which aims to promote the digitalization of public cultural services and the development of public cultural digital platforms. These trends were not clearly evident in 2023 but became more pronounced in 2024, reflecting the growing prominence of cultural exchange methods utilizing short-form content and social media.

6.2. Semantic Centrality and Policy Discourse Dynamics on Weibo

The degree centrality analysis conducted in this study was used to explore the most influential core concepts in Weibo data related to the East Asian Cultural Capital and to compare the correlation structure between the central themes and keywords in the semantic networks of different years. Through this, we analyzed the main interests and changes in the dissemination methods of East Asian cultural exchange. The analysis results show that words such as “culture,” “East Asia,” “city,” “China,” and “development” maintained high centrality for two years, indicating that discussions on cultural exchange, urban development, and regional cooperation have become core themes of the East Asian Cultural Capital project. In 2023, keywords such as “hosting,” “art,” and “convergence” emerged with increased centrality, suggesting that interest in the concrete organization of cultural activities and the convergence of cultural industries increased during that year. In 2024, words such as “economy,” “international,” “cooperation,” and “innovation” showed high centrality, indicating that cultural exchange is deeply integrated with themes such as economic cooperation, international cooperation, and technological innovation. These changes demonstrate a shift beyond mere cultural exchange, toward a direction where culture is increasingly integrated with economic development and international cooperation, reflecting the growing trend of cultural–economic integration.

In addition, this study used CONCOR analysis to extract key clusters of meaning related to “East Asian Cultural Capital” from Weibo data and identified the main topics of interest in cultural exchange at each point in time. The CONCOR analysis for 2023 clearly revealed sub-topics such as tourism, cultural industries, and international cooperation. Furthermore, the influence of “international” was not evident, indicating that discussions in 2023 were focused on the development of domestic city culture in China. The 2024 CONCOR analysis revealed that the importance of international cooperation has risen again, with cities such as “Macau” and “Weifang” emerging as new hubs for cultural exchange. This reflects a shift in the direction of cultural exchange from “domestic cultural development” toward “international cooperation.”

The results of the QAP and MR-QAP analyses indicate a high degree of structural continuity in the semantic networks of Weibo discussions related to the “East Asian Cultural Capital” between 2023 and 2024. The discourse structure remained stable over time, and the keyword associations identified in 2023 had a significant influence on those in 2024. This suggests that public discourse surrounding the “East Asian Cultural Capital” is not merely shaped by short-term trends, but is supported by consistent thematic frameworks. Such continuity reflects the sustained impact of cultural policy narratives and illustrates how government-led cultural initiatives are embedded in and reinforced by digital public communication.

6.3. Limitations and Directions for Future Research

This study analyzed two years of social media data related to the “East Asian Cultural Capital” to identify the characteristics and changes in the historical and cultural heritage protection, urban cultural image building, and the international cultural exchange of Chinese culture. The results of the study further clarified that factors such as digitalized dissemination, regional cultural brand building, cooperation between China, Japan, and South Korea, and the convergence of culture and economy play an important role in regional cultural cooperation. Although this study provided deep insights into the discussion on the “East Asian Cultural Capital” through frequency analysis, TF-IDF analysis, centrality analysis, and CONCOR analysis based on Weibo data from 2023 to 2024, it only used Weibo as the target for data collection and analysis, and the two-year data is limited in terms of time frame. It only used Weibo as the target for data collection and analysis among Chinese social media, and the two-year data period is limited in scope, making it difficult to identify long-term trends or specific patterns in the discourse. Due to the limitations in the generalizability of the results, we were unable to secure sufficient time-series data to apply the findings to the overall discourse on the “East Asian Cultural Capital” or policy changes. Furthermore, although Weibo is the largest text-based social platform in China, the collected data cannot represent all discussions on the East Asian Cultural Capital that took place throughout China, which may result in bias in the data. Some discussions on the East Asian Cultural Capital may have been covered by other social platforms (e.g., WeChat, Douyin, Zhihu, etc.) or other digital media platforms (news, official WeChat accounts, etc.). Future studies need to collect additional data for at least three years to conduct more reliable analysis. Selecting online discourse as the research data, although it has high timeliness and data availability, also has certain limitations. Specifically, Weibo users have a skewed age structure and geographical distribution, with the platform’s user base mainly concentrated in urban areas, young people, and those with high digital literacy. Therefore, the research results may, to a certain extent, lack representativeness. It is necessary to expand the sources and combine data collected from various platforms to reflect the perspectives of a wider range of users and strengthen the representativeness of the study. Additionally, this study primarily employs quantitative analysis and does not include qualitative research. If further interviews with relevant experts such as policymakers, local cultural managers, and tourism officials could be conducted to explore how they interpret and utilize public opinion and semantic network structures on social media, this would help design more targeted and effective cultural communication strategies, thereby enhancing the depth and practical value of the research. This will enable more in-depth analysis of long-term policy changes and new discourse trends in the East Asian Cultural Capital project.

Furthermore, the results of this study mainly reflect the perspectives and attitudes of Chinese users regarding cultural identity, urban development, and historical background. However, as Japan and South Korea were not included in the analysis due to their participation in the East Asian Cultural Capital project, their cultural characteristics, political positions, and social perceptions may differ from those of China. If social media data from Japan and South Korea were collected and the differences in discussion among the three countries were analyzed, a more comprehensive understanding of the significance and concerns of the East Asian Cultural Capital project could be gained. This would also reveal more clearly the regional differences in the spread of East Asian culture and the role of cultural competition in the global arena.