Ann Arbor Times

A recent study led by the University of Michigan has found that on Chinese social media, fans play a larger role than celebrities in driving nationalist sentiment. The research, published in Science Advances, analyzed over 8 million posts and comments from Weibo, China’s largest microblogging platform. The findings show that nationalistic messages from fans often precede and predict an increase in patriotic posts by celebrities. In contrast, celebrity posts have little measurable effect on their followers’ attitudes.

“We tend to think of influence as flowing from the top down—from elites to ordinary people,” said Ji Yeon Hong, associate professor of political science at the University of Michigan and lead author of the study. “Our findings suggest that, in China’s social media environment, the flow can also go upward. Celebrities are responding to what their fans want to hear.”

The research team included Yong Kim from Texas A&M University, Han Zhang from Brown University, and Tianzhu Qin from the University of Cambridge. They focused on celebrity-fan interactions during 2019—a period marked by increased nationalism following anti-government protests in Hong Kong.

The study challenges common assumptions that online nationalism is mainly driven by state propaganda. Instead, it finds that grassroots enthusiasm among fans plays a significant role: when fan nationalism rises, celebrities tend to follow with similar messaging.

“Fans are not passive consumers of celebrity messaging,” Hong said. “They actively shape the tone and language of online nationalism, creating expectations that celebrities feel pressure to meet.”

Researchers categorized both celebrities and fans into two political camps: state-conformists (who align with official government positions) and nonconformists (who express more independent or pro-democracy views). In state-conformist groups, fan-driven nationalism predicted future patriotic posts by celebrities. However, this pattern did not appear among nonconformist users; entertainers with opposing political leanings did not use nationalist messages to communicate with their fans.

The study also confirms a strong echo-chamber effect: users interact mostly within like-minded communities while cross-camp influence is rare.

Fan culture in China has become closely linked with politics. Online fan clubs often mobilize around causes blending entertainment with patriotism—such as defending Chinese actors criticized abroad or promoting pro-government hashtags.

An example highlighted is actress Liu Yifei’s support for Hong Kong police during the 2019 protests. Her comments led to backlash internationally but received widespread praise from mainland Chinese fans on Weibo who defended her stance and turned it into a point of nationalist pride.

While focused on China’s digital landscape, the authors note that similar dynamics may exist elsewhere: bottom-up pressure from fans can shape celebrity behavior even in democratic societies where public figures have more freedom to respond or resist such pressures.

“Bottom-up pressure from fans can shape celebrity behavior in any political system,” Hong said. “The difference lies in how much room public figures have to respond—or to resist.”