Who would prefer to mention you on the urban microblog mention network?: Evidence from Sina microblog data across 94 cities in China

Abstract

It is widely accepted that breaking the geographical boundaries is one of the core features of the Internet, thus a question is that whether the population-level interaction network on social media has been out of the geographical constrains? Based on Sina microblog data of 94 cities in China in 2015, this study constructed the urban mentioned network of talking about each other, and explored the interaction characteristics of city- level mention network. Results showed that the density of a city mentioned by others is highly correlated with its economic development, while the density of a city initiatively mentioning others is negatively correlated with the economy. Further analysis indicated that the distance between cities is significantly negatively correlated with the density of mention, which is consistent with the Tobler's First Law of Geography. In addition, the density of mention is also significantly positively correlated with the GDP of the mentioned cities, but negatively related to the GDP of the mentioning city, which is both similar to and different from the Newton's Law and Gravity Model in international trading. We propose that the phenomenon of a city being mentioned is associated with the popularity and influence of the city, and the urban mention network follows the law of Analogous Gravity Model, which may be attributed to the psychological motivation such as social comparison.