Climate agenda-setting for Chinese youth by Chinese non-governmental organizations: a case study of Chinese weather enthusiasts on Bilibili

Abstract

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have increasingly played pivotal roles in shaping climate agendas and mobilizing individuals to engage in environmental initiatives. However, the nature of NGOs’ online interaction with users, especially in developing countries, remains largely unexplored. This study focused on the dynamics of engagement between a Chinese NGO, Chinese Weather Enthusiasts (CWE), and Chinese youth on the social media platform of Bilibili. The research comprised two main components. First, named entity recognition was employed to analyze weather-related terms in CWE’s posts on Bilibili, and dynamic topic modeling was utilized to uncover shifts in thematic focus. Subsequently, descriptive analysis and negative binomial regression were employed to investigate the correlation between weather types and user engagement metrics. The study unveiled two noteworthy findings: first, CWE posts are closely linked to short-term weather, providing timely content that may meet the public’s demand for climate information. Second, the engagement of Chinese youth users is not affected by extreme weather types. Future research should continue to elucidate strategies that NGOs can employ to enhance online engagement among youth users.