Adept or Inept? Examining the Chinese Government's Social Media Crisis Response During the Zhengzhou Rainstorm

Abstract

Effective crisis communication is important for governments to mitigate the impact of disasters and maintain public trust. This study examines the Chinese government's social media crisis response during the 2021 Zhengzhou rainstorm, developing a government crisis frame model to analyze 10,036 Weibo posts across 73 government accounts. The findings reveal three dominant framing strategies: Disaster Reporting and Information Updates, Leadership and Disaster Relief, and Achievement, which collectively highlight institutional competence and phased progress to cultivate public confidence. Additionally, the government strategically amplified emotional appeals through the Human Interest and Encouragement frame, fostering collective political emotions and social cohesion, while the Severity frame appeared far less frequently. Notably, while the Inviting the Public frame had the strongest communication effect, it was the least utilized. The association between the government sector and effect is relatively weak and becomes insignificant after controlling for follower count and crisis stage. While the government level significantly and positively influences the communication effect, provincial-municipal differences were marginal, reflecting that high economic capital enables municipal media to achieve autonomy comparable to provincial actors. These results reveal the Chinese government's strategic use of social media to achieve integrative consensus and collective resilience. This research provides empirical evidence of the Chinese government's crisis communication strategies on social media and offers a methodological framework for analyzing government crisis responses in the digital era, contributing to the broader discourse on political communication.