Social Media as a Medium to Promote Local Perception Expression in China’s World Heritage Sites

Social Media as a Medium to Promote Local Perception Expression in China’s World Heritage Sites

The assessment of public participation is one of the most fundamental components of holistic and sustainable cultural heritage management. Since the beginning of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic became a catalyst for the transformation of participatory tools. Collaboration with stakeholders moved online...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Land (Basel) Vol. 11; no. 6; p. 841
Main Authors: Liang, Xiaoxu, Hua, Naisi, Martin, John, Dellapiana, Elena, Coscia, Cristina, Zhang, Yu
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Basel MDPI AG 01-06-2022
Subjects:
Catalysts
Cities
Co-design
Collaboration
Communication
COVID-19
Cultural heritage
cultural heritage management
Cultural resources
Digital media
Digital technology
Evaluation
Geographic information systems
Historic sites
inclusive governance
Internet
Museums
Opinion leaders
pandemic
Pandemics
Participation
Perceptions
Public participation
Rural areas
social media
Social networks
Social organization
Social research
Temples
Urban planning
User behavior
Weibo
World Heritage Areas
Beijing China
Italy
China
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Summary:The assessment of public participation is one of the most fundamental components of holistic and sustainable cultural heritage management. Since the beginning of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic became a catalyst for the transformation of participatory tools. Collaboration with stakeholders moved online due to the strict restrictions preventing on-site activities. This phenomenon provided an opportunity to formulate more comprehensive and reasonable urban heritage protection strategies. However, very few publications mentioned how social networking sites’ data could support humanity-centred heritage management and participatory evaluation. Taking five World Cultural Heritage Sites as research samples, the study provides a methodology to evaluate online participatory practices in China through Weibo, a Chinese-originated social media platform. The data obtained were analysed from three perspectives: the users’ information, the content of texts, and the attached images. As shown in the results section, individuals’ information is described by gender, geo-location, celebrities, and Key Opinion Leaders. To a greater extent, participatory behaviour emerges at the relatively primary levels, that being “informing and consulting”. According to the label detection of Google Vision, residents paid more attention to buildings, facades, and temples in the cultural heritage sites. The research concludes that using social media platforms to unveil interplays between digital and physical heritage conservation is feasible and should be widely encouraged.
ISSN:2073-445X
2073-445X
DOI:10.3390/land11060841