Parallel Politics: Chinese Diaspora on YouTube during the 2024 U.S. Election

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Friday, April 16, 2027 | 6pm to 7:30pm

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Chinese American voters showed a notable shift in the 2024 U.S. presidential election, with support for Donald Trump rising from 27% in 2020 to 39% in 2024. This research investigates the information environment of the Chinese diaspora to understand the critical context behind these trends, specifically examining political discourse on YouTube. Adopting a comparative design, the study contrasts Chinese-language political YouTube videos against their English-language counterparts during the 2024 election period in terms of topics, sentiments, and user engagement patterns. Drawing on a large-scale video dataset, we employ both computational and qualitative content analysis to explore this parallel information environment for Chinese-speaking audiences. Ultimately, the work discusses the unique issue priorities and frames of the online Chinese diaspora, offering key insights into Chinese Americans’ political attitudes and identities amid tightened U.S.-China relations.

Project funded by the 2026 CUNY Faculty Research Support Program

Author Bio

Yinxian Zhang is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at Queens College/CUNY. Her research sits at the intersection of political sociology and computational social science, with a focus on public opinion, the online public sphere, and state–society relations in China and the Chinese diaspora. Dr. Zhang received their Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Chicago. She was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard Ash Center before joining Queens College.