Exploring Overseas Citizen’s Perceptions of Chinese Furniture on Social Media:Content Analysis of Q&A Text Based on Quora

Abstract

The global online Q&A community provides us a possibility to observe the spread of Chinese utensil culture abroad in the era of social media. In this article, user data linked to Chinese furniture were collected via the Python crawler program. We apply LDA topic model, sentiment analysis, word frequency and word cloud analysis, and metaphor analysis to explore the leading producers, information needs, and foreigners' attitudes and understanding mode of Chinese furniture knowledge. The results show that the principal contributors are non-Chinese people with Chinese experience and design expertise. Overseas people's attention to Chinese furniture covers eight topics, including restaurant furniture, furniture trade, furniture sales, furniture marketing, furniture style, and hongmu furniture. Although some users employ economic, cultural, and political metaphors to describe the negative image of Chinese furniture, overseas citizens are mostly positive about Chinese furniture. The findings of this study will aid relevant ministries and businesses in boosting intercultural communication of Chinese furniture.