China Policy Journal Volume 1, Number 2, Fall 2019 | Page 8

Introduction
provide an institutional setting where
divergent policy views from various actors
can be reconciled and incorporated
into the policy decisions.
The fifth paper “Social Media
and Big Data Evaluation of Think Tanks
in Contemporary China” is co-authored
by Zhu Xufeng and Zhao Jing
who use a big data method to capture
think tank activity data for comprehensively
assessing their influence on
social media. Currently, Chinese think
tanks have begun to embrace the media
to expand their social influence. This
study constructs and utilizes a database
with three kinds of think tank activities
in social media and builds a two-level
think tank big data index (TTBI).
The paper reveals that different types
of think tanks exhibit their social influence
and patterns on various social
media platforms. The big data method
proposed in this paper can resolve the
technical bottlenecks of objective evaluation
and provides a new dimension
for the analysis of think tanks.
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