Which news topics drive economic prosperity in China?

PLoS One. 2023 Oct 16;18(10):e0291862. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0291862. eCollection 2023.

Abstract

Precise and real-time measurements of economic prosperity are vital to a country's economic system. This study aims to identify news topics that promoted economic prosperity in China from 2011-2021. By extracting economic topics from news text data, we construct a news coincidence index with comprehensive information and strong timeliness and reveal the trend of topic contribution. The Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic model is applied to extract economic topics from the news. We use a mixed-frequency dynamic factor model to track rapid economic development without using high-frequency weekly and daily data. We identify the six most influential topics and investigate their evolution, which may serve as a reference for economic construction and regulation.

MeSH terms

  • China
  • Social Media*

Grants and funding

WL is sponsored by the National Science Foundation of China [grant numbers 71771187, 72011530149 and 72163029], and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities [grant number JBK190602] in China. https://www.nsfc.gov.cn/english/site_1/index.html The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.