Knowledge Communication Through Short Videos in China: Research Dynamics and Thematic Patterns
Abstract
Short videos have become an important infrastructure for communicating knowledge in China, yet domestic scholarship remains dispersed across publishing, library and information science, journalism, education, platform studies and user research. This review maps and synthesises 93 Chinese-language journal articles indexed in CNKI and published between 2018 and July 2026. The corpus was coded by publication year, research object, platform, reported method, evidence-design family and one primary thematic category; 35 uncertain or boundary articles were checked against their full texts. Annual output increased from one article in 2018 to a peak of 20 in 2022. Institutional integration was the largest theme, with 31 studies (33.3%). The evidence base comprised 51 conceptual, normative or commentary-based studies, 21 quantitative or computational studies, 20 qualitative or bounded case studies and one mixed-methods study. Named-platform research concentrated on Douyin (13 studies) and Bilibili (nine). Quantitative evidence was strongest in research on communication characteristics and effects, whereas content, theoretical and platform studies remained predominantly conceptual. The field has therefore established substantial thematic breadth, but its evidence is uneven: institutional adoption and platform performance are documented more consistently than cross-platform comparison, longitudinal change or the substantive content of knowledge interaction. Future research should use clearer outcome definitions, more comparable units of analysis and stronger integration of content, user and platform evidence.
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