"Started intestine controversy of 315 Gala", "Female doctor reported sexual harassment by professor", "Clash between Manner clerk and customer", "The defendant in Chongqing sibling's death was executed", "The landslide collapsed in Meizhou Expressway, Guangdong"... In 2024, Weibo became a "magnifying glass" of social emotions. Whenever hot spots on people's livelihood appear, the comment area instantly becomes a large-scale "emotional scene".

In 2024, which topics of people's livelihood have attracted the most attention on Weibo platforms? What do you care about through these hot topics of people’s livelihood? Which media host the most news topics on the hot search list? What role has self-media played in hot topics?

On January 23, 2025, the Center for News and Social Development of Renmin University of China jointly released the "2024 Weibo Hot Trend Report" (Part 2), focusing on decoding the hot topics in 2024 and "revealing" three trends about social emotions and media work.

01 What do you care about?

The issues related to social livelihood are often the "peptide dishes" of social emotions. Netizens will "vote with their feet" and express their concerns during the discussion. Through sampling and coding of hot searches for S-level social events in 2024, Weibo found that justice, security, consumption, education, and occupation are the five hot topics of people's livelihood that the public is most concerned about.

In the comment section of these events, four social emotions are the most common: the call to the truth, the attention to career development, the cherishment of life safety, and the persistence of individual rights. Positive response and handling of these emotions have become an important work goal of public communication in hot social events.

"People's livelihood news is the 'barometer' of society, and all grand blueprints will eventually be implemented in the daily lives of the people." Sha Yao, a researcher at the Institute of News and Communication, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that life is the top priority, and the emotional structure of an era and society can be seen from people's livelihood news.

02 The "hot spot" division of labor of the media

In 2024, central-level media and local media continued to work hard to preside over hot searches and strive to guide and supervise public opinion. Among them, among the central-level media, @CCTV News, @People's Daily, and @CCTV.com are among the top three hot search hosts; @Red Star News, @The Paper and @Jiupai News have become the top three local media.

It is worth noting that central and local media have shown obvious "project diversion" in hosting hot events. Among the hot events hosted by central-level media, current affairs news and social news account for 90%, focusing on playing an important role in "authoritative release" at the level of major events and concerns of the masses.

For example, in response to the incident of Nanjing's self-media "War Horse Operation" hitting the Central Shopping Mall at the beginning of 2024, @CCTV posted a comment and hosted the topic #Patriotism is not a basis for business reporting#, which topped the hot search list and guided public opinion as soon as possible. For example, in response to the incident of athlete Fu Yuanhui being blackmailed during the 2024 Spring Festival holiday, @CCTV posted a comment and hosted the topic #Cultural tourism and resource meals must be transformed to service meals#. The number of readings on a single Weibo post exceeded 10 million, and the reposts and likes exceeded 80,000, which responded to social sentiment in a timely manner.

In comparison, among the hot events hosted by local media, the proportion of social and livelihood events reached 95%. For example, @The Paper hosted #Many places responded to the cancellation of public tents, which is not exclusive of public tents##Use first and pay later, and was criticized for social and livelihood topics. In addition, among the hot events on Weibo, self-media also plays an increasingly important role by adding incident materials, sorting out the ins and outs, popularizing scientific background knowledge, etc.

03 Horizontal "breaking the circle" of vertical hotspots

From the spatial dimension, the report points out that vertical hotspot events, such as the game industry, enterprise management, no longer "discuss the matter" and often "breaking the circle" and "broading everywhere" horizontally, resulting in more complex and diffuse social discussions.

The popular "Black Myth: Wukong" this year is a typical case. Discussions among Weibo users are no longer limited to the game itself, but have become a cultural and tourism issue, cultural issues, and commercial issues, which have resulted in the sales of #Black Myth Wukong's shooting location soaring by 3 times##How many industries has Black Myth Wukong revitalized?## Many translators in Black Myth Wukong directly used hot topics in many fields such as Pinyin#.

In this regard, Liu Mengfei, a lecturer at the School of Arts and Media of Beijing Normal University, said that games breed various social thoughts, and the basic structure of human civilization itself has also developed in the game. "We should no longer regard games as a simple pastime topic, it accommodates a wider social group." Sha Yao concluded that 2024 has passed. Although there is a lot of sympathy and regret, helplessness and anxiety, and even anger and dissatisfaction, it is more about unity, hope and pride.