Constructing parenthood online: A large language model approach to topic analysis of short video comments

Although evidence from many high-income countries indicates a growing intensive parenting norm, our understanding of the discourses of contemporary parenthood in China remains limited. The construction of Chinese parenthood raises particularly intriguing questions, as the emphasis on education in Confucianism coincides with a period of rapid modernization and globalization. The rise of social media platforms has further spread specific parenting practices and values. In this paper, we analyzed 405,380 comments from 192 short videos about parenthood and parenting on the popular social media platform Douyin. We utilized two large language models (LLMs) for human–LLM collaborative text annotation across comments from three types of vloggers: child-centered vloggers, mother–child vloggers, and father–child vloggers. Three main themes emerged: division of labor, fertility ideals, and parenting values. Contesting views and values appeared in the 15 more nuanced sub-themes, including unpaid labor, the cost of parenthood, and scientific parenting. Comments from different regions exhibited distinct topic focuses. Multinomial regressions revealed the influence of local economic development and gender inequality levels in the labor market on these varying focuses. Through innovative data and analytical tools, this study revealed how online discussions about parenthood exhibited an “intensive discursive tension” that was shaped by offline socio-economic contexts.