Applying Latent Dirichlet Allocation Modeling Analysis to Explore How Reality Television Triggers National Pride Among Vietnamese Youth

For every nation, national pride plays a crucial role in fostering internal cohesion and resilience, thereby contributing to sustainable national development. As a result, expressions of national pride are often embedded within mass media products. This paper investigates how national pride manifests among Vietnamese youth by analyzing their parasocial engagement and supportive behaviors toward idols in Sao Nhập Ngũ - one of Vietnam's most popular reality television programs centered on military training and personal growth. Using a computational text analysis approach, the study collected over 105,000 YouTube comments from six seasons of the show and used Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) to extract topics representing parasocial interaction (PI) outcomes. A second LDA model identified topics related to expressions of national pride. The results show that the most important factors in predicting sentiments of national pride are affective parasocial outcomes, especially those involving appreciation, thankfulness, and emotional attachment to soldiers and cast members. The findings highlight how emotional identification with media figures who embody national values can transform individual affection into collective pride. This study contributes to the understanding of digital nationalism in Vietnam by demonstrating how reality television, through parasocial mechanisms, can mobilize patriotic sentiment and reinforce civic identity.