A study on the recognition of Chinese food culture by foreigners in China via the Douyin platform

Short video platforms such as Douyin have fundamentally restructured how expatriates navigate and internalize local culinary traditions. Drawing on social cognitive theory, this exploratory study examines the intersection of algorithmic content and cultural learning across the cognitive, affective, evaluative, and participatory dimensions. Using a mixed-methods approach, this study combines a survey of 102 digitally active foreign residents with a qualitative semantic analysis of user discourse on popular food-related content. The findings show that frequent exposure enhances awareness of regional culinary diversity and encourages experimentation with unfamiliar foods. However, emotional responses remain polarized, reflecting the tension between fascination and cultural distance. A longer residency is associated with more nuanced judgments of authenticity, suggesting that digital representations interact dynamically with lived experiences. Although Douyin promotes participatory engagement through sharing and interaction, a gap remains between passive consumption and practical involvement. This study argues that digital platforms play a dual role: increasing accessibility to Chinese food culture while visually simplifying it, thereby compressing its multi-sensory and social dimensions into a two-dimensional spectacle. This form of algorithmic sensory compression limits the extent to which cultural learning can be achieved using short videos. The findings extend social cognitive theory by demonstrating how algorithmic curation reshapes observational learning and, by mapping its processes across four recognition dimensions, contribute to the cultural assimilation research. More broadly, they demonstrate how engagement-driven algorithms facilitate cultural transmission in media environments.