Data for: ‘Playing the Visibility Game’ Versus Practicing Journalism

While recent scholarship in the field of media and communication has shed light on how actors "play the visibility game", it largely focused on strategic ones driven by commercial incentives. Drawing on Weibo Trending Topics as a case study, this article addresses this research gap by conducting 14 semi-structured interviews with Chinese editors, examining their perceptions of the trending rules and their pursuit of visibility. The findings reveal a nuanced duality: media authority serves as both an asset and a limitation. On the one hand, editors benefit from Weibo's traffic support, receive greater emphasis on "positive energy" content, and occasionally gain insights into changes in the trending rules, enabling them to refine their "algorithmic imaginary". On the other hand, editors do not leverage algorithmic knowledge as aggressively as strategic actors; some editors reject "shortcuts" to Trending Topics due to conflicts between platform logics and journalistic standards. Business models and performance evaluation systems are two key factors either motivate or discourage editors from chasing traffic on Weibo. The findings highlight editors' agency and capacity to negotiate with, rather than merely cater to, Weibo's algorithms, thereby deepening our understanding of the "situatedness" of algorithmic systems within the Chinese institutional context.