From Universal Frameworks to Local Realities: Bridging the Cultural Gap in Cultural Ecosystem Services Assessment via Social Media Data: Evidence from Yi Ethnic Villages in Liangshan, China

Assessing Cultural Ecosystem Services (CESs) is critical for linking landscape management with human well-being. In the context of ethnic villages, the applicability of international assessment frameworks remains open to further exploration, while existing social media-based perception studies usually focus on a single dimension such as word-frequency intensity or sentiment polarity. Research that integrates these two dimensions to jointly inform tourism practice remains relatively limited. Taking 10 typical Yi ethnic villages in Liangshan, southwestern China, as case studies, and utilizing approximately 18,250 tourist review texts from social media platforms, this study constructed a general and local CES evaluation system and introduced an intensity and sentiment valence dual-dimension analysis framework. Of these, eight villages met the clustering requirements based on valid word frequencies and were included in the typology, while two were only qualitatively described due to insufficient sample sizes. The results indicate that (a) a new dimension of cultural tourism services and infrastructure was added, and living cultural symbols along with emotional terms were incorporated into the measurement system, achieving localized translation of the international framework; (b) systematic clustering classified the eight villages into four types with significant differences in their CES perception structures; (c) the cross-analysis of intensity and sentiment revealed a popularity trap phenomenon, demonstrating that a high mention rate does not necessarily equate to high satisfaction. Furthermore, it uncovered noteworthy mechanistic issues including the erosion of authenticity by traffic-driven operations and the imbalance between governance logic and public perception. This study aims to extend the applicability of the CES framework in the context of ethnic villages, and provide alternative perspectives for cultural landscape conservation and sustainable tourism development in these communities.