Abstract: As social media penetrates deeply into education and daily life, the way people produce, consume and disseminate discourse has changed drastically. To examine the progress and trends in social media discourse research in China, we reviewed 1680 papers included in the Chinese Social Sciences Citation Index (CSSCI) from 2013 to 2023, using CiteSpace. The analysis covers three distinct dimensions, encompassing the overall trend, the research themes and topics, and the application of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) in social media discourse studies. It shows that current research focuses on fields such as young people’s media use and media literacy, online rumor governance, and international communication of national images on social media platforms. The study also discusses how SFL methodologies contribute to describing the complexities and dynamics of social media discourse and its interplay with mainstream media.