Managing the micro-self: the governmentality of real name registration policy in Chinese microblogosphere

Abstract

This paper investigates the real name registration (RNR) policy introduced by Chinese authorities in 2011 to regulate its vibrant microblogosphere by encouraging users to manage their ‘micro-self'. Foucault's concept of governmentality is adopted to understand how the Chinese state ‘governs at a distance' its colossal microblog population through technologies of the state and technologies of the self. We provide a critical case study of the governmentality of the RNR policy in Chinese microblogosphere by detailing the broad range of user experiences based on 22 in-depth interviews conducted in 2012 and 2013 with users and weibo editors. Shedding a new light on the practices of Chinese Internet regulation through the perspective of governmentality, we challenge the notion of the Chinese state as an omnipotent agent, contest popular media's portrayal of the Chinese microblog subject as either obedient or resistant, and foreground the importance of Internet firms in mediating the negotiation between the state and users.

Keywords:

• microblog
• Weibo
• real name registration
• governmentality
• self-expression
• censorship
• identity
• anonymity
• Chinese Internet
• Sina
• Tencent
• policy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Min Jiang (Ph.D.) is Associate Professor of Communication at UNC Charlotte and an Affiliate Researcher at the Center for Global Communication Studies, University of Pennsylvania. Her research focuses on Chinese Internet technologies, politics and policies. Her work has appeared in Journal of Communication, New Media & Society, Social Science Computer Review, Policy & Internet and Electronic Journal of Communication among others. She is writing a book on the Chinese Internet tentatively titled China vs. Information. Prior to pursing her doctor's degree in the United States, she had worked at China Central Television and Kill Bill I in her native country China. [email: [email protected]]

Notes

1. Usually, ‘weibo' is used to denote the phenomenon of microblogging in China; ‘Weibo' is used as an abbreviation for ‘Sina Weibo’, the most influential microblog platform in China, which went public in the United States in April 2014 (Merced, 2014). Sina Weibo changed its domain name in April 2011 to weibo.com. Readers are cautioned against the likely inflation of user population reported by MSPs. National survey by China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC, 2014) puts China's microblogging population at 309 million. In addition, weibo use has been on steady decline due to state regulation and user migration to Weixin, or WeChat, a popular small-group messaging app where group size is usually capped at 100.

2. Big V here refers to prominent microblog users with thousands, or even, millions of followers with considerable social prestige and influence on public opinion.

3. While 140 characters in English can hardly form a long sentence, 140 Chinese characters can convey a lot more information, usually two to five times that of a post in English.

4. Long Weibo refers to a weibo function that allows users to upload text (often several hundred or even thousand words) as an image to circumvent weibo's word limit. Sohu eliminated word limit.

5. Yao Chen's Sina Weibo (weibo.com/yaochen) was accessed on 30 December 2014. The number of her followers was greater than pop star Katy Perry, top Twitter user with 62 million at the time.

6. Foucault was explicit in acknowledging individuals' freedom to act:

Perhaps I've insisted too much on the technology of domination and power. I am more and more interested in the interaction between oneself and others and in the technologies of individual domination, the history of how an individual acts upon himself: in the technology of the self. (Foucault, 1988, p. 19)

7. It is possible individuals might have other revenue sources (e.g. rent) and their monthly income could vary from time to time. Interviewees self-reported their monthly average income bracket, the same scale used by CNNIC in its national surveys. The income distribution of our eight Mainland Chinese users skewered towards the higher end with 75% earning more than 5000 RMB per month compared to 30% earning more than 5000 RMB per month accessing weibo via apps based on iResearch (2014) data.

8. While ‘real name' sites like Facebook are popular around the world, they are not mandated by the state, connected to users' national IDs, mobile phone numbers or other identification information, which are in turn linked to their public security profiles.