Multiple public spheres of Weibo: a typology of forms and potentials of online public spheres in China

† Earlier versions of this paper were presented at conferences by the International Communication Association, the German Association for Communication Science, the Swiss Association of Communication Science, and at the Chinese Internet Research Conference.

Abstract

The advent of online media, and particularly social media, has led to scholarly debates about their implications. Authoritarian countries are interesting in this respect because social media might facilitate open and critical debates that are not possible in traditional media. China is arguably the most relevant and interesting case in this respect, because it limits the influx of non-domestic social media communication, has established its own microcosm of social media and tries to closely monitor and control it and censor problematic content. While such censorship is very effective in some instances, however, it fails to shut down all open debates completely. We analyse the pre-eminent Chinese social media platform – Sina Weibo – and present a typology of different kinds of public spheres that exist on this platform in which open and critical debates can occur under specific circumstances: Thematic public spheres include phenomena of common concern, such as environmental pollution or food safety; short-term public spheres emerge after unexpected events; encoded public spheres are deliberate attempts of users to circumvent censorship; local public spheres focus on sub-national phenomena and problems; non-domestic political public spheres exist on political topics from other countries but are often referenced back to China; mobile public spheres exist because many people use Weibo on their smartphones and also have access to deleted content there and meta public spheres are debates about censorship itself.

Keywords:

• China
• social media
• public sphere
• censorship
• Weibo

Notes on contributors

Adrian Rauchfleisch is a research associate at the Institute of Mass Communication and Media Research at the University of Zurich. His research focuses on online communication, political communication, the Chinese Internet and science communication. [email: [email protected]]

Mike S. Schäfer holds the Chair of Science Communication at the Institute of Mass Communication and Media Research at the University of Zurich. His research focuses on online communication about science, science in the public sphere and climate change communication. [email: [email protected]]

Notes

† Earlier versions of this paper were presented at conferences by the International Communication Association, the German Association for Communication Science, the Swiss Association of Communication Science, and at the Chinese Internet Research Conference.

1. This and several other quotes have been translated into English for this publication.

2. Similar conceptualizations can be found among scholars analysing public spheres in China. While some, like Abbott (2012) or Jiang (2010), took cues from Habermas' concept of a deliberative public sphere which ought to fulfil ambitious criteria, such as civility, rationality, etc., the limitations of applying this concept to China were repeatedly pointed out (e.g. Yang & Calhoun, 2007) and its adaptability questioned (Rowe, 1990). Many scholars have, therefore, moved away from the concept of open deliberation. Yang (2003), for example, sees Chinese public spheres not primarily as spaces for rational debate, but as fora for public expression and social interaction, collective identity building, civic association and popular protest. Abbott (2012) sees them as spaces with ‘1) a disregard for status; 2) a domain of common concern and 3) inclusivity’ (p. 334), and He and Warren (2011) as well as Jiang (2010) have demonstrated that public expression, interaction, and also protest can take place in Chinese online spaces, even though they might be limited to certain conditions.

3. In terms of user numbers, Tencent's Weixin service is even more popular than Weibo. But as a personal messenger service, its capacity to disseminate messages and reach mass audiences is limited in comparison to Weibo. For example, group chats on Weixin consist of a maximum of 40 users, and celebrities can only post one message a day on their public profiles (McKirdy, 2014).

4. These numbers have to be treated with some caution: Fu and Chau (2013) found that 57.4% of the sampled accounts were ‘zombie accounts’, which are commonly used for marketing purposes or to inflate the number of a user's followers.

5. Because of the sensitive issue the identity of the users will be kept anonymous.

6. It is notable, however, that MIIT counts the number of accounts instead of the number of unique users.