![Sample our Humanities journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5939/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Humanities.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
With the development of social media and new information communication technology (ITC), state control imposed by authoritarian regimes over society has been challenged due to the media’s pressure on legislation, policy implementation and the mobilization of collective activism. Yet it does not mean the power of media is unlimited in the authoritarian context. Using China as a case, this article tries to point out the limitations of the media’s role in promoting religious freedom by reviewing the existing literature on media and social control. It stresses that the nature of religious issues, the accessibility of information, and the social consensus among netizens contribute to the difficulty in enhancing religious freedom and rights protection in China at this moment.
KEYWORDS:
Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful for Zhibin Xie, Joshua Mauldin, FenggangYang, and the Institute of Sino-Christians Studies in Hong Kong for publishing this article.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes on contributors
Jieren Hu is an associate professor in Law School at Tongji University. She is also a research fellow of the Centre for Social Governance Research at Fudan University and a visiting scholar in the Center for China Studies at UC Berkeley. Her researches focus on dispute resolution, sociology of law and social governance.
Yang Zheng is a PhD Student at City University of Hong Kong. His research focuses on urban politics, social conflict and contentious politics.
Notes
1 Yang, “From Cooperation to Resistance,” 85; also see Zhang, “Zhejiang liangnian chai shangqianshizijia.”
2 Vala, “Protestant Christianity and civil society in authoritarian China,” 46.
3 “Shehui tuanti dengji guanli tiaoli (revised version on 6 February 2016)” (Regulations on the Administration of Registration of Societies), https://www.lawxp.com/statute/s1765925.html, accessed 6 March 2019.
4 “Hulianwang zongjiao xinxi fuwu guanli banfa” (Regulations on the religious service information on Internet), September 10, 2018, https://fo.ifeng.com/a/20180910/45157616_0.shtml, accessed 6 March 2019.
5 Johnson, “Decapitated Churches in China’s Christian Heartland”; Guo, “Weihe qiangchai Wenzhou ji Zhejiang shizijia zaisi”; Yu, “Liulei de shizijia.”
6 Meng and Zhao, “Wangluo qudong de huiyingxing zhengfu: wangluo wenzheng de zhidu kuosan ji yunxing moshi,” 39.
7 Zhang and Ding, “Public Focusing Event as Catalysts,” 672.
8 Zeng and Huang, “The Media and Urban Contention in China,” 235.
9 Lerner, Riseman, and Pevsner, The Passing of Traditional Society, 51.
10 Chappell, Building the Fourth Estate, 126; Olukotun. “Authoritarian State, Crisis of Democratization and the Underground Media in Nigeria,” 337.
11 Shirky, “The Political Power of Social Media,”33.
12 Lynch, “After Egypt,” 304.
13 Stockmann and Gallagher, “Remote Control,” 439.
14 Tufekci and Wilson, “Social Media and the Decision to Participate in Political Protest,” 364.
15 Cai and Zhou, “New Information Technology and Social Protest in China,” 732.
16 King, Pan, and Roberts, “How censorship in China allows government criticism but silences collective expression,” 327.
17 50 cent party members (五毛党) refer to netizens who allegedly earn 50 cents per post defending and justifying the CCP or Chinese government. Such people are usually employed by the government.
18 Chen and Peng, “Internet Police in China,”43.
19 King, Pan, and Roberts, “How Censorship in China Allows Government Criticism But Silences Collective Expression,” 339.
20 Creemers, “Cyber China,” 88.
21 Repnikova and Fang, “Authoritarian Participatory Persuasion 2.0,” 775.
22 Morozov, “Whither Internet control?” 70.
23 Yang, The Power of the Internet in China, 44.
24 Yang and Jiang, “The Networked Practice of Online Political Satire in China,” 216.
25 Cai and Zhou, “New Information Technology and Social Protest in China,” 742.
26 Jost et al., “How Social Media Facilitates Political Protest,” 94.
27 Zhang and Ding, “Public Focusing Event as Catalysts,”673.
28 Harris, “Something Within,” 43.
29 Davis, “Establishing a Workable Autonomy in Tibet,” 234; Shan, “Explaining Ethnic Protests and Ethnic Policy Changes in China,” 518.
30 Koesel, “The Rise of a Chinese House Church,” 580.
31 Wielander, “Protestant and Online,” 168.
32 Cheong, et al., “The Internet Highway and Religious Communities,” 292.
33 Kindopp and Lee, God and Caesar in China, 2.
34 Ji, “Chinese Buddhism as a Social Force,” 19.
35 Philpott, “Explaining the Political Ambivalence of Religion,”518.
36 “Chuan Henan duochu jiating jiaohui bei chafeng.” Zhengzhou is the capital city of Henan Province.
37 Interview, July 2018, Shangqiu, Henan Pronvince.
38 “Wenzhou jixu qiangchai shizijia, yu 1800 jiaotang yi ‘lunxian’.”
39 Chan, “Changing Church-state Relations in Contemporary China,” 492. also see “Christian Sentiment in Zhejiang against Cross Removal.”
40 In July 2018, substandard and faulty vaccines produced by Changchun Changsheng Biotechnology Company in China were exposed by netizens on WeChat, which triggered national panic and wide-ranging worries among Chinese parents and citizens, see Westcott and Wang, “Outrange in China Over Thousands of Faulty Vaccines for Children.”
41 “Mo wudu Wenzhou dui weijian jiaotang shizijia de chuli.”
42 Luo and Joel, “Using Religion to Resist Rural Dispossession,” 493.