Digital Media, Cycle of Contention, and Sustainability of Environmental Activism: The Case of Anti-PX Protests in China

Abstract

Although scholars have studied issues arising from digital activism, most have failed to scrutinize the possible interconnections that might be found within digitally mediated political contention. To advance such an understanding, this study employs the concept of “cycles of contention” to investigate recurrent mechanisms of protest in contemporary society. This study takes as its case 7 anti-petrochemical (anti-PX) protests in China from 2007 to 2014, during which 54 in-depth interviews were conducted. Whereas traditional media coverage legitimizes and modularizes anti-PX protests, facilitates the adoption of digital media as part of the repertoire of contention, and sustains political contention in the long run, the use of digital media enables protestors to diffuse contention widely and quickly and allows them to learn from the experiences of the past. This study concludes that the sustainability of digitally mediated environmental activism is shaped by the specific communication ecology in China.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I appreciate the comments from Klaus Bruhn Jensen, Ran Wei, and two anonymous reviewers.

FUNDING

This work was supported by the Carlsberg Foundation [grant number CF14-0385]; S. C. Van Fonden [reference numbers 1267, 1503].

Notes

¹ Paraxylene is a petrochemical feedstock used in plastics, polyester, and other synthetic manufacturing. Xiamen, Dalian, Ningbo, Kunming, and Maoming in the two messages are cities in China, and Zhenhai is a district of Ningbo.

² Although recognizing the interconnection, or acts of imitation within different forms of activism, most of these studies did not probe very deeply into these interconnections or acts of imitation (e.g., Bennett & Segerberg, 2012, pp. 745–747).

³ Nevertheless, this does not mean that interconnection exists only between the anti-PX protests. Rather, people were inspired by the anti-PX protests and imitated them in other instances of political activism; see, for instance, Hu (2012, p. 104).

⁴ For the detailed information of the text message, see Xie and Zhao (2007).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Carlsberg Foundation [grant number CF14-0385]; S. C. Van Fonden [reference numbers 1267, 1503].

Notes on contributors

Jun Liu

Jun Liu (Ph.D., University of Copenhagen, 2013) is an assistant professor in the Department of Media, Cognition and Communication and at the Centre for Communication and Computing at the University of Copenhagen. His research interests include political communication, information and communication technologies, and political sociology.