Networked Resistance: Digital Populism, Online Activism, and Mass Dissent in China

Abstract

The ever-expanding communicative space online has provided Chinese individuals with unprecedented access to an exploding base of user-generated content and has engendered innovative ways of mass collaboration and grassroots participation in the information production process. Within this context, an emerging pattern has redefined the contours of Chinese cyber culture in which dispersed individuals creatively coordinate efforts to expose outrageous wrongdoings and transgressions committed by government officials and other targeted individuals. This article scrutinizes the role of social media in China in opening up new windows of opportunities for mass collaboration and collective action. The analysis is embedded in the current Chinese socio-political power relations and hegemonic structure, and focuses on the salient themes, trending patterns, and circumstantial factors underlying this type of social media activism. It concludes with a deliberation on the implications of this type of populism for so-called netizens, the authoritarian polity, and the evolving new media landscape in China.

Notes

¹ The narrative of this episode is based on related information from the Baidu wiki page titled “My Father is Li Gang,” available at http://baike.baidu.com/view/4534118.htm, supplemented by information from searches on Sina, Mop, and Tianya.

² See Baidu’s wiki page titled “Four Famous Fathers” (http://baike.baidu.com/view/6442215.htm).

³ A full narrative of this story is available through “An Inside Out Investigation of the ‘Extravagant Cigarette Chief Incident,’” by Xinhua News Agency, October 20, 2009. Retrieved from http://news.sohu.com/20091020/n267536300.shtml

⁴ See Yahoo China’s People Profile of Yang Dacai, “One Smile Ruins His Future” at http://news.cn.yahoo.com/rw/yangdacai/

⁵ There is a play on words here. In Chinese, biao ge most typically means (male) “cousin.” But syntactically, the first character means “watch,” and the second character means “brother,” hence “watch brother.”

⁶ For a detailed timeline and in-depth coverage, see, for example, the Sohu’s special section on this event at http://news.sohu.com/s2014/dianji-1325/

⁷ “Media Watch: State Media Rallies behind CCTV over Dongguan Reporting,” from Caixin Online. Retrieved from

http://english.caixin.com/2014-02-13/100638449.html