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What We Can Learn About China from Research Into Sina Weibo

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What We Can Learn About China from Research Into Sina Weibo CHINESE SOCIAL MEDIA AS LABORATORY: WHAT WE CAN LEARN ABOUT CHINA FROM RESEARCH INTO SINA WEIBO by Jason Q. Ng English Literature, A.B., Brown University, 2006 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts of East Asian Studies University of Pittsburgh 2013 fcomfort UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH THE DIETRICH SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES This thesis was presented by Jason Q. Ng It was defended on April 9, 2013 and approved by Pierre F. Landry, Associate Professor, Political Science Ronald J. Zboray, Professor, Communication Mary Saracino Zboray, Visiting Scholar, Communication Thesis Director: Katherine Carlitz, Assistant Director, Asian Studies Center ii Copyright © by Jason Q. Ng 2013 iii CHINESE SOCIAL MEDIA AS LABORATORY: WHAT WE CAN LEARN ABOUT CHINA FROM RESEARCH INTO SINA WEIBO Jason Q. Ng, M.A. University of Pittsburgh, 2013 Like all nations, China has been profoundly affected by the emergence of the Internet, particularly new forms of social media—that is, media that relies less on mainstream sources to broadcast news and instead relies directly on individuals themselves to share information. I use mixed methods to examine how three different but intertwined groups—companies, the government, and Chinese Internet users themselves (so-called “netizens”)—have confronted social media in China. In chapter one, I outline how and why China’s most important social media company, Sina Weibo, censors its website. In addition, I describe my research into blocked search terms on Sina Weibo, and explain why particular keywords are sensitive. In chapter two, I take a quantitative approach informed by political science methodology to examine how the names of Chinese politicians were handled by Sina Weibo during a major political event: the 18th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in November 2012. In response to research by Gary King which finds that online criticism of the government in China is allowed so long as it does not involve topics related to collective action, my study concludes that Sina Weibo actively filtered the search results of Communist Party delegates, particularly higher-ranked politicians and incumbents, during the observation period, often regardless of whether or not the individuals were controversial figures or linked to issues of collective action. In chapter three, I focus specifically on the end user, the microbloggers of Sina Weibo. Relying on communications and media studies research as well as content analysis, I iv report on the contentious comments netizens made in response to a post by the Japanese celebrity and porn star Sora Aoi—specifically ethnic slurs and nationalist rhetoric—during the Diaoyu Islands dispute between China and Japan in September 2012. These three components will allow readers to understand the power of social media in China—both contained within users and employed by authorities. v TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE .................................................................................................................................... XI 1.0 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ 1 2.0 CHAPTER ONE—BLOCKED ON WEIBO: HOW AND WHY SINA CONTROLS THE SPREAD OF SENSITIVE TOPICS ........................................................... 7 2.1 SINA WEIBO: A RICH SOURCE OF INFORMATION ............................. 10 2.2 HOW WEIBO CENSORS ................................................................................ 14 2.3 WHY WEIBO IS CENSORED ........................................................................ 18 3.0 CHAPTER TWO—HOW SOCIAL MEDIA HANDLED THE 18TH NATIONAL CONGRESS OF THE CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY: AN ANALYSIS OF INTERNET CENSORSHIP ON SINA WEIBO BEFORE AND AFTER THE 2012 ELECTION ................................................................................................................................. 24 3.1 BACKGROUND ................................................................................................ 25 3.2 COMMUNIST PARTY HIERARCHY ........................................................... 26 3.3 PATHWAYS TO POWER ............................................................................... 29 3.4 EXPERIMENT DESIGN AND DATA COLLECTION ................................ 30 3.5 SUMMARY STATISTICS ............................................................................... 33 3.6 IMPORTANCE OF TIME ............................................................................... 35 3.7 IMPORTANCE OF RANK .............................................................................. 39 vi 3.8 IMPORTANCE OF MINORITY STATUS AND GENDER ........................ 42 3.9 CONCLUSION .................................................................................................. 43 4.0 CHAPTER THREE—SLOGANS AND SLURS, SEXISM AND NATIONALISM: A CASE STUDY OF ANTI-JAPANESE SENTIMENT BY CHINESE NETIZENS IN A CONTENTIOUS SOCIAL MEDIA CONVERSATION .......................... 46 4.1 A SEMI-PUBLIC DISCUSSION SPACE: CENSORSHIP AND ANTI- JAPANESE SENTIMENT IN THE COMMENTS SECTION...................................... 48 4.2 SORA AOI AND THE TWO INITIAL POSTS ............................................. 53 4.3 TYPOLOGIES OF RESPONSES .................................................................... 55 4.4 SLURS ................................................................................................................ 59 4.5 CONCLUSION .................................................................................................. 63 5.0 CONCLUSION—MAKING SENSE OF BIG DATA ............................................ 65 APPENDIX A .............................................................................................................................. 70 APPENDIX B .............................................................................................................................. 80 APPENDIX C .............................................................................................................................. 93 APPENDIX D .............................................................................................................................. 97 BIBLIOGRAPHY ..................................................................................................................... 102 vii LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Number of delegates holding specified rank within Communist Party before and after 18th National Congress ................................................................................................................. 29 Table 2. Logistic regression table of whether or not a name is blocked on individual characteristics by phase................................................................................................................. 89 Table 3. Multivariable logistic regression table of what blck status a name will be on individual characteristics by phase................................................................................................................. 90 Table 4. Logistic regression table of whether or not a name exhibited signs of having search results being manipulated on individual characteristics by phase ................................................ 92 Table 5. Number of comments in corpus containing certain phrases ........................................... 94 Table 6. Correlation matrix between different phrases and slurs with repeated texts by same user removed (N in parentheses) .......................................................................................................... 96 viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Search result activity coming from Xinjiang Province as reported by Google Trends from Dec 2008 to October 2010 ..................................................................................................... 7 Figure 2. Screenshot of message returned by Sina Weibo when searching for blocked keyword like 温家宝 (Wen Jiabao) ............................................................................................................. 11 Figure 3. Search status of 宪法法院 on Sina Weibo as reported by GreatFire.org ...................... 74 Figure 4. Hierarchy of Chinese Communist Party (Sheng 2005) ................................................. 80 Figure 5. Number of times each name was blocked during the observation period ..................... 81 Figure 6. Number of individuals blocked over time (gray = no observations recorded; red = start and end of National Congress) ...................................................................................................... 81 Figure 7. Number of names explicitly blocked ............................................................................. 82 Figure 8. Number of names reporting “no results” returned ........................................................ 82 Figure 9. Number of names partially blocked over time .............................................................. 83 Figure 10. 11 of the 14 retiring Politburo members blocked at least once during observation period ............................................................................................................................................ 83 Figure 11. 10 of the 15 incoming Politburo members blocked at least once during observation period ...........................................................................................................................................
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