DOCSLIB.ORG

Social Media Practices in China: Empowerment Through Subversive

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Social Media Practices in China: Empowerment Through Subversive Social Media Practices in China: Empowerment through Subversive Pleasure Minghua Wu Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Discipline of Media The University of Adelaide April 2014 Table of Contents Table of Contents………………………………………………………………………..i List of Figures ................................................................................................................. vi List of Tables ................................................................................................................... ix Abstract ........................................................................................................................... xi Declaration .................................................................................................................... xiv Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................... xvii CHAPTER ONE ............................................................................................................... 1 Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Aims and Significance of this Project ..................................................................... 1 1.2 Research Questions .................................................................................................. 5 1.3 Power Shifts and Negotiations in Chinese Social Media ........................................ 5 1.4 Key Terms in Use in this Thesis .............................................................................. 7 1.4.1 Carnival and Carnivalesque .............................................................................. 7 1.4.2 Subversive Pleasures ......................................................................................... 8 1.4.3 Discourse Power ............................................................................................. 11 1.4.4 Public Sphere .................................................................................................. 13 1.5 Explanatory Framework and its Chinese Cultural Inflections ............................... 14 1.6 Method ................................................................................................................... 21 1.7 Thesis Argument .................................................................................................... 23 1.8 Thesis Structure and Overview .............................................................................. 25 CHAPTER TWO ............................................................................................................. 30 Carnivalesque Discourse: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Understanding Civic Participation in Chinese Social Media ............................................................................ 30 2.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................... 30 2.2 The Shifting Dynamics of Discourse Power ......................................................... 32 2.2.1 Discourse Power ............................................................................................. 32 2.2.2 Negotiated Meaning ........................................................................................ 36 2.3 The “Carnival Marketplace” .................................................................................. 37 2.3.1 The Notion of Carnivalesque .......................................................................... 38 2.3.2 Grotesque Realism .......................................................................................... 39 2.3.3 Reconceptualising the Liberating Potential of Carnival Laughter .................. 41 2.3.4 Extending the Concept of Carnival to Online Communities .......................... 44 2.4 Mapping the Networked Public Sphere in Chinese Social Media ......................... 46 i 2.4.1 Habermas’s Conceptualization of the Public Sphere ..................................... 46 2.4.2 Critiques and Revisions of the Public Sphere Concept .................................. 48 2.4.3 Public Spheres as Sites of Mass Self-Communication in Online Community ................................................................................................................................. 50 2.4.4 Mapping the Networked Public Sphere in China ........................................... 53 2.5 Carnivalesque Participatory Discourse ................................................................. 56 CHAPTER THREE ........................................................................................................ 60 Background and Context of Media Regulation: An Ongoing Campaign ....................... 60 3.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................... 60 3.2 The Control of Media ............................................................................................ 61 3.2.1 The Logic of Media Restriction: A historical perspective ............................. 61 3.2.2 The Mechanisms of Media Regulation .......................................................... 64 3.3 Adapting Regulation to Chinese Social Media ..................................................... 70 3.3.1 The Chinese Characteristics of Social Media ................................................. 70 3.3.2 Sina Weibo Corporate Regulations ................................................................ 81 3.3.3 Negotiating Boundaries on Sina Weibo ......................................................... 88 3.4 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 94 CHAPTER FOUR .......................................................................................................... 96 Weiguan and Meizhi ....................................................................................................... 96 Modes of Civic Participation in Contemporary China ................................................... 96 4.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................... 96 4.2 The Evolution of Traditional Chinese Weiguan Culture: from the Street and Tea Houses to Online Media Practices .............................................................................. 97 4.2.1 Weiguan Culture from Past to Present ........................................................... 97 4.2.2 The Power of Weibo Weiguan ..................................................................... 109 4.3 Meizhi .................................................................................................................. 113 4.4 Evolving Power Relations among the Chinese Government, the Media and Citizens ...................................................................................................................... 119 4.4.1 The Evolution of Media Participation .......................................................... 120 4.4.2 Online Discourse as Participation ................................................................ 127 4.4.3 Weibo E-governance .................................................................................... 129 4.5 Chinese Characteristics of Civic Participation: The Feedback Loops between Weiguan and Meizhi .................................................................................................. 133 4.6 Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 136 CHAPTER FIVE .......................................................................................................... 139 ii Playing Word Games: Subversive Pleasures through Civic Participation Media Events ....................................................................................................................................... 139 5.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................... 139 5.2 The Online Power of Playing Carnivalesque Word Games ................................ 141 5.2.1 The Culture of Chinese Media Governance and Word Games ..................... 141 5.2.2 Techniques for Playing Word Games ........................................................... 142 5.2.3 The Participatory Power of Carnivalesque Discourse .................................. 155 5.3 Flag-bearers and Subversive Pleasures in Carnivalesque Discursive Events ...... 160 5.3.1 Flag-bearers Online in China ........................................................................ 161 5.3.2 Subversive Pleasures on Weibo Weiguan ..................................................... 163 5.4 Carnivalesque Media Events ............................................................................... 170 5.4.1 “Stoning the Drowning Dog” ........................................................................ 170 5.4.2 “Being Stoned with Verbal Rocks” .............................................................. 172 5.5 Conclusion ........................................................................................................... 178 CHAPTER SIX ............................................................................................................. 180 A Case Study of China’s 2011 High-Speed Train Accident ......................................... 180 6.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Knowledge Control and Social Contestation in China's
    Science in Movements This book analyzes and compares the origins, evolutionary patterns and consequences of different science and technology controversies in China, including hydropower resistance, disputes surrounding genetically modified organisms and the nuclear power debate. The examination combines social movement theories, communication studies, and science and technology studies. Taking a multidisciplinary approach, the book provides an insight into the interwoven relationship between social and political controls and knowledge monopoly, and looks into a central issue neglected by previous science communication studies: why have different con- troversies shown divergent patterns despite similar social and political contexts? It is revealed that the media environment, political opportunity structures, knowledge-control regimes and activists’ strategies have jointly triggered, nur- tured and sustained these controversies and led to the development of different patterns. Based on these observations, the author also discusses the significance of science communication studies in promoting China’ssocialtransformation and further explores the feasible approach to a more generic framework to understand science controversies across the world. The book will be of value to academics of science communication, science and technology studies, political science studies and sociology, as well as general readers interested in China’s science controversies and social movements. Hepeng Jia is a professor of communication at Soochow University, Suzhou, China. He has worked as a leading science journalist for 20 years and is also a pioneering researcher in the field of science journalism and communication in China. Chinese Perspectives on Journalism and Communication Series Editor: Wenshan Jia is a professor of communication at Shandong University and Chapman University. With the increasing impact of China on global affairs, Chinese perspectives on journalism and communication are on the growing global demand.
    [Show full text]
  • Download (2.08
    Mothering in a Polluted, Developing China: Class, Risk perception, and Environmentalist Motherhood BY JIALIN LI B.A., East China Normal University, Shanghai, China, 2003 M.A., East China Normal University, Shanghai, China, 2007 THESIS Submitted as partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Chicago, 2019 Chicago, Illinois Defense Committee: Claire L. Decoteau, Chair and Advisor Paul-Brian McInerney Anthony Orum Crystal Patil, College of Nursing Amy Hanser, University of British Columbia This thesis is dedicated to all the mothers whose stories are told here. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS On a sunny spring afternoon, I was preparing for my lecture about Diane Bates’ book Superstorm Sandy: The Inevitable Destruction and Reconstruction of the Jersey Shore in the library of the College of New Jersey. It was my second time to lecture this book. But I was still mesmerized by the section where Diane detailed all the pop culture (e.g., songs, TV dramas) that people use to construct their symbolic identity of being a New Jerseyan. I am particularly interested in Bruce Springsteen’s song My Hometown, a song which was first recorded in 1983 when Bruce was only 35. The entire song beautifully describes Bruce’s attachment to New Jersey, as a child in the 1950s, as a teenage in the 1960s, and as an adult in the 1980s. In its third verse, Bruce detailed a deteriorating New Jersey where textile mills were being closed and jobs were disappearing. The lyrics immediately reminded me of my childhood as my parents were textile factory workers for decades before they retired.
    [Show full text]
  • Online Corruption-Reporting, Internet Censorship, and the Limits of Responsive Authoritarianism
    Online Corruption-Reporting, Internet Censorship, and the Limits of Responsive Authoritarianism by Jack Hoskins BA, University of Victoria, 2015 A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS in the Department of History © Jack Hoskins, 2017 University of Victoria All rights reserved. This thesis may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by photocopy or other means, without the permission of the author. ii Supervisory Committee Online Corruption Reporting, Internet Censorship, and the Limits of Responsive Authoritarianism by Jack Hoskins BA, University of Victoria, 2015 Supervisory Committee Dr. Guoguang Wu (Department of History) Supervisor Dr. Colin Bennett (Department of Political Science) Outside Member iii Abstract This thesis traces the development of the Chinese government’s attempts to solicit corruption reports from citizens via online platforms such as websites and smartphone applications. It argues that this endeavour has proven largely unsuccessful, and what success it has enjoyed is not sustainable. The reason for this failure is that prospective complainants are offered little incentive to report corruption via official channels. Complaints on social media require less effort and are more likely to lead to investigations than complaints delivered straight to the government, though neither channel is particularly effective. The regime’s concern for social stability has led to widespread censorship of corruption discussion on social media, as well as a slew of laws and regulations banning the behaviour. Though it is difficult to predict what the long- term results of these policies will be, it seems likely that the regime’s ability to collect corruption data will remain limited.
    [Show full text]
  • Introduction
    Introduction seething debate over genetically modified (GM; genetically engi- neered, genetically altered, bioengineered, or transgenic [zhuan- A jiyin]) crops and foods has been unfolding in China. On March 1, 2014, Cui Yongyuan, a former anchor of China Central Television (CCTV, China’s predominant state television broadcaster) and then on the faculty of the Communication University of China, uploaded a documentary on his fact-finding mission on GM foods in the United States for free view- ing on China’s three main internet portals—Sina, Tencent, and Sohu. Using one million renminbi (RMB) ($163,000) of his own money,1 Cui shot the sixty-eight-minute film over a period of ten days, December 8–18, 2013, in Los Angeles, San Diego, Chicago, Springfield (Illinois), Seattle, and Davis (California). He visited supermarkets and farmers’ markets and interviewed some thirty government officials, academics, campaigners in nongovern- mental organizations (NGOs), and consumers to learn about the produc- tion of GM crops and consumption of GM foods in the United States. The documentary, which received millions of hits in a matter of days, was criticized as purportedly misleading by supporters of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), most notably Fang Zhouzi, a biochemist turned science writer who had been embroiled in a dispute with Cui over the issue since September 2013.2 The release of the documentary coincided with annual sessions (lianghui) of the National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s legislature, and the Chinese [ xv ] People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), a political advisory body, both of which convene in early March. As so often happens, Cui was a CPPCC member who later submitted several anti-GMO proposals at the meeting.
    [Show full text]
  • Download This PDF File
    Editor: Henry Reichman, California State University, East Bay Founding Editor: Judith F. Krug (1940–2009) Publisher: Barbara Jones Office for Intellectual Freedom, American Library Association ISSN 1945-4546 March 2013 Vol. LXII No. 2 www.ala.org/nif Filtering continues to be an important issue for most schools around the country. That was the message of the American Association of School Librarians (AASL), a division of the American Library Association, national longitudinal survey, School Libraries Count!, conducted between January 24 and March 4, 2012. The annual sur- vey collected data on filtering based on responses to fourteen questions ranging from whether or not their schools use filters, to the specific types of social media blocked at their schools. AASL survey The survey data suggests that many schools are going beyond the requirements set forth by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in its Child Internet Protection explores Act (CIPA). When asked whether their schools or districts filter online content, 98% of the respon- dents said content is filtered. Specific types of filtering were also listed in the survey, filtering encouraging respondents to check any filtering that applied at their schools. There were in schools 4,299 responses with the following results: • 94% (4,041) Use filtering software • 87% (3,740) Have an acceptable use policy (AUP) • 73% (3,138) Supervise the students while accessing the Internet • 27% (1,174) Limit access to the Internet • 8% (343) Allow student access to the Internet on a case-by-case basis The data indicates that the majority of respondents do use filtering software, but also work through an AUP with students, or supervise student use of online content individually.
    [Show full text]
  • Ethnic Migrant Media Forum 2014 | Curated Proceedings 1 FOREWORD
    Ethnic Migrant Media Forum 2014 CURATED PROCEEDINGS “Are we reaching all New Zealanders?” Exploring the Role, Benefits, Challenges & Potential of Ethnic Media in New Zealand Edited by Evangelia Papoutsaki & Elena Kolesova with Laura Stephenson Ethnic Migrant Media Forum 2014. Curated Proceedings is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial 4.0 International License. Ethnic Migrant Media Forum, Unitec Institute of Technology Thursday 13 November, 8.45am–5.45pm Unitec Marae, Carrington Road, Mt Albert Auckland, New Zealand The Introduction and Discussion sections were blind peer-reviewed by a minimum of two referees. The content of this publication comprises mostly the proceedings of a publicly held forum. They reflect the participants’ opinions, and their inclusion in this publication does not necessarily constitute endorsement by the editors, ePress or Unitec Institute of Technology. This publication may be cited as: Papoutsaki, E. & Kolesova, E. (Eds.) (2017). Ethnic migrant media forum 2014. Curated proceedings. Auckland, New Zealand. Retrieved from http://unitec. ac.nz/epress/ Cover design by Louise Saunders Curated proceedings design and editing by ePress Editors: Evangelia Papoutsaki and Elena Kolesova with Laura Stephenson Photographers: Munawwar Naqvi and Ching-Ting Fu Contact [email protected] www.unitec.ac.nz/epress Unitec Institute of Technology Private Bag 92025, Victoria Street West Auckland 1142 New Zealand ISBN 978-1-927214-20-6 Marcus Williams, Dean of Research and Enterprise (Unitec) opens the forum
    [Show full text]
  • Copyright 2020. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. All Rights Reserved. May
    EBSCO Publishing : eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 7/21/2020 11:47 AM via CHINESE UNIV OF HONG KONG AN: 2486826 ; Guan Jun.; Silencing Chinese Media : The 'Southern Weekly' Protests and the Fate of Civil Society in Xi Jinping's China 1 Copyright 2020. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law. Account: s4314066.main.ehost Silencing Chinese Media The Southern Weekly Protests and the Fate of Civil Society in Xi Jinping’s China Guan Jun Translated by Kevin Carrico ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD Lanham • Boulder • New York • London EBSCOhost - printed on 7/21/2020 11:49 AM via CHINESE UNIV OF HONG KONG. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use 3 Published by Rowman & Littlefield An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 https://rowman.com 6 Tinworth Street, London SE11 5AL, United Kingdom Copyright © 2020 by The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Guan, Jun, (Journalist) author. | Carrico, Kevin, translator. Title: Silencing Chinese media : the “Southern Weekly” protests and the fate of civil society in Xi Jinping’s China / Guan Jun ; translated by Kevin Carrico.
    [Show full text]
  • QUALM; *Quoion Answeringsystems
    DOCUMENT RESUME'. ED 150 955 IR 005 492 AUTHOR Lehnert, Wendy TITLE The Process'of Question Answering. Research Report No. 88. ..t. SPONS AGENCY Advanced Research Projects Agency (DOD), Washington, D.C. _ PUB DATE May 77 CONTRACT ,N00014-75-C-1111 . ° NOTE, 293p.;- Ph.D. Dissertation, Yale University 'ERRS' PRICE NF -$0.83 1C- $15.39 Plus Post'age. DESCRIPTORS .*Computer Programs; Computers; *'conceptual Schemes; *Information Processing; *Language Classification; *Models; Prpgrai Descriptions IDENTIFIERS *QUALM; *QuOion AnsweringSystems . \ ABSTRACT / The cOmputationAl model of question answering proposed by a.lamputer program,,QUALM, is a theory of conceptual information processing based 'bon models of, human memory organization. It has been developed from the perspective of' natural language processing in conjunction with story understanding systems. The p,ocesses in QUALM are divided into four phases:(1) conceptual categorization; (2) inferential analysis;(3) content specification; and (4) 'retrieval heuristict. QUALM providea concrete criterion for judging the strengths and weaknesses'of store representations.As a theoretical model, QUALM is intended to describ general question answerinlg, where question antiering is viewed as aerbal communicb.tion. device betieen people.(Author/KP) A. 1 *********************************************************************** Reproductions supplied'by EDRS are the best that can be made' * from. the original document. ********f******************************************,******************* 1, This work-was
    [Show full text]
  • Dissertation JIAN 2016 Final
    The Impact of Global English in Xinjiang, China: Linguistic Capital and Identity Negotiation among the Ethnic Minority and Han Chinese Students Ge Jian A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Washington 2016 Reading Committee: Laada Bilaniuk, Chair Ann Anagnost, Chair Stevan Harrell Program Authorized to Offer Degree: Anthropology © Copyright 2016 Ge Jian University of Washington Abstract The Impact of Global English in Xinjiang, China: Linguistic Capital and Identity Negotiation among the Ethnic Minority and Han Chinese Students Ge Jian Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Professor Laada Bilaniuk Professor Ann Anagnost Department of Anthropology My dissertation is an ethnographic study of the language politics and practices of college- age English language learners in Xinjiang at the historical juncture of China’s capitalist development. In Xinjiang the international lingua franca English, the national official language Mandarin Chinese, and major Turkic languages such as Uyghur and Kazakh interact and compete for linguistic prestige in different social scenarios. The power relations between the Turkic languages, including the Uyghur language, and Mandarin Chinese is one in which minority languages are surrounded by a dominant state language supported through various institutions such as school and mass media. The much greater symbolic capital that the “legitimate language” Mandarin Chinese carries enables its native speakers to have easier access than the native Turkic speakers to jobs in the labor market. Therefore, many Uyghur parents face the dilemma of choosing between maintaining their cultural and linguistic identity and making their children more socioeconomically mobile. The entry of the global language English and the recent capitalist development in China has led to English education becoming market-oriented and commodified, which has further complicated the linguistic picture in Xinjiang.
    [Show full text]
  • INTER-TIER CORRESPONDENCE THEORY by LIAN HEE WEE A
    INTER-TIER CORRESPONDENCE THEORY by LIAN HEE WEE A dissertation submitted to the Graduate School – New Brunswick Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Program in Linguistics written under the direction of Akinbiyi Akinlabi and approved by Akinbiyi Akinlabi Alan Prince Youngmee Yu-cho Matthew Y Chen New Brunswick, New Jersey May 2004 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Inter-tier Correspondence Theory By LIAN-HEE WEE Dissertation Director: Akinbiyi Akinlabi Inter-tier Correspondence Theory (ICT) is a theory of candidate structure. It is a response to phenomena in which both opaque and transparent derivational effects are simultaneously attested. The response that ICT provides rests upon the recognition that structural configurations are crucial in triggering alternations in the first place. By appealing to percolation, ICT assumes that each phonological output candidate is in fact a structural representation where non-terminal nodes reconstruct the information content of the constituent nodes. However, reconstruction may be imperfect. That outputs are structural is hardly novel, since GEN generates structures to given strings. Instead, it is the carriage of information in non-terminal nodes that is noteworthy. Under ICT, terminal nodes would be identical to the input string. Alternations no longer apply to strings but to constituencies as elements of the input string percolate upwards in their constituent structures. This is an important improvement because it directly addresses the fact that mere adjacency does not trigger alternation (many marked collocations are tolerated if the offending sequence are not within the same constituent). To be precise, GEN takes an input string and maps it to candidate structures of various percolative possibilities with the terminal nodes identical to the input string and non-terminal nodes corresponding to their subordinates in a multitude of ways.
    [Show full text]
  • The Danger of Deconsolidation Roberto Stefan Foa and Yascha Mounk Ronald F
    July 2016, Volume 27, Number 3 $14.00 The Danger of Deconsolidation Roberto Stefan Foa and Yascha Mounk Ronald F. Inglehart The Struggle Over Term Limits in Africa Brett L. Carter Janette Yarwood Filip Reyntjens 25 Years After the USSR: What’s Gone Wrong? Henry E. Hale Suisheng Zhao on Xi Jinping’s Maoist Revival Bojan Bugari¡c & Tom Ginsburg on Postcommunist Courts Clive H. Church & Adrian Vatter on Switzerland Daniel O’Maley on the Internet of Things Delegative Democracy Revisited Santiago Anria Catherine Conaghan Frances Hagopian Lindsay Mayka Juan Pablo Luna Alberto Vergara and Aaron Watanabe Zhao.NEW saved by BK on 1/5/16; 6,145 words, including notes; TXT created from NEW by PJC, 3/18/16; MP edits to TXT by PJC, 4/5/16 (6,615 words). AAS saved by BK on 4/7/16; FIN created from AAS by PJC, 4/25/16 (6,608 words). PGS created by BK on 5/10/16. XI JINPING’S MAOIST REVIVAL Suisheng Zhao Suisheng Zhao is professor at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver. He is executive director of the univer- sity’s Center for China-U.S. Cooperation and editor of the Journal of Contemporary China. When Xi Jinping became paramount leader of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 2012, some Chinese intellectuals with liberal lean- ings allowed themselves to hope that he would promote the cause of political reform. The most optimistic among them even thought that he might seek to limit the monopoly on power long claimed by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
    [Show full text]
  • The Politics of Presence: Political Representation and New Zealand’S Asian Members of Parliament
    THE POLITICS OF PRESENCE: POLITICAL REPRESENTATION AND NEW ZEALAND’S ASIAN MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT By Seonah Choi A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Political Science at Victoria University of Wellington 2014 2 Contents Abstract .................................................................................................................................. 3 Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................... 4 List of Tables ......................................................................................................................... 5 Definitions ............................................................................................................................. 6 Chapter I: Introduction .......................................................................................................... 8 Chapter II: Literature Review .............................................................................................. 11 2.1 Representative Democracy ........................................................................................ 11 2.2 Theories of Political Representation .......................................................................... 12 2.3 Theories of Minority Representation ......................................................................... 27 2.4 Formulating a Framework ........................................................................................
    [Show full text]