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Sina Weibo of China: from a Copycat to a Local Uptake of a Global Technology Assemblage

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Sina Weibo of China: from a Copycat to a Local Uptake of a Global Technology Assemblage International Journal of Sociotechnology and Knowledge Development, 5(4), 27-37, October-December 2013 27 Sina Weibo of China: From a Copycat to a Local Uptake of a Global Technology Assemblage Huatong Sun, Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences, University of Washington Tacoma, Tacoma, WA, USA ABSTRACT In this essay the author presents an expanded genre view to examine global diffusion of interactive technolo- gies in this increasingly globalized world. Through an analysis of its generic features, the author explores how Sina Weibo, a technology considered as a copycat of a Western technology, arises as a local uptake in a discourse of global technology diffusion. In studying its struggle and resistance, the author shows how a local uptake is shaped by the implicit value and ideology of the technology it imitates from. Meanwhile, this diffusion process is also a process of enacting the emergent structure of local technology use. The dynamic and dialogical structuring process behind genre formation worldwide manifests the complex interactions of technology and culture in our contemporary conditions. Keywords: Assemblage, Culture, Genre, Sina Weibo, Technology, Twitter, Uptake INTRODUCTION sensitive political information—to assess what was happening from the overseas media. My At the night of July 23, 2011, two high-speed past experiences told me that the state media passenger trains had a rear-end collision in of China tend to cover this type of accidents. I eastern Zhejiang province of China. Four cars also opened a browser window to follow posts from the front train called Harmony derailed on Sina Weibo, a popular social media service and fell off from an elevated bridge, killing 38 that was perceived as a Chinese copycat of people and injuring more than 200. It so hap- Twitter by many Western observers. pened that I was visiting my parents who lived What was happening on Sina Weibo was two hours away from the site of the accident. remarkable. I saw pictures of passengers trapped After I heard the news from TV, my first reaction inside trains at dark night, derailed car dangling was to use VPN (Virtual Private Network) to off the bridge, mighty tractors crushing mangled scale “the Great Firewall of China”—a system cars on the ground to bury the wreckage on site of Internet censorship ran by the Chinese gov- and therefore cover up the tragedy, and so on. ernment that blocks access to the websites with I witnessed personal reports from miserable DOI: 10.4018/ijskd.2013100103 Copyright © 2013, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. 28 International Journal of Sociotechnology and Knowledge Development, 5(4), 27-37, October-December 2013 passengers and their concerned relatives. I read conditions. A simplistic view that celebrates the poignant and often witty commentaries about instrumentality of a social media technology the Railway Ministry and the government, would be too hasty and naïve here. circulated among Weibo users—thanks for the With the fast development of digital net- unique feature of rich media invented by Sina, works in the age of globalization, emerging Weibo users were able to post much longer technology use practices in one locale have posts than 140 characters in a picture format. been diffusing rapidly across the globe. During For the first time, I did not want to scale the the last two decades, we have seen the global Great Firewall to get truthful information as the expansion of new technology use practices such depth and authenticity of news coverage from as instant messaging, text messaging, blogging, overseas media was hard to compete with the social network services, and microblogging. immediacy of the first-hand information and The emergence and arising of Sina Weibo takes pictures posted by common Chinese users. place in this wide context. This essay examines Indeed a Sina Weibo user in one of those two the genre formation process of Sina Weibo as trains broke the news first on the site. an answer to the call raised by Coakes (2012) I was not alone: Many Chinese citizens to understand “the essence of technology and devoured the information about the accident its impact on us.” It follows the discussion on Sina Weibo as earnestly as I did. As time of the special issue of “What do we mean by passed, the informed public got more and more technology?” (2012). upset about the ways the Railway Ministry “Weibo” is the Chinese word for handled the accident and eschewed their re- “microblog(ging)”. Sina Weibo was launched sponsibilities. People were agitated and furious in August 2009 to fill the void after Twitter when the spokesman used bureaucratic rhetoric was blocked by the Chinese government since to diminish the consequences of the accident the Ürümqi riots that July. With more than 500 at the first press conference 26 hours after the million registered users and 54 million daily collision. Almost 10 million pieces of online active users in fall 2013, it is ranked as the criticisms were posted during the following No. 2 active social network in China (Buckley, five days (Anti, 2012), ultimately resulting in 2013; Kemp, 2013; Ong, 2013). Sina Weibo a reversed official stance and a more thorough has a very fast development trajectory: While investigation. it took Twitter five years to have around 100 The above episode sounds like another million tweets per day by January 2011, it Twitter-like success story after Arab Spring. only took Sina Weibo half of the time length However, at the time when Egyptian activists to reach the same benchmark by March 2012 are still fighting for democracy and freedom on (DeWoskin, 2012). For outsiders, the scale of the Tahrir Square two years after the so-called Weibo is astonishing. “On Twitter something Twitter revolution, a new policy issued by the might get retweeted 50 times. On Weibo it’s highest court of China this fall rules that a mes- 1,000 times” (ibid). Recently the British Prime sage of online rumor and slander “forwarded Minister David Cameron opened a Weibo ac- more than 500 times or read more than 5,000 count before his diplomatic visit to China in times could earn convicted offenders up to three December 2013, and he attracted 194,000 fol- years in prison” (Buckley, 2013). As a result, lowers within three days. In contrast, he has 500, hundreds of “outspoken” Chinese microblogs 000 followers for his Twitter account opened users were detained (ibid). In both cases, the for one year (McCormick, 2013). Cameron was phenomenon of the social media revolution not the first Western celebrity who joined Sina and its aftermath clearly shows the complicacy Weibo; the American movie star Tom Cruise of technology diffusion and use characterized started his account in 2011. by local cultural, political, and sociotechnical Copyright © 2013, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. International Journal of Sociotechnology and Knowledge Development, 5(4), 27-37, October-December 2013 29 From the beginning Sina Weibo was re- UNDERSTANDING garded as a Chinese copycat of Twitter. Later TECHNOLOGY AS A GENRE it was ridiculed as the illegitimate child of Facebook and Twitter as it imitated features Regarding technological artifacts as a genre from both sites that are banned in China. In sounds like an adventurous idea, but it is not fact one could find the traces of almost every new at all in the field of technology design. Two successful American social network sites and decades ago Brown and Duguid advocated that apps in Sina Weibo, including Foursquare, “designed, communicative artifacts” (1994, Pinterest, and many others. On the other hand, p.10) to be broadly interpreted as genres. They it has developed many distinctive features origi- characterize genres as “socially constructed nating from Chinese Internet culture, including interpretive conventions,” which is not confined rich media, threaded comment, private chat, to textual artifacts. They envision designers microgroup, microevent, and so on. And some working as writers, who “try to invoke a par- of these features found their way back into the ticular genre, to establish the conventions they later versions of Twitter. Indeed it would be are putting into play,” and users responding highly doubtful whether Twitter would have to the designed artifact as readers who “try to succeeded similarly in China if not banned. recognize what has been invoked, what con- Opposing a naïve view in favor of the ventions are in play so that they might respond instrumentality of a social media technology, appropriately.” For example, people behave I present in this essay an expanded genre view differently in a music hall as they do in a dining to examine global diffusion of interactive hall based on their understandings of expected technologies in this increasingly globalized conducts in these two different settings. world to understand the complicacy of tech- “The socially constructed interpreted con- nology use. I first describe the framework of a ventions” have been closely examined by the technology as a genre (Sun, 2012), and I argue school of rhetorical genre theory for the past this framework will bring valuable insights thirty years. Rhetorical genre theory studies to approach cross-cultural technology design typified human activities through the distinc- issues. Then I look at the two aspects of the tive textual features of genres, and many of the genre formation process surrounding Sina studies in this line illustrate that those generic Weibo. The first aspect is the development of its features represent accepted social practices in generic features. With a close analysis, I show particular cultural contexts. Bazerman describes how Sina Weibo, a technology considered as genres this way: “Genres are not just forms.
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