Pseudo-participation, authentic nationalism: understanding Chinese fanquan girls’ personifications of the nation-state

Abstract

What are the dynamics of the participatory online discourse in an authoritarian context? More specifically, what patterns of Chinese state-society interactions can be drawn from the existing nexus of top-down control and bottom-up participation? To explore the questions, this study examines the Chinese nation-state personifications produced by 'fanquan girls', nationalistic fans of pop stars, during the 2019 Hong Kong protests. Three types of imageries and scenarios emerged, i.e., the nation as a charismatic idol in a discursive struggle, a protective brother on a battlefield, and a victimized mother in a trial. These visualizations construct a discursive kinship that justifies China's governance over Hong Kong and refutes the intervention from foreign 'hostile forces' through visualized national strength, state-society unity, and colonial sufferings. During the process, the state provided the ideological mindset and delimited the political boundaries, the fandom participants turned the state promoted ideas and sentiments into youth-appealing memes, and both sides appropriated and circulated each other's creations in joint self-defense against outside reproval and opposition. Therefore, the paper argues that this communicative pattern consolidates the state's discursive co-optation of the society rather than demolishes the authoritarian rule.