Technology and Its Contents: Issues in the Study of the Chinese Internet

Yang, Guobin

doi:10.1017/s0021911811001598

Cited by 22 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 15 publications

(4 reference statements)

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“…Although the 'Chinese' internet developed over a similar time period as the internet in the rest of the world, the legal and infrastructural processes that have shaped it ensure that it has a history that distinguishes it from broader narratives about digital globalization (Herold and Marolt 2013;Herold and De Seta 2015;Qiu and Chan 2013;Yang 2011). Today, the advent of mobile technologies and Sinophone media developers' eforts to capture this market has created an inseparable link between digital life and everyday mobilities.…”

Section: The Alterity Of Digital Chinamentioning

confidence: 99%

So ‘Hot’ Right Now Reflections on Virality and Sociality from Transnational Digital China

Coates¹

2017

Digital Culture &Amp; Society

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A reflection of both the intensity of sharing practices and the appeal of shared content, the term ‘viral’ is often seen as coterminous with the digital media age. In particular, social media and mobile technologies afford users the ability to create and share content that spreads in ‘infectious’ ways. These technologies have caused moral panics in recent years, particularly within heavily regulated and censored media environments such as the People’s Republic of China (PRC). This paper uses the spread of a ‘viral’ sex video among young Chinesespeaking people who live transnational lives between Japan, China, and Taiwan, to reflect upon the question of ‘viral’ media as it is conceptualised more broadly. Their position both inside and outside Sinophone mediascapes affords a useful case study to think beyond purely institutional discussions of Chinese media, and focus on the ways media practices, affects, and affordances shape patterns of content distribution. It examines the language and practices of ‘virality’ among Chinese-speaking people in Tokyo and shows how the appeal of content like the sex video ‘digital stuff’ on WeChat are typically a digital amplification of pre-existing social practice. Described in terms of ‘sociothermic affects’ (Chau 2008) such as ‘fever’ and ‘heat’ (re/huo), the infectious nature of media is imagined in different but commensurate forms of virality that precedes the digital age. In the digital age however, virality is also made scalable (Miller et al. 2016) in new ways.

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Section: The Alterity Of Digital Chinamentioning

confidence: 99%

So ‘Hot’ Right Now Reflections on Virality and Sociality from Transnational Digital China

Coates¹

2017

Digital Culture &Amp; Society

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“…More specifically, such a view is subject to at least three limitations. First, it fails to provide a big picture of structural change that has been introduced by the integration of ICTs into Chinese life (Yang, 2011(Yang, , p. 1044 and that, in turn, facilitates contentious collective action. Second, it fails to reveal possible interconnections across periods of digitally mediated political contention.…”

Section: Icts Collective Action and Contentious Politics In China: mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Second, it fails to reveal possible interconnections across periods of digitally mediated political contention. 3 Third, it fails to recognize the long-term, or 'gradual revolution' introduced by the imprints, or cumulative effects, of digitally mediated political contention on (contentious) politics in particular and Chinese society in general (Yang, 2011(Yang, , pp. 1044(Yang, -1045.…”

Section: Icts Collective Action and Contentious Politics In China: mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…' (2013, p. 327) Despite the remarkable characteristics of censorship in China, Chinese people are magnificently skilled in maneuvering various rhetorical techniques, such as code words, homophones, spoofing, parodies, and satires, to talk about forbidden topics in political discourse, thus circumventing and challenging the authorities' censorship practices via digital media (e.g. Xiao, 2011a;Yang, 2011). A crucial yet less-addressed tactic (de Certeau, 1984) to bypass the outright censorship is to adapt and adopt mundane expressions for digitally mediated collective action.…”

Section: The Adoption and Adaption Of Mundane Expressions For Collectmentioning

confidence: 99%

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From ‘moments of madness’ to ‘the politics of mundanity’ - researching digital media and contentious collective actions in China

Liu

2016

Social Movement Studies

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“…The current microblog debate in the media thus constitutes a revival of the debates of the 1990s, when China first became connected to the Internet. These debates can be subdivided into two strands: Following the general ideas of modernization and transformation theories, one strand of research sees in China's cyberspace a breeding ground for contestation and system change (Yang , ). The second strand of literature, however, opposes this technological‐determinist perspective and postulates instead that new information technologies serve as a tangible tool for rebuilding and maintaining the Chinese Communist Party's power monopoly (Jiang and Xu , 175; Kalathil and Boas ; Zheng ).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Microblogs and the Adaptation of the Chinese Party‐State's Governance Strategy

Noesselt

2013

Governance

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The Chinese party-state is currently adapting its governance strategy. The recent debate in China on the role of microblogs in the governance process, as documented in the reports issued by Chinese research institutes and advisory bodies, illustrates the efforts being undertaken by China's political elites to integrate microblogs into their new public management strategy. Mass protests and large-scale online criticism-voiced via microblogsdirectly threaten the regime's survival. As a consequence, legitimacy is no longer regarded as being inherent, but as something that has instead to be permanently regained and reaffirmed. To increase the system's efficiency and to generate a new kind of symbolic legitimacy, China's political elites tend to base the political decision-making process on strategic calculations intended to be reflective of public online opinion. The turn toward a more responsive way of governing by the Chinese party-state demonstrates once more the adaptability of authoritarian one-party states in the digital era.

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Technology and Its Contents: Issues in the Study of the Chinese Internet

Cited by 22 publications

References 15 publications

So ‘Hot’ Right Now Reflections on Virality and Sociality from Transnational Digital China

So ‘Hot’ Right Now Reflections on Virality and Sociality from Transnational Digital China

From ‘moments of madness’ to ‘the politics of mundanity’ - researching digital media and contentious collective actions in China

Microblogs and the Adaptation of the Chinese Party‐State's Governance Strategy

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