Mobile phones, social ties and collective action mobilization in China

2016 ◽  
Vol 60 (3) ◽  
pp. 213-227 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jun Liu
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Mobile Phones ◽  
Mobile Communication ◽  
Social Ties ◽  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
Chinese Society ◽  
Chinese People ◽  
Collective Actions ◽  
Recruitment Tool ◽  
Depth Interviews

To provide a better understanding of mobile phones as a recruitment tool in collective actions, this study explores the use of mobile phones for mobilizing protest in China. Using in-depth interviews and investigating four cases in which Chinese people employed mobile devices to recruit participants for protests, this study observes that mobile communication in China embodies guanxi, the indigenous social tie in Chinese society that introduces reciprocity as an influential facilitator of collective actions. The embedment of reciprocity facilitates the proliferation of mobilizing calls, legitimizes mobilizing appeals, generates obligations and consolidates solidarity for collective actions. The study concludes with a consideration of the relevance of mobile phones for the embedment of reciprocity in social ties in the mobilization of collective action in authoritarian regimes such as China.

scholarly journals Mobile Communication and Relational Mobilization in China

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 14-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jun Liu
Keyword(s):  
Mobile Phone ◽  
Mobile Phones ◽  
Mobile Communication ◽  
Social Ties ◽  
Contentious Politics ◽  
Urban China ◽  
Asian Countries ◽  
Relational Dynamics ◽  
Rural And Urban ◽  
Depth Interviews

AbstractRecent studies have shown what indispensable role mobile phones play as means of mobilization in contentious politics around the world. Nevertheless, there has been no clear elaboration of how mobile phone uses translate into mobilization in contentious politics. To fill this gap, the current study employs Passy’s (2003) framework of the threefold function of social ties as channels of mobilization to examine how mobile communication, embedding the dynamics of social ties, influences protest mobilization. It investigates two cases in rural and urban China in which Chinese people employed their mobile phones to mobilize participants for protests, and conducts 24 in-depth interviews with participants in these protests. Findings suggest that using mobile phones for mobilization registers the relational dynamics of social ties, which shapes participants’ perceptions of given protest issues, ensures the safety of protest recruitment and mobilization in a repressive context, and generates pressure on participation, all of which contributes to the mechanism of mobilization. This study concludes with the concept of ‘relational mobilization’, which addresses the embedment and relevance of social ties in the process of mobile-phone-mediated mobilization and its implication for Asian countries.

scholarly journals Women's Collective Action for Empowerment in Indonesia

2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Lockley ◽  
Lies Marcoes ◽  
Kharisma Nugroho ◽  
Abby Gina Boang-Manalu
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Social Services ◽  
Gender Inequality ◽  
Legal Protection ◽  
Community Center ◽  
Collective Actions ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
Women's Lives ◽  
Document Review ◽  
Depth Interviews

<p>Women’s collective action has been used by women’s group in Indonesia since early 20<sup>th</sup> century. The collective action of women in this study is defined as the formal or informal formation and activity of goups or networks of predominantly women that aim to bring about positive changes in women’s lives.  Eight case studies of women’s collective actions discussed in this study reveal variety of backgrounds, motives and agencies in those collective actions. This variety exist due to the different and specific conditions and needs of each of the women’s groups. The object of the study in this research were eight collective actions, namely: Balai Sakinah ‘Aisyiyah (BSA), Serikat Perempuan Kepala Keluarga (PEKKA), Sekolah Perempuan, Koalisi Perempuan Indonesia Parepare branch, MUIWO, Kelompok Bunda Kreatif, Community Center, and Posko Lestari and Posko Mentari. The data of the research were collected through document review, surveys, and in-depth interviews. This research finds that the involvement of women in collective actions stem from gender inequality that they experience in their daily lives. Through the collective actions the women were empowered to strengthen their access to social services and legal protection. This research also finds there were growing understanding about the concept of gender inequality among the women who involved in the collective actions.</p><p> </p>

scholarly journals Contracercar, producir y resistir. La defensa de los bienes comunes en dos comunidades campesinas (Argentina)

2018 ◽  
pp. 137-155 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Geanina Gómez Herrera ◽  
Cristián Emanuel Jara ◽  
María Del Huerto Díaz Habra ◽  
Ana Eliza Villalba
Keyword(s):  
Rural Communities ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
The Other ◽  
Collective Actions ◽  
Present Evidence ◽  
The Commons ◽  
State Programs ◽  
Depth Interviews

Las diversas manifestaciones de resistencia frente al despojo de bienes comunes son la contracara de los cercamientos capitalistas. Estas expresiones de acciones colectivas abarcan una amplia batería de estrategias por parte de las comunidades rurales. Muchas de estas manifestaciones podrían ser interpretadas como contracercamientos (físicos o institucionales). En este marco, nos preguntamos cuáles son las modalidades que asumen las luchas campesinas que establecen nuevas fronteras para el control de bienes comunes en Santiago del Estero (noroeste de Argentina). Para responder a este interrogante abordamos dos casos: el diseño de una reserva campesina en Ojo de Agua y el encierro ganadero comunitario de El Hoyo. Los orígenes de ambas experiencias están ligados a los conflictos por la tierra y las intervenciones de agentes estatales. La argumentación se estructura a partir de los datos construidos durante el trabajo de campo que incluyó registros de observación y la realización de entrevistas en profundidad. Esto permitió explorar el repertorio de acción colectiva, de readecuación de legislaciones vigentes y re-funcionalización de recursos emanados de programas estatales. Asimismo, presentamos evidencias de cómo operan las políticas cotidianas en torno al control de los bienes comunes y las tensiones que atraviesan a estos procesos. Abstract The various manifestations of resistance against the plundering of common goods are the other side of the capitalist enclosures. These expressions of collective actions encompass a broad battery of strategies on the part of rural communities. Many of these manifestations could be interpreted ascounter-enclosure (physical or institutional).In this context, we ask ourselves what are the modalities that assume peasant struggles which set new borders for the control of common goods in Santiago del Estero (NW Argentina).To answer this question, we address two cases: the design of a peasant reserve in Ojo de Agua and the community livestock enclosure of El Hoyo. The origins of both experiences are linked to conflicts over land and the interventions of state agents.The argumentation is structured from the data constructed during the fieldwork that included observation records and conducting in-depth interviews. This allowed toexplore the repertoire of collective action, of readjustment of current legislation and re-functionalization of resources arising from state programs. Likewise, we present evidence of how everyday policies operate around control of the Commons and the tensions that go through these processes.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Jun Liu
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Mobile Communication ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Communication Technologies ◽  
Contentious Politics ◽  
Chinese Society

The introduction assesses and identifies lacunae and challenges in the existing literature on ICTs and contentious collective action. Through a survey of relevant scholarship on social movement and contentious politics, this chapter proposes to explicitly make communication a key element in a tripartite framework of contentious politics and social movements and, further, to regard communication as an intermediary between ICTs and contentious collective action. The introductory chapter further elucidates the embeddedness of mobile communication technologies within Chinese society and, thus, it has become a context for (political) action as well and can therefore have an impact on contentious politics.

Social Impacts of Mobile Phones on the Life of the Chinese People

2015 ◽  
pp. 755-769
Author(s):  
Yushi (Boni) Li
Keyword(s):  
Mobile Phones ◽  
Text Messaging ◽  
Social Impacts ◽  
Chinese Society ◽  
Chinese People ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
Mobile Phone Technology ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
The Social ◽  
Geographical Locations

With the introduction of mobile phones to the Chinese society in the early 1990s, there has been a great impact on the lives of ordinary Chinese people. Mobile phones have increased the convenience they have in their daily lives and more people are able to establish and expand their communicational links with others beyond their geographical locations. This is especially true since the introduction of text messaging and WeChat. The development of mobile phones has significantly helped the Chinese advance their views in the process of globalization. However, mobile phone technology has greatly reduced the traditional Chinese methods of face-to-face social interactions within families, neighborhoods, and communities. The social impacts and changes brought about by mobile phones need to be analyzed and evaluated. This article introduces the current situation of mobile phones in China from a sociological perspective. It discusses both positive and negative social impacts of mobile phones on the lives of the Chinese people.

Shifting Dynamics of Contention in the Digital Age

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jun Liu
Keyword(s):  
Information And Communication Technologies ◽  
Mobile Communication ◽  
Communication Technologies ◽  
Digital Age ◽  
Chinese Society ◽  
Internet Users ◽  
Communicative Practice ◽  
Political Contention ◽  
Information And Communication ◽  
Everyday Resistance

Over the past decades, waves of political contention involving the use of information and communication technologies have swept across the globe. The phenomenon stimulates the scholarship on digital communication technologies and contentious collective action to thrive as an exciting, relevant, but highly fragmentary and contested field with disciplinary boundaries. To advance the interdisciplinary understanding, Shifting Dynamics of Contention in the Digital Age outlines a communication-centered framework that articulates the intricate relationship between technology, communication, and contention. It further prods us to engage more critically with existing theories from communication, sociology, and political science on digital technologies and political movements. Given the theoretical endeavor, Shifting Dynamics of Contention in the Digital Age systematically explores, for the first time, the influence of mobile technology on political contention in China, the country with the world’s largest number of mobile and Internet users. Using first-hand in-depth interview and fieldwork data, it tracks the strategic choice of mobile phones as repertoires of contention, illustrates the effective mobilization of mobile communication on the basis of its strong and reciprocal social ties, and identifies the communicative practice of forwarding officially alleged “rumors” as a form of everyday resistance. Through this ground-breaking study, Shifting Dynamics of Contention in the Digital Age presents a nuanced portrayal of an emerging dynamics of contention—both its strengths and limitations—through the embedding of mobile communication into Chinese society and politics.

Women, Empowerment, and Mobile Phones in the Developing World

2020 ◽  
pp. 528-544
Author(s):  
Laura Stark
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Mobile Phone ◽  
Social Status ◽  
Mobile Phones ◽  
Mobile Communication ◽  
Recent Literature ◽  
Mobile Telephony ◽  
Women Empowerment ◽  
Gender And Development ◽  
And Control

This chapter surveys and analyzes recent literature on mobile communication to examine its relationship to gender and development, more specifically how women in developing countries use and are impacted by mobile phones. Focusing on issues of power, agency, and social status, the chapter reviews how mobile telephony has been found to be implicated in patriarchal bargaining in different societies, how privacy and control are enabled through it, what benefits have been shown to accrue to women using mobile phones, and what barriers, limitations, and disadvantages of mobile use exist for women and why. The conclusion urges more gender-disaggregated analysis of mobile phone impact and use and offers policy and design recommendations based on the overview and discussion.

Autonomous Vehicles in the Mobility System

2020 ◽  
pp. 500-514
Author(s):  
Thilo von Pape
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Mobile Phones ◽  
Mobile Communication ◽  
Autonomous Vehicles ◽  
Communication Research ◽  
Collective Control ◽  
System P ◽  
Mobility System ◽  
And Control ◽  
Transportation Technologies

This chapter discusses how autonomous vehicles (AVs) may interact with our evolving mobility system and what they mean for mobile communication research. It juxtaposes a conceptualization of AVs as manifestations of automation and artificial intelligence with an analysis of our mobility system as a historically grown hybrid of communication and transportation technologies. Since the emergence of railroad and telegraph, this system has evolved on two layers: an underlying infrastructure to power and coordinate the movements of objects, people, and ideas in industrially scaled speeds, volumes, and complexity and an interface to seamlessly access this infrastructure and control it. AVs are poised to further enhance the seamlessness which mobile phones and cars already lent to mobility. But in assuming increasingly sophisticated control tasks, AVs also disrupt an established shift toward individual control, demanding new interfaces to enable higher levels of individual and collective control over the mobility infrastructure.

A Jungian Analysis of the Chinese Kitchen God Image

2021 ◽  
pp. 002216782110208
Author(s):  
Jingyu Liang ◽  
Yancui Zhang ◽  
Ruitong Guo ◽  
Heyong Shen
Keyword(s):  
God Image ◽  
Chinese Society ◽  
Chinese People ◽  
Sandplay Therapy ◽  
Jungian Analysis ◽  
Graphic Symbol ◽  
Psychological Significance ◽  
Conscious Level ◽  
God Imagery ◽  
The Impact

This article studies the impact of Kitchen God beliefs and worship on Chinese mentality and behavior, both consciously and unconsciously. At the conscious level, the evolution of the Kitchen God beliefs has gone through four stages; Nature God, Animal God, Half-animal/Half human God, and finally Human God. The evolution of the Kitchen God in China displays the features of a couple, aging and secularization. The experience of “returning to the sacred origin” can be obtained through Kitchen God worship by burning an old paper image of the Kitchen God and pasting of a new one of him beside the kitchen stove year after year during the Kitchen God festival. The secret to continuity of life lies in repetition. The image of the Kitchen God as an important graphic symbol is formed by a constellation of images; good pot and evil pot, two dragons playing with a bead, rooster and dog, the psychological archetypes as yin and yang, unity of opposites, transformation and integration. This ritual serves as a bridge between Chinese people and their “ancestors,” “the other realm” (nirvana), and “the Self.” On an unconscious level, the psychological significance of Kitchen God beliefs is analyzed through “the family hexagram.” The collective unconscious for the Chinese can be revealed by a continuous pattern of concentric circles structure, that is, “heaven and earth—the Kitchen God—ancestors—parents—offspring.” Through a clinical case using Sandplay Therapy, this article will show that Kitchen God imagery unconsciously shows the constellation of “family.” Family is the place of belonging and home for Chinese people, helping the client return to his inner source and gain strength through acceptance and transformation. The implication of Kitchen God beliefs for today’s Chinese society is to return to the most primitive “Tao,” which presents a possible cure for many kinds of psychological problems we are facing. It suggests that researchers pay attention to the psychological phenomenon of clients’ using the Kitchen God image to express their cultural feelings toward family in psychological practice.

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