Will Microblogs Shape China's Civil Society Under President's Xi's Surveillance State?

2020 ◽  
pp. 156-184
Author(s):  
Kenneth C. C. Yang ◽  
Yowei Kang
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Information Technologies ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Pervasive Applications ◽  
Chinese Civil Society

Western scholars have previously predicted Weibo and social media will provide Chinese netizens with an opportunity to foster its nascent civil society. However, the growing applications of surveillance technologies have challenged this rosy, yet deterministic prediction. This chapter argues that Jürgen Habermas's concept of public sphere is less likely to function properly, given the pervasive applications of surveillance technologies in China, which has fundamentally challenge its many assumptions. Using Habermas's analytical framework that is used to better comprehend the role of social media in Chinese politics, the authors argue that information technologies turn out to deteriorate the formation and maintenance of a public sphere for Chinese civil society. The authors employ a case study to examine the interrelations among social media, surveillance technologies, civil society, state power, economic development, political process, and democratization in China as demonstrated in Hong Kong's Anti-Extradition Law Protests.

Microblogs, Jasmine Revolution, and Civil Unrest

2019 ◽  
pp. 1153-1178 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth C. C. Yang ◽  
Yowei Kang
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
State Power ◽  
Social Medium ◽  
Political Activities ◽  
Study Approach ◽  
Internet Users

Weibo provides an alternative channel for many Chinese citizens to obtain non-censored news contents and share their opinions on public affairs. In this book chapter, the authors employed Jürgen Habermas's concept of public sphere to examine how Chinese Weibo users (i.e., microbloggers) make the most use of this social medium to form a public sphere to contest omnipresent state power. Habermas's analytical framework helps to better comprehend the role of social media and its interactions with other stakeholders in Chinese politics. The role of social media in shaping this less controlled sphere of political deliberation and participation was examined using a case study approach. The authors analyzed the Chinese Jasmine Revolution to discuss the interrelations among social media, civil society, state power, economic development, political process, and democratization in China. The case study identified Weibo's essential role as a device to bypass existing government censorship, to mobilize users, and to empower Chinese Internet users to engage in political activities to foster its nascent civil society.

Microblogs, Jasmine Revolution, and Civil Unrest

2015 ◽  
pp. 140-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth C. C. Yang ◽  
Yowei Kang
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
State Power ◽  
Social Medium ◽  
Political Activities ◽  
Study Approach ◽  
Internet Users

Weibo provides an alternative channel for many Chinese citizens to obtain non-censored news contents and share their opinions on public affairs. In this book chapter, the authors employed Jürgen Habermas's concept of public sphere to examine how Chinese Weibo users (i.e., microbloggers) make the most use of this social medium to form a public sphere to contest omnipresent state power. Habermas's analytical framework helps to better comprehend the role of social media and its interactions with other stakeholders in Chinese politics. The role of social media in shaping this less controlled sphere of political deliberation and participation was examined using a case study approach. The authors analyzed the Chinese Jasmine Revolution to discuss the interrelations among social media, civil society, state power, economic development, political process, and democratization in China. The case study identified Weibo's essential role as a device to bypass existing government censorship, to mobilize users, and to empower Chinese Internet users to engage in political activities to foster its nascent civil society.

scholarly journals ‘Volunteering is like any other business’: Civic participation and social media

2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (6) ◽  
pp. 2186-2207 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Kaun ◽  
Julie Uldam
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Civic Participation ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Migration Crisis ◽  
Technological Affordances ◽  
Shed Light

The increased influx of refugees in 2015 has led to challenges in transition and destination countries such as Germany, Sweden and Denmark. Volunteer-led initiatives providing urgent relief played a crucial role in meeting the needs of arriving refugees. The work of the volunteers in central stations and transition shelters was mainly organised with the help of Facebook, in terms of both inward and outward communications. This article examines the role of social media for civic participation drawing on Swedish volunteer initiatives that emerged in the context of the migration crisis in 2015 as a case study. Theoretically, this article provides an analytical framework, including power relations, technological affordances, practices and discourses, which helps shed light on the interrelation between social media and civic participation.

The Rise of a Networked Public Sphere

2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-73
Author(s):  
Debashis ‘Deb' Aikat
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Civic Engagement ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Citizen Participation ◽  
Traditional Media ◽  
Contemporary Media ◽  
Cultural Origins ◽  
Networked Public Sphere

The world's largest democracy with a population of over 1.27 billion people, India is home to a burgeoning media landscape that encompasses a motley mix of traditional and contemporary media. Drawing from the theoretical framework of the networked public sphere, this extensive case study focuses on the role of social media in India's media landscape. Results indicate that new social media entities complement traditional media forms to inform, educate, connect, and entertain people from diverse social, ethnic, religious, and cultural origins. The author concludes that social media enable Indian citizens to actively deliberate issues and ideas, increase their civic engagement and citizen participation, and thus enrich India's democratic society.

Case study 2

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ewan Ferlie ◽  
Sue Dopson ◽  
Chris Bennett ◽  
Michael D. Fischer ◽  
Jean Ledger ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Think Tanks ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
Informal Networks ◽  
Think Tank ◽  
Significant Potential ◽  
Key Stakeholders

This chapter analyses the role of think tanks in generating a distinctive mode of policy knowledge, pragmatically orientated to inform and shape issues of importance to civil society. Drawing on political science literature, we argue that think tanks exploit niche areas of expertise and influence to actively mobilize policy analyses and recommendations across diverse stakeholders. Through our exploratory mapping of think tanks, geographically concentrated within London, we characterize their influence as significantly boosting knowledge intensity across the regional ecosystem. In particular, we study the empirical case of one London-based think tank which powerfully mobilized policy knowledge through its formal and informal networks to build influential expert consensus amongst key stakeholders. We conclude that such organizations act as key knowledge producers and mobilizers, with significant potential to influence policy discourses and implementation.

scholarly journals Using Social Media in Tourist Sentiment Analysis: A Case Study of Andalusia during the Covid-19 Pandemic

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 3836
Author(s):  
David Flores-Ruiz ◽  
Adolfo Elizondo-Salto ◽  
María de la O. Barroso-González
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Sentiment Analysis ◽  
Cost Savings ◽  
Mass Scale ◽  
Tourism Sector ◽  
The Social ◽  
Analytical Tools ◽  
Media Data

This paper explores the role of social media in tourist sentiment analysis. To do this, it describes previous studies that have carried out tourist sentiment analysis using social media data, before analyzing changes in tourists’ sentiments and behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the case study, which focuses on Andalusia, the changes experienced by the tourism sector in the southern Spanish region as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic are assessed using the Andalusian Tourism Situation Survey (ECTA). This information is then compared with data obtained from a sentiment analysis based on the social network Twitter. On the basis of this comparative analysis, the paper concludes that it is possible to identify and classify tourists’ perceptions using sentiment analysis on a mass scale with the help of statistical software (RStudio and Knime). The sentiment analysis using Twitter data correlates with and is supplemented by information from the ECTA survey, with both analyses showing that tourists placed greater value on safety and preferred to travel individually to nearby, less crowded destinations since the pandemic began. Of the two analytical tools, sentiment analysis can be carried out on social media on a continuous basis and offers cost savings.

scholarly journals From Black to Blue Skies: Civil Society Perceptions of Air Pollution in Shanghai

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Amanda K. Winter ◽  
Huong Le ◽  
Simon Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Air Pollution ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Air Quality ◽  
Qualitative Case Study ◽  
Field Research ◽  
Ecological Civilization ◽  
Civil Society Participation ◽  
Quality Indexes

Abstract This paper explores the perception and politics of air pollution in Shanghai. We present a qualitative case study based on a literature review of relevant policies and research on civil society and air pollution, in dialogue with air quality indexes and field research data. We engage with the concept of China's authoritarian environmentalism and the political context of ecological civilization. We find that discussions about air pollution are often placed in a frame that is both locally temporal (environment) and internationally developmentalist (economy). We raise questions from an example of three applications with different presentations of air quality index measures for the same time and place. This example and frame highlight the central role and connection between technology, data and evidence, and pollution visibility in the case of the perception of air pollution. Our findings then point to two gaps in authoritarian environmentalism research, revealing a need to better understand (1) the role of technology within this governance context, and (2) the tensions created from this non-participatory approach with ecological civilization, which calls for civil society participation.

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