How does social media change Chinese political culture? The formation of fragmentized public sphere

Abstract

Social media promotes a broad discussion about the contemporary public sphere in China. Analyzing the relationship between social media and democratic politics in the unique context of China helps us to rethink a metamorphosis of Habermas’s public sphere model. The study supports the idea that the online public sphere more often than not transforms into a fragmentized formation of the multiple tensions between participatory democracy, journalism transformation and governmental authority. It may be difficult, under a single theoretical framework of civil society, to map out the complexities in Chinese social media. The key point is how a fragmentized structure of the public sphere has been integrated in the power game process of achieving consensus. Based on the special Internet policies and political environment in China, the implication of public sphere theory in Chinese social media is reconsidered.

Introduction

Social media has been a critical term in discussing the reconstructed concept of the public sphere (Burgess and Green, 2009, Mazali, 2011, Bennett and Segerberg, 2013). In recent years, the number of social media users in China has grown explosively, in terms of both PCs and mobile devices. By June 2015, there were 668 million cyber citizens in China, including 606 million IM users, 594 million mobile phone users, 475 million bloggers and 204 million Weibo users, and the total number of websites reached 3.57 million (CNNIC, 2015). As a technical tool driven by the open market economy over the past 30 years, the popularity of the Chinese Internet has shifted from top elites to the working class (Qiu, 2009). A large consumer population and the astounding advances of the Internet industry has boosted the growth of a variety of influential social media platforms, such as Weibo, WeChat, Douban, Tianya and Zhihu, resulting in changes to Chinese people’s lifestyles. Seen from a series of significant social protests in the country (e.g., the Panyu, Wukan and Maoming PX events), social media has become a great force in democratic life. Hence, many researchers agreed with its positive influence on public politics, contending that social media has transformed the structure of the modern public sphere and has injected new energy into Chinese democratization (Herold and Marolt, 2011, Men and Tsai, 2013, Yang, 2013).

Based on the theory of the public sphere, this study attempts to discuss the impacts of social media on Chinese political life and to provide non-Western experiences of an extended public sphere. When considering political implications of social media, popular studies have focused on how it facilitates online actions and political dissent (Christensen, 2011), which essentially underlines the counter-hegemony power in public sphere. However, the framework of “dissident vs. state”, following Western historical experience, was considered to mask important dynamics unique to Chinese society (Akhavan-Majid, 2004). Chinese social media developed in a blocked Internet environment. Generally, compared with those of global social networks, content communications on Chinese social media are totally different (Yu et al., 2011, Sullivan, 2012). Bohman (2004) notes that with the political context being shifted, online space may have different meanings for specific spaces and times in an alternative democratic institution. In other words, we must distinguish China from “others” to understand the relationship between social media and democratic politics in a unique social political system.

What is the distinguishing feature of the public sphere developing in Chinese social media? How can one evaluate the influences social media exerts on political culture in China? To answer these questions, this paper reviews previous discussions about social media and its impact on public politics. Further, following classic public sphere model, the study explores how citizens, news media and government are included in the new media environment. Through examining multiple tensions in social network interaction, a formation of the fragmentized public sphere in contemporary China is introduced.