Digital disruption in a state-controlled ecosystem: A sociomaterial perspective of public use of the internet under China's Social Credit System

Abstract

This paper draws from sociomateriality in explaining how digital user behavior may be shaped by private, individual users of the internet (“netizens”), and how this behavior can be understood as an enactment between social and technological agency. Based on observation of, and interviews with, netizens in a large city in China, we suggest how the design and performance of digital disruption by Chinese netizens reflects the sociomaterial values that embody a collectivist sense of social harmony under China's state-controlled Social Credit System. This research is original in its use of actual user behavior, which we observed in a sample of Chinese netizens. We explain how these netizens created commercial opportunities on the internet by building and marketing their personal profiles. Yet our netizens demonstrated how this opportunity-seeking behavior nonetheless aligned with state rules for maintaining social harmony. The importance of our findings is in the apparent duality of behavior among our sample of netizens who presented their commercial activities as socially harmonious while seeking to build followers and earning income from their online activities. The study contributes to understanding this user behavior by suggesting how netizens may build substantial identities in one of the world's largest online communities that remains politically constrained. Implications for research and governance are suggested in understanding digital user behavior in and beyond China.