Digital Environmentalism: A Case Study of Pm2.5 Pollution Issue in Chinese Social Media

Yanshuang Zhang

doi:10.2139/ssrn.2835988

Abstract

The emergence of social media over the last decade has substantially altered not only the means people communicate with each other but also the whole online ecosystems. For the common public in particular, social media enables and broadens the social conversation that anyone interested can engage in on urgent social problems such as environmental pollution. In China, the ever-thickening air pollution smothering most urban cities in recent years has provoked a nationwide discussion, and popular social media like Weibo has been fully utilised by various social actors to participate in this “green speak”. This paper examines the civil discourse about the deteriorating air pollution on China’s largest microblogging platform-Sina Weibo, and seeks to understand how different social actors respond to and reconstruct the reality. Through a discourse analysis aided by a text analytics/visualisation software - Leximancer, this paper investigates the civil discourse from three angles: the demographics, the discursive strategies and the potential social effect. The result suggests that proactive civil engagement in this issue has produced an environmental discourse with a wide range of topics involved, and that the benign interactions between social actors could give rise to a proactive interactional mode between Chinese state and civil society which would definitely be beneficial to the democratisation process in contemporary China.

Highlights

Since its reform and opening up in 1978, China has witnessed a thriving economy that makes it a global economic superpower
In China, the ever-thickening air pollution smothering most urban cities in recent years has provoked a nationwide discussion, and popular social media like Weibo has been fully utilised by various social actors to participate in this “green speak”
This paper examines the civil discourse about the deteriorating air pollution on China’s largest microblogging platform-Sina Weibo, and seeks to understand how different social actors respond to and reconstruct the reality

Summary

Introduction

Since its reform and opening up in 1978, China has witnessed a thriving economy that makes it a global economic superpower. The green economy is a new mode of economy that results in reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities, and that aims for sustainable development without degrading the environment It requires more investment in green apparatus and substantial resources to process waste and pollutants in industries. The mode of economic development with high capital investment, resource consumption and pollution discharge may result in short-term prosperity, but in the long run, it has catastrophic consequences for both the economy and the environment. The experience of many developed countries indicates that a country can get more benefit from a pro-environmental economy that is guaranteed by a mature and effective environmental-protection mechanism The establishment of such a mechanism relies on the strict implementation of existing environmental policies, and on a relatively wide public support and a robust civil society. We have reason to believe that the increasing public opposition to environmental degradation could spur the government to reform environmental management, and in the course of negotiating with all stakeholders involved, the government may achieve the delicate balance between economic growth and environmental protection

Environmentalism in Social Media

Data and Methods

A Benign Communication Chain Composed of Various Social Actors

Diversified Language Rhetoric and Discursive Strategies

Proactive Civil Discursive Participation in a Wide Range of Topics

Discussion and Conclusion