Digital Nationalism on Weibo on the 70th Chinese National Day

Abstract

China’s digital nationalism has been on the rise during the last decade. This article examines the digital nationalistic expression of solidarity and unity on China’s 70th National Day celebration in 2019. It conducted a qualitative content analysis of 500 posts regarding China’s National Day, which were posted on October 1, 2019, on Sina Weibo. This study finds that Chinese internet users employ textual and visual posts to express their pride and loyalty, thereby reflecting their Chinese identity, a call for national unity, and their best wishes for China’s bright future. This study suggests that Weibo offers a virtual “imagined community” for netizens to interact with national symbols to spontaneously strengthen a sense of national identity by highlighting the Chinese Communist Party’s achievements. The findings concluded that national identity is socially constructed, rather than being permanent. Moreover, the Internet facilitates a more liberating Chinese media system; however, digital media is also somehow influenced by the Chinese government’ s media logic, which helps to further disseminate the government’ s interests.