Abstract
Internet is supposed to have natural and inherent relationship with democratization, and is also supposed to act as the main battlefield for the public to fight against the authoritarian. The Internet in China, however, does not serve as the “democratic public sphere” for people to fight against the ruling power directly and roundly; instead, it seems to be a Chinese style term of “Jianghu” 江湖—literally means “rivers and lakes”—an “alternative public sphere” for Chinese people. This article was from the perspective of cultural studies, based on the methodology of case study and textual analysis. It took two cases, namely, the Event of South China Tiger Photos and Event of Deng Yujiao 邓玉娇, to analyze the cultural practice of Internet events, particularly the expression channels, emotion mobilizations and communication mechanisms of netizens, indicating the emergence of China alternative public sphere and its implication to the state and society.
Highlights
New media can always obtain people’s unlimited imagination
These researches are focus on different experiences, multicultural practices, and autonomous communication activities conducted by youth subculture groups, social movement organizations, or activist individuals in diverse network spaces (Atton, 2002; Downing, 2001), aiming to discover civil resistant cultural practice ignored by traditional public sphere studies (Stevenson, 2003; Dahlgren, 2006), cultural activism with spirit of experimental innovation (Downing, 2001; Khan & Kellner, 2005), and “alternative public sphere” (Liu & Lou, 2009) outside “official public sphere” (Jakubowicz, 1991), “virtual public sphere” (Papacharissi, 2002) and “weak public sphere” (Fraser, 1992)
Rooted in the Chinese context and from a cultural studies perspective, this study aimed to reveal the emergence of China alternative public sphere by examining the expression channels, emotion mobilizations and communication mechanisms of netizens, with case study of typical Internet events, including the Event of South China Tiger Photos and Event of Deng Yujiao 邓玉娇
Summary
New media can always obtain people’s unlimited imagination. Designed around 1969 to allow the exchange of packets of bits among computers, Internet has gave computer life and soul, and gave world hope and desire, and in the meantime, continued to construct people’s imagination of challenging authoritarian and fighting for democracy in the over past four decades. In China, especially, such kind of imagination seems to have been given additional hope. Rooted in specific context of China’s network society, this study was from the perspective of cultural studies, based on methodology of case study and textual analysis, implicating the emergence of alternative public sphere, aiming to contribute some fresh views to the discussion of network politics and network culture in China. “Rivers and Lakes”: Locating Chinese Alternative Public Sphere.
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