“Rat Rat” Culture and Digital Misogyny: Extreme Misogyny, Problematic Feminisms, and the Governmentality of Gender in Post-Socialist China

This paper investigates the emergence and evolution of digital feminism in post-socialist China, with particular attention to the linguistic, political, and cultural negotiations that shape gender discourse in online spaces. Drawing on theories of translingual practice, cyberfeminism, and intersectionality, the study examines how feminism—originally a Western neologism—has been translated, contested, and transformed within China’s digital public sphere. Through a historical overview of feminist movements in China and a case study of the social media platform Xiaohongshu, the paper explores how gendered neologisms and misogynistic slurs—such as nvquan-biao and “Chinese pastoral feminism”—reflect underlying class divisions, consumerist ideologies, and the state’s increasing control over ideological expression. The analysis reveals the dual character of Chinese digital feminism: it operates both as a vehicle for empowerment and as a site of backlash and fragmentation. Ultimately, rather than constituting a unified movement, online feminism in China is marked by its heterogeneity. This study offers a localized understanding of feminist discourse in contemporary China by tracing its entanglement with neoliberal desire, patriarchal power, and socio-economic inequality in the age of social media.

Egyptian Women Controversial Issues and the Digital Public Sphere:Can Social Media Debates Be Used as Indicators of Social Struggle in Society? Enas Abou Youssef (bio) 1. Introduction Can social media networks be used as indicators of social class conflict in society? This is the core research question of this study. Social media networks have opened a new digital public sphere era. In Egypt, ever since the uprising on January 25, 2011, social media networks are considered one of the focal communicative tools that encouraged civic participation from many socio-ideological classes to the extent that the uprising was called the "Facebook revolution."1 Since 2011, the country has witnessed many waves of polarization. At the beginning, polarization was political where Islamists were facing secular trends. That polarization shed its light in other [End Page 58] aspects of social and economic life in Egypt later on. Many cultural and socioeconomic issues were displayed on social media and reflected diverse attitudes, approaches, and even values specifically regarding women's issues. In Egypt, among other Arab countries, the assumption that digital public sphere has higher freedom ceiling with socio-cultural issues is true to a substantial extent. Based on this assumption, one can examine socio-cultural struggles in Egyptian society from social issues debated and displayed on social media. Facebook, twitter, Tik-Tok, and reels can be considered reflections of different social classes that have access and are digitally empowered to dominate in the digital public sphere.2 According to Pierre Bourdieu, social status can be analyzed by considering three exchangeable capitals: economic, social, and cultural. In general, economic capital consists of money, assets, and property the individual holds. Social capital includes actual or virtual groups to which the individual belongs, their durable networks, and more or less institutionalized relationships.3 Cultural capital refers to the type of education and socialization that allows individuals to demonstrate their knowledge and cultural consumption and that differentiates them from other social groups.4 This article aims to present an analysis of Egyptian women's controversial issues that are displayed on the social media "Facebook" from one side and their indications to types of socio-cultural conflict existing in society from the other side during June 2021-July 2022. The key question is: What are the recent social conflict characteristics concluded from debates addressing Egyptian women's controversial issues displayed and trended on social networks? [End Page 59] 2. Reviewing the Literature and Theoretical Conceptual Framework 2.1 Digital Public Sphere One of the major points Jürgen Habermas highlighted when presenting the concept of "Public Sphere" is that sphere is "open to all." A public sphere refers to a society that can become engaged in "critical public debate."5 Accordingly, the public sphere would be linked to media for information, communication, and access by all citizens. Media plays the role of promoting the open market of ideas in liberal societies. Habermas thereby stresses that the public sphere is not just a sphere of public political communication, but also one that enables social relations using media.6 However, some scholars have argued that the idea of a public sphere, which is free from state censorship and private ownership, does not exist. Niklas Luhmann, for example, assured that all social systems, including communication systems, are related to the power of money and the paid/unpaid in the economy or the power of who is in office/out of office in politics.7 It should be noted that media systems never function in a vacuum. They are part of the political, socioeconomic system in society. Yet, recent technological factors have loosened the public sphere and opened access to more societal participants. Social media networks created new public sphere horizons of political communication. In 2011, there were revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, and beyond. The common aspects of these protests were the use of social media networks as tactics of political, economic, and social protests, creating a new public space that reflected a common crisis of society.8 The digital public sphere is a communicative sphere that is provided or supported by online or social media – from websites to social network sites, weblogs, and micro-blogs. These platforms provide...

Democratic responsibility in the digital public sphere

The subject of the research of this article is the theoretical and methodological aspect of the transformation of dialogical interactions between government and society in the digital public sphere. The essence of this transformation, taking place in the context the digital information society, is the reconfiguration of the "traditional" public sphere into a digital public sphere, civil society into a digital civil society, the usual offline dialogue between the government and society into an intersubjective digital online dialogue. Unfortunately, many of these changes up to the present time remain completely unexplored by Russian political science and related fields and branches of socio-humanitarian knowledge. The scientific novelty of the article consist in the question of choosing the most adequate theoretical and scientific-methodological means for the study of the transformations occurring in the digital public sphere in the contest of the dialogue between government and society. The main purpose of writing this article is focused on the study and selection and choosing the most appropriate theoretical and scientific and methodological tools for the study of transformations occurring in the digital public sphere, in the dialogue between government and society, tools that make it possible to comprehend the leading transformational trends in the field of communication technologies.

The subject of the research of this article is the theoretical and methodological aspect of the transformation of dialogical interactions between government and society in the digital public sphere. The essence of this transformation, taking place in the context the digital information society, is the reconfiguration of the "traditional" public sphere into a digital public sphere, civil society into a digital civil society, the usual offline dialogue between the government and society into an intersubjective digital online dialogue. Unfortunately, many of these changes up to the present time remain completely unexplored by Russian political science and related fields and branches of socio-humanitarian knowledge. The scientific novelty of the article consist in the question of choosing the most adequate theoretical and scientific-methodological means for the study of the transformations occurring in the digital public sphere in the contest of the dialogue between government and society. The main purpose of writing this article is focused on the study and selection and choosing the most appropriate theoretical and scientific and methodological tools for the study of transformations occurring in the digital public sphere, in the dialogue between government and society, tools that make it possible to comprehend the leading transformational trends in the field of communication technologies.

Meta’s Oversight Board: Challenges of Content Moderation on the Internet The regulatory framework of international human rights law (IHRL) was originally designed to protect individuals from the power of states. However, the global expansion of private entities’ power raised social awareness of the impact of business on human rights. The discussion around businesses and human rights has not been oblivious to the debates surrounding freedom of expression in the era of digitalisation. While the digital public sphere has undoubtedly democratised the public conversation, it has also generated risks and challenges around content moderation and freedom of expression. Platforms have therefore expanded their powers, creating a growing number of content rules and increasing the amount of content they remove. This has led to the rise of legitimate complaints concerning the lack of remedies for the proliferation of harmful speech and the ‘excessive’ content moderation that limits or excludes content protected by the freedom of expression. Within this framework, the discussion remains open as to who should regulate social media and how it must be done, what oversight mechanisms should be implemented to ensure people the protection of their rights online and prevent negative on- and offline impacts. This article provides an outline of the challenges generated by communication in the digital sphere and addresses the discussions on public/private regulation of content moderation. Additionally, this article addresses the importance of ensuring that the rules applied by the platforms are based on IHRL and discusses the creation of Meta’s Oversight Board as a self-regulatory mechanism, as a novel and complementary alternative to governing social media.

Deliberative democracy and the digital public sphere: Asymmetrical fragmentation as a political not a technological problem

Gripsrud, J. and H. Moe, eds. 2010. The digital public sphere: challenges for media policy. Goteborg: Nordicom, 167 pp (ISBN 978-91-86523-02-2) The concepts of 'the public', 'public sphere', 'civil society' and media regulation have dominated media studies for some time. Scholars have attempted to explore the nexus between regulation and the audience/public's access to the media/public sphere (Curran 2000; Eribo & Jong-Ebot 1997; McChesney 1999; Venturelli 1998). In most of these writings, regulation is seen as hindering access to the public domain and as stifling freedom of expression. However, these scholars are concerned with traditional media, (1) while the authors in The digital public sphere: challenges for media policy extend the critique to the digital public sphere. They examine the problems of regulation in a digitised environment and conclude that political and commercial interests take precedence in the crafting of media policy, mainly because end users of such digitised media are not perceived as a public (2) but as audiences or consumers. The issues discussed in this collection are relevant across the world, even though the digital public sphere in most Third-World countries is not as developed as it is in Europe, largely because of political, economic and technological challenges. In Chapter 1, Slavko Splichal grapples with the concepts 'public', 'public sphere' and 'civil society'. The author looks at the movement from the angle of one homogenous public sphere to many public spheres. He argues that the public may be 'dispersed physically but mentally/spiritually tied together' (p. 32). The public is distinguished from the crowd in that its members act rationally. The public is distinguished from public opinion, which safeguards against the 'misrule of those in power [and] is also a means of coercion in the hands of the majority against any minority of those who would not share the majority opinion' (p. 26). He adds that the public is only a social category, while the public sphere is the infrastructure which enables public opinion to flourish. Therefore the public's infrastructure is the public sphere. On the other hand, civil society is said to generate the public sphere and to enable citizens to wield power over those in power through 'public discussion and persuasion' (p. 30). He also rightly notes that through this persuasion and discussion 'civil society influences regulative forces of the state and corporate institutions' (p. 31). He aptly sums up the problem by stating: 'There is no public sphere without civil society, but there is also none without the public' (ibid.), then points out that the Internet popularised the concept of the public sphere and helped launch the notion of an international/global public sphere. However, this is debatable as stories broadcast via satellite, radio and digital technology before the advent of the Internet, were able to cut across geographical boundaries and spark debate worldwide. As Thussu (2006: xvii) argues: 'Although the Internet has received greater attention in recent public debates on international communication, television, being much more widely accessible, is perhaps more influential in setting the global communication agenda.' For example, The Beatles were a worldwide phenomenon. Besides the above, Splichal (2010) corrects the misconception that all mass media are public spheres, by pointing out that some are not and that there are other actors (such as the state, political parties, interest groups, media gatekeepers and businesses) who are already in the public sphere to influence it. Finally, Splichal points out that the 'citizens qua citizen--either as publics or as audiences--are not among key actors in the public sphere anymore but rather, as in the old Lippman's theorization, spectators observing the public stage from the balcony'. In Chapter 2 Hannu Nieminem looks at global copyright law by taking a case study of the Finnish TVkaista. …

This article explores the role of universities in fostering public intellectualism in the rapidly developing digital public sphere. Specifically, the paper asks: Is there a viable role for universities in shaping and encouraging critical reasoning and deliberative dialogue in the digital public sphere? This is a significant question to ask, given the often-dubious quality of public argumentation, confusion over evidential authority and epistemic expertise, alongside the spread of misinformation and bad actors intent on manipulation and disorder. In exploring this question, we position the digital public sphere in the context of democratic practices and debates over the historical role of the public sphere in developing critical reasoning publics. Alongside this, we engage in a discussion of the role of institutions, in particular universities, in mediating and filtering public opinion, making the argument that universities are well positioned to mediate the endless epistemic struggles at play in the digital public sphere. An overview of the digital engagement of Russell Group universities suggests however, that these institutions are currently far removed from such processes of mediation, instead valuing dissemination over deliberation and publicity over publicness.

Background. Since the start of the Russian full-scale invasion, major transformations in the media consumption of Ukrainians have occurred. Social media platforms are utilized as means of informational warfare and play a major role in the cultural production of everyday content on both local and nationwide levels. The logic of content production on social media platforms fosters the constitution of the so-called 'digital public sphere', and in this way affects the Ukrainian public sphere overall. The goal of this article is to explicate the potential uses of social media platforms as sources of research, that allow to observe the cultural production on the occupied territories, and in this way foster the creation of policies for the re-integration. The research objectives are to identify established social media informational infrastructures in the occupied town of Berdiansk and explore the utilized principles of cultural production of the image of the city, through the concept of the digital public sphere. Methods. Case studies, content analysis, netnographic study, narrative, and textual cultural analysis, interdisciplinary analysis of metadata and statistic data available online, and cultural history approach – reconstruction of the logic of material devices, and functioning of virtual spaces overall. Results. Two simultaneous and mutually exclusive informational infrastructures are established, Ukrainian and Russian. Both are creating mutually exclusive but intersecting images of the city, framing ongoing events as either occupation or 'liberation'. The images of the city are constituted via the cultural production of everyday content on social media platforms. This cultural production follows the logic of attention economy. Conclusions. Russian informational military units and occupational administrations actively utilize social media platforms as an instrument of informational warfare, to reinforce and legitimize their presence. However, at the same time, social media affordances foster the emergence of new practices of resistance from the Ukrainian side. The openness of the network environment allows Ukrainian citizens under occupation to stay in touch with the Ukrainian media sphere, and vice versa. The digital public sphere allows us to research the transformations occurring under occupation. New forms of social and cultural production emerge within a network environment of social media platforms, particularly within a situation of a full-scale war.

This paper deals with the engagement of young adults in the digital public sphere and attempts to identify some important issues related to the phenomenon as well as some of the challenges for future research. It has often been asserted that the newer generations are disenchanted with traditional party politics and prefer alternative forms of political engagement. Concurrently, it has been stated that, because of their pervasive involvement with ICTs and the unique opportunities they offer, the digital public sphere has become a place of choice for them to enact these newer forms of political engagement. The hypothesis that young adults are part of a digital generation that has redefined its modes of functioning within society has been a motivating factor for a study conducted among university students in four different countries1 to see how these new practices play out in the various spheres of their lives. Among other issues, we explore to what extent and in what ways the Internet has become a new vector for political participation among young adults. We will use part of these data to support our reflection on young adults’ involvement in the digital public sphere and to re-examine the classical premises of what constitutes the public sphere. We conclude by sharing our insights on this phenomenon and discussing further avenues for research in this area.

This study aims at (1) exploring how Ridwan Kamil socializes public policy through digital public sphere, specifically Facebook, (2) exploring how Ridwan Kamil’s rhetorical style to socialize public policy, and (3) exploring how the thematic selection can attract the society’s attention to read the public policy socialization on Facebook. This study applies Discourse analysis as the method to answer research questions. Discourse analysis that this study uses includes various texts, i.e. in the textual, graphic, and video forms. In addition, Discourse analysis refers to an approach using interdisciplinary theories that have relation to digital public sphere, politics, public policy, and rhetoric. The result of this study, academically, is expected to be able to be the reference for more holistic studies in the future related to the use of digital public sphere in socializing public policy and politics in Indonesia. The result of this study, practically, is expected to be able to be the bridge between the conformity of theories and the practice in making digital public sphere, for example Facebook, become an effective medium that can share information of public policy.

This article contributes to reflective practice amongst scientists who engage with citizens in the digital public sphere, by exploring the scientists' experiences and underlying perspectives on their role repertoires in online science-society interactions. Semi-structured interviews were held with 26 European scientists to investigate their focus and contribution in boundary interactions, perspective on appropriate model of science communication, and activities, outputs and addressees in the digital public sphere — together comprising a role repertoire. The intended role of scientists often did not match with their deployed repertoire in online interactions with citizens. Participants were left with the feeling that the digital public sphere provides hollow interactions, devaluates scientific expertise or even represents a hostile environment. In order to capitalise on the promise of the digital public sphere for constructive interactions with a diverse public, a reflective practice is needed that aligns scientists' intended contribution to science-society interactions with the scientists' perspective and deployed online repertoires.

Authorship and individualization in the digital public sphere

With the rapid development of the Internet and social media, the digital public sphere is becoming an important space that influences public opinion and consumer behavior. This article takes the "Sam’s Club product selection controversy event" that sparked widespread discussion in China in 2025 as a case study to explore how social media shapes consumers' perception and trust in brands as a public sphere. Based on the theories of public sphere and brand trust, this study uses questionnaire surveys and text analysis methods to analyze how social media promotes extensive discussions among consumers about this event. The research finds that social media uses hot lists and tag functions to strengthen agenda-setting attributes, expand the spread of the event, and influence the image of the brand constructed in the public's mind. This article points out that the digital public sphere is not limited to political issues, and its influence is increasingly extending to the consumption field. The significance of this study lies in revealing the mechanism of social media's role in consumption disputes and providing references for brands on how to respond to crises, rebuild trust, and shape identity in the digital public sphere.