The typology of on- and offline collective action in China

Abstract

The essential characteristics and potential impact of collective activities in China have attracted the attention of scholars and practitioners not only from China. However, the definitions and classifications of online and offline collective actions are not unified, making it difficult to achieve a solid conclusion on similarities and differences of different phenomenon. In this chapter, we proposed a relatively comprehensive classification for offline and online collective actions in China, respectively, with the purpose to clarify the relationship among the diverse definitions and classifications relevant to collective actions, and to facilitate in-depth analysis of the characteristics and mechanisms of collective actions in China. We first clarified a new framework of offline collective actions in contemporary China by integrating Popenoe’s theory and relevant Chinese research, and we specified the categories of crowd events to explain the special characteristics of collective actions in China. We then divided online collective actions into three types according to the characteristics of the participants and the activities: actions based on common concerns, actions based on common beliefs, and actions based on the common goals. The framework of online collective actions not only reflects the developing process of different types of online collective activities but also indicates the social-psychological mechanisms of online collective actions, with a systematic and dynamic perspective.