1st Edition

Chinese Social Media Social, Cultural, and Political Implications

Edited By Mike Kent, Katie Ellis, Jian Xu Copyright 2018
    264 Pages
    by Routledge

    264 Pages 10 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    This book brings together scholars from a variety of disciplines to address critical perspectives on Chinese language social media, internationalizing the state of social media studies beyond the Anglophone paradigm. The collection focuses on the intersections between Chinese language social media and disability, celebrity, sexuality, interpersonal communication, charity, diaspora, public health, political activism and non-governmental organisations (NGOs). The book is not only rich in its theoretical perspectives but also in its methodologies. Contributors use both qualitative and quantitative methods to study Chinese social media and its social–cultural–political implications, such as case studies, in-depth interviews, participatory observations, discourse analysis, content analysis and data mining.



    Foreword



    Michael Keane



    1. Chinese social media today



    Mike Kent, Katie Ellis and Jian Xu



    Part I: Chinese Social Media and the Public



    2. Micro-philanthropy and new grassroots associations: Social media and the rights discourse in China.



    Haiqing Yu



    3.Social media and legitimization tactics of grassroots NGOs in China: A case study of Love Save Pneumoconiosis



    Dianlin Huang



    4. The "Making" of online celebrity – A case Study of Chinese rural same-sex male couple Anwei and Yebin



    Tianyang Zhou and Lianrui Jia



    5. Populist sentiments and digital ethos in the social media space: Revelations of Weibo celebrities in China



    Zixue Tai, Xiaolong Liu and Jiang Liang



    Part II: Chinese Social Media and (Re)Presentation



    6. Framing food safety issues in China: The interplay of official discourse and civil discourse



    Yang Wang



    7. Face-work on social media: The presentation of self on Renren and Facebook



    Xiaoli Tian



    8. RenRen and social capital in contemporary China



    Naziat Choudhury and David Holmes



    Part III: Chinese Social Media and Disability



    9. WeChat and the Voice Donor campaign: an example of ‘doing good’ on social media



    Mike Kent, Katie Ellis, Joy Zhang, and He Zhang



    10. Accessibility in China: a Peep at a Leopard through a tube



    Yao Ding and G. Anthony Giannoumis



    11. The Accessibility of Chinese Social Media Applications: A heuristic evaluation of WeChat app



    Weiqin Chen, Way Kiat Bong and Nan Li



    Part IV: Chinese Social Media in Greater China and Overseas



    12. From (anti-mainland) sinophobia and shibboleths to mobilisation on a Taiwanese message board



    Joshua Cader



    13. The Chineseness of Chinese Internet companies


    Biography

    Mike Kent is Head of Department and a senior lecturer in the Internet Studies Department at Curtin University, Australia



    Katie Ellis is a senior research fellow in the Internet Studies Department and convenor of the Critical Disability Studies Research Network at Curtin University, Australia



    Jian Xu is a research fellow at the School of Communications and Creative Arts at Deakin University, Australia