Social media in Chinaas not being separate from the state and the economy, but linked to the state). It has also been
argued that for most Chinese netizens, the Internet is regarded as a form of social media, since
many users are young and began to utilize the Internet via the various social media platforms.
Email and websites play a minor role compared with the West (Chiu, Ip, and Silverman 2012).
Some authors have remarked that the various interactive social media platforms, ranging
from the once popular BBS (still in vogue in China and other Chinese language areas like
Taiwan) to blogs and finally to the more recent Weibo (Leibold 2011; Yang 2009), offer oppor-
tunities for empowerment and civic engagement to various groups that suffer from widespread
discrimination and marginalization in society (Ding 2014; Hu 2010; Jin 2008). The idea that
this new public sphere, however, constitutes a particular challenge to the CCP’s one-party rule
has been questioned, and market-oriented identities and consumer-oriented identities have
emerged. This idea of active media citizenship in China, nevertheless restricted by political con-
siderations, means that citizenship in China starting from the mid-2000s can be seen as a fluid
and flexible concept built upon the spatial and subjective positions of the netizen (Yu, H. 2011).
Other voices, however, remind us that social media in China have led to Chinese netizens
becoming less interested in politics, because these venues provide various forms of new and
privatized entertainment. Moreover, the Internet
in China today is shaped by fragmentation and commercialization ... Leading to a
kind of “cyberbalkanization” of the on-line public sphere, as I have argued before,
into increasingly insulated groups of like-minded “interest-based communities” who
increasingly know and care more and more about less and lessand which is now especially targeted by commercialized social media (Damm 2014, 12; see also
Chiu et al. 2012; Longford 2002; Sunstein 2007).
Connection to other regions and countries and case studies
Another issue is the question of whether the Internet can act as an efficient interface in China
and as a tool to foster the development of a civil society, by linking up domestic online com-
munities with their international (and transregional) counterparts. Although China, other Asian
countries, and those in Latin America are hosting the most active users of blogs and microblogs
compared to the Western world, several research papers have focused on transnational commu-
nities (Chen 2012; Liu 2012), which up to now has tended to neglect this issue. In this respect,
it should first be pointed out that Chinese cyberspace is restricted by the use of the language.
While the issue of traditional characters—used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore—versus
simplified characters may easily be overcome by various technical measures, the various restric-
tions imposed by the Great Firewall hinder the more well-known global social media from
becoming active in China. Users inside China, in addition, do not usually employ global social
media applications, however, in some cases (e.g. the 2015 election of Tsai Ing-wen as Taiwan’s
new president), Facebook was opened by the Chinese authorities to allow for criticism of her
stance on unification.
Following are some of the well-known examples where Chinese citizens have used the new
social media for political empowerment as found in the literature. Although direct political
discussions on Weibo are hindered in China, the broader social and political meaning of Weibo
lies in identity formation and in the defense of personal rights and interests (Poell, de Kloet,
and Zeng 2014). Some of the better-known political cases involve environmental protection,
such as the anti-PX-plant demonstrations (Hung 2013). With the help of bloggers and citizens’