Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-m8qmq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-19T05:31:23.024Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Real-world Islands in a Social Media Sea: Nationalism and Censorship on Weibo during the 2012 Diaoyu/Senkaku Crisis*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 January 2016

Christopher Cairns  and
Allen Carlson
Christopher Cairns*
Affiliation:
Cornell University.
Allen Carlson
Affiliation:
Cornell University.
*
Email: cmc467@cornell.edu (corresponding author).
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

During August and September 2012, Sino-Japanese conflict over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands escalated. Alongside street demonstrations in China, there was an outpouring of public sentiment on China's leading micro-blog, Sina Weibo (微波). Using human and computer-assisted content analysis, we exploit original Weibo data to measure how public sentiment in China fluctuated over the dispute, and ask two questions. First, how cohesive and volatile were online nationalist sentiments? Second, we measure government censorship of Weibo in order to ask which sentiments did authorities allow to be expressed, and when? We first find that many of the micro-bloggers' harshest invective was directed not at Japan but at their own government. Second, while censorship remained high across topics for most of the dispute, it plummeted on 18 August – the same day as bloggers' anger at Beijing peaked. These observations suggest three theoretical explanations: two are instrumental-strategic (“audience costs” and “safety valve”) and one is ideational (elite identification with protesters).

摘要

中日钓鱼岛 (尖阁列岛) 冲突在2012年八九月间突然升级。在中国大陆既发生了街头示威, 又在新浪微博上出现了公众情绪的大爆发。我们通过人工和电脑辅助的内容分析方法利用微博原始数据来衡量整个争端中中国公众情绪的波动。我们提出两个问题: 第一, 网络民族主义情绪的凝聚力和变动性如何? 第二, 我们衡量中国政府对微博的审查, 从而进一步提问:哪些情绪在什么时候会被政府允许表达? 我们有两项主要发现: 第一, 许多微博发布者最尖锐的批评不是针对日本, 而是针对本国政府; 第二, 虽然政府在争端过程中绝大多数时间对于不同话题的审查都极为严格, 但8月18日审查力度突然直线下跌, 而这一天微博发布者针对北京政权的愤怒也正好达到顶峰。以上观察验证了以下三种理论解释, 包括两种工具性和战略性理论 (观众成本理论和减压阀理论) 和一种观念性理论 (精英对于抗议者诉求的认同)。

Keywords

social mediaChinaWeibo: nationalismcensorshipDiaoyu IslandsJapan社会化媒体新浪微博民族主义网络审查钓鱼岛日本
Type
Articles
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 225 , March 2016 , pp. 23 - 49
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

We would like to thank King-Wa Fu, Chung-Hong Chan and Michael Chau at the University of Hong Kong for their efforts on the WeiboScope project, which produced the dataset we use. We would also like to thank Jing Li, who served on our coding team.

References

Bamman, D., O'Connor, B. and Smith, N.. 2012. “Censorship and deletion practices in Chinese social media.” First Monday 17, 3–5.Google Scholar
Callahan, William. 2009. “The cartography of national humiliation and the emergence of China's geobody.” Public Culture 21(1), 141–173.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carlson, Allen. 2009. “A flawed perspective: the limitations inherent within the study of Chinese nationalism.” Nations and Nationalism 15(1), 20–35.Google Scholar
Cheng, Yinhong. 2011. “From campus racism to cyber racism: discourse of race and Chinese nationalism.” The China Quarterly 207, 561–579.Google Scholar
Fu, King Wa, Chan, Chung-Hong and Chau, Michael. 2013. “Assessing censorship on microblogs in China: discriminatory keyword analysis and the real-name registration policy.” EEE Internet Computing 17(3), 42–50, http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/MIC.2013.28.Google Scholar
Gries, Peter Hays. 2004. China's New Nationalism: Pride, Politics, and Diplomacy. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Gries, Peter Hays, Zhang, Qingmin, Crowson, H. Michael and Cai, Huajian. 2011. “Patriotism, nationalism, and China's US policy: structures and consequences of Chinese national identity.” The China Quarterly 205, 1–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hanley, James A., and Lippman-Hand, Abby. 1983. “If nothing goes wrong, is everything all right?” Jama 249(13), 1743–45.Google Scholar
Hassid, Jonathan. 2012. “Safety valve or pressure cooker? Blogs in Chinese political life.” Journal of Communication 62, 212–230.Google Scholar
He, Yinan. 2007. “History, Chinese nationalism, and the emerging Sino-Japanese conflict.” Journal of Contemporary China 16(50), 1–24.Google Scholar
Hoffman, Robert, and Lerner, Jeremy. 2013. “The demography of Chinese nationalism: a field-experimental approach.” The China Quarterly 213, 189–204.Google Scholar
Hopkins, Daniel J., and King, Gary. 2010. “A method of automated nonparametric content analysis for social science.” American Journal of Political Science 54(1), 229–247.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hughes, Christopher. 2006. Chinese Nationalism in the Global Era. Abingdon: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hussain, Muzammil M., and Howard, Philip N.. 2013. “What best explains successful protest cascades? ICTs and the fuzzy causes of the Arab Spring.” International Studies Review 15, 48–66.Google Scholar
Johnston, Alastair Iain, and Stockmann, Daniela. 2007. “Chinese attitudes toward the United States and Americans.” In Katzenstein, Peter and Keohane, Robert (eds.), Anti-Americanisms in World Politics. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
King, Gary, Pan, Jennifer and Roberts, Margaret. 2013. “How censorship in China allows government criticism but silences collective expression.” American Political Science Review 107(2), 1–18.Google Scholar
King, Gary, Pan, Jennifer and Roberts, Margaret. 2014. “Reverse-engineering censorship in China: randomized experimentation and participant observation.” Science 345(6199), DOI: 10.1126/science.1251722.Google Scholar
Link, Perry, and Qiang, Xiao. 2013. “From ‘fart people’ to citizens.” Journal of Democracy 24(1), 79–85.Google Scholar
Lorentzen, Peter. 2014. “China's strategic censorship.” American Journal of Political Science 58(2), 402–414.Google Scholar
MacKinnon, Rebecca. 2012. Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle for Internet Freedom. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Morozov, Evgeny. 2011. The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom. New York: Public Affairs.Google Scholar
Oksenberg, Michel. 1986. “China's confident nationalism.” Foreign Affairs 65(1), 501–523.Google Scholar
Reilly, James. 2011. Strong Society, Smart State: The Rise of Public Opinion in China's Japan Policy. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Reilly, James. 2014. “A wave to worry about? Public opinion, foreign policy, and China's anti-Japan protests.” Journal of Contemporary China 23, 197–215.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roberts, Margaret. 2014. “Fear or friction? How censorship slows the spread of information in the digital age.” Paper presented at the Association of Asian Studies Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, March 2014.Google Scholar
Rozman, Gilbert. 2013. “Chinese national identity and East Asian national identity gaps.” In Rozman, Gilbert (ed.), National Identities and Bilateral Relations: Widening Gaps and Chinese Demonization of the United States. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 203–233.Google Scholar
Shen, Simon. 2007. Redefining Nationalism in Modern China: Sino-American Relations and the Emergence of Chinese Public Opinion in the 21st Century. Basingstoke, Hants: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Weeks, Jessica. 2008. “Autocratic audience costs: regime type and signaling resolve.” International Organization 62, 35–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weiss, Jessica Chen. 2013. “Authoritarian signalling, mass audiences, and nationalist protest in China.” International Organization 67, 1–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whiting, Allen. 1983 “Assertive nationalism in Chinese foreign policy.” Asian Survey 23(8), 913–933.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zhao, Suisheng. 2004. A Nation-state by Construction: Dynamics of Modern Chinese Nationalism. Redwood City, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Zhao, Suisheng. 2013. “Foreign policy implications of Chinese nationalism revisited: the strident turn.” Journal of Contemporary China 22(82), 535–553.Google Scholar
Zhu, Tao, Phipps, David, Pridgen, Adam, Crandall, Jedidiah R., and Wallach, David S.. 2013. “The velocity of censorship: high-fidelity detection of microblog post deletions.” eprint arXiv:1303.0597. http://arxiv.org/abs/1303.0597. Accessed 23 March 2014.Google Scholar