‘Hidden in plain sight’: Expressing political criticism on Chinese social media

Abstract

While the proliferation of social media technologies in China has empowered the public with new opportunities for public expression and political engagement in a ‘virtual public sphere’, Chinese Internet censorship has meant that users have to develop creative ways to engage in political criticism. In a context where both mechanical and human censors are employed, Chinese users have become adept at utilizing the affordances of technology, Chinese language and cultural resources to express their opinions through social media. Drawing upon data from the Chinese microblogging website, Weibo, surrounding the major chemical explosions in 2015 in Tianjin, the study explores three discursive techniques of indirection by Chinese social media users to express political criticism in the context of censorship. The study highlights that through the creative use of quotation, allusion and irony, users challenged the authority’s official narratives of the event. The study not only demonstrates the pluralization and dynamics of Chinese online expression, but also points to a better understanding of Chinese censoring as a continuingly evolving interplay between technology and cultural forms and between layers of government and users.

Who should apologise: Expressing criticism of public figures on Chinese social media in times of COVID-19

“…This method explores social media interaction from two perspectives -the meaning making of individual utterances (posts and comments in the case of Weibo interaction) and consideration of sociopolitical and cultural references. The participants, who actively interact on Weibo via posting, sharing and commenting, are required to have pragmatic competence of other participants' language outputs as well as the general social and cultural impact and shared background knowledge regarding the particular event (Wu and Fitzgerald, 2020). Posts pertaining to the dispute between Fang and Zhang, comments, and replies to the posts form a sequence of interactional exchange through which communicative agendas are achieved.…”

“…At the same time, the Chinese government has paid 'increasing attentiveness to understand, guide, manage, and channel online public opinion' (Jia, 2019: 22). Scholars depict the online public expression as a game of cat and mouse between users and censors (Wu and Fitzgerald, 2020). Internet users resort to different tactics to counter the sophisticated online censorship as well as voice their opinions.…”

When people do not want to talk anymore in online discussion boards: A corpus-based study of the multi-word expression bù shuō le ‘not talk anymore’ in Chinese

“…employing direct and indirect speech acts), and demonstrates how linguistic devices blog writers and readers use to construct discourses make a food blog an online community. Wu and Fitzgerald (2021) examine discursive techniques (e.g. creative use of quotations) Chinese microbloggers employ in their political criticism when facing censorship imposed by the government.…”

Offensive, hateful comment: A networked discourse practice of blame and petition for justice during COVID-19 on Chinese Weibo

“…Unlike traditional mass media which is dominated by the elites ( Van Dijk, 1993 ), social media reaches a broader audience and allows easy access by ordinary people to engage in socio-political discussions in a seemingly decentralised and democratised manner than otherwise in mass communication. One prominent evidence is the freedom of expression (if we put aside the issue of censorship, see Wu and Fitzgerald, 2021 for more discussions). Compared with mass communication with its participant identifiability (see Jaidka et al, 2022 ), social media communication can be depersonalised ( Lea et al, 2001 ) and anonymous ( Citron, 2014 ), allowing deindividuation of self and other, that is, not sharing personal information with other discussants ( Lee, 2007 ).…”