Organisational change, ideologies and mega discourses

Abstract

Mega discourses, as discourses recognised and espoused at the broader societal level, enact the taken-for-granted premises governing an organisational sector. The dominant power can designate the value, norm and moral duty of an organisational sector through manipulating such mega discourses. Conceptualised within critical discourse studies and Chinese discourse studies, this article assesses the official discourse of China’s third sector circulating in the policy documents, political speeches, and news media, illustrating how China’s authoritarian state utilises discursive strategies to articulate a new order of discourse of the third sector. It argues that such an alternative discursive ordering is significantly different from its western counterpart. The authoritarian state has strategically appropriated historical and cultural resources to legitimise such a “de-SMOisation” process, intending to insulate nongovernmental organisations from social movements. This study concludes with a discussion on the significance and implications of this third sector discourse.

Platform-based diffusion-proofing: Digitally mediated discursive practice and China’s prevention of protest spillover during Hong Kong’s Anti-Extradition Bill Movement

“…In the mass media era, information control can be accomplished via framing practices for delegitimating protest waves abroad by ideological institutions such as the mass media (e.g. Huang, 2017a;Huang and Li, 2022;Koesel and Bunce, 2013;Lee and Chan, 2018). In a platformized society, such manipulation can be achieved by controlling social media platforms (e.g.…”

“…This is a common practice of ideological manipulation (van Dijk, 1998). The state must also identify the enemies, stigmatizing and delegitimating both the movement and the forces in and outside of the countries seeking to diffuse the movement at the domestic level (Huang, 2017a;Huang and Li, 2022;Lee and Chan, 2018).…”

Diffusion-Proofing Protest Paradigm: Mass Media and China's Prevention of Social Movement Spillover During the Hong Kong Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill Movement

“…On the other hand, as a crucial ideological apparatus in modern society, mass media can be used for diffusion-proofing by both democratic and nondemocratic regimes. For instance, the media can frame external social movements as illegitimate (e.g., Huang 2017a; Koesel and Bunce 2013; Lee and Chan 2018). Scholars have found that when the United States was involved in the war, its mass media tended to frame anti-war protests in other countries negatively to avoid contagion (e.g., Peng 2008).…”

“…According to the social movement diffusion literature, the mass media system of one society can manipulate news coverage of protest events in another society to prevent the movement's diffusion to the local context (e.g., Huang 2017a; Koesel and Bunce 2013; Lee and Chan 2018). To capture this journalistic tendency, we develop the concept of the diffusion-proofing protest paradigm.…”

Gamifying Contentious Politics: Gaming Capital and Playful Resistance

“…The connections between civil society in the Greater China region have facilitated the diffusion of civil society resources, actors, and action repertoire to the mainland (Gransow & Zhu, 2014;Xu & Chan, 2017). With the proliferation of social movements in Hong Kong and Taiwan (Lee & Chan, 2018), China's civil society has shrunk in recent years, due in large part to tightening control and upgrading surveillance (Huang, 2017(Huang, , 2018. The issue of the new regulations governing the management of overseas NGOs has been interpreted as an indicator of the tightening control over transborder activist networks (Hsu & Teets, 2016).…”