The Networked China Researcher

Abstract

The internet has opened up new possibilities for scholars to gather data and, in general, to stay updated on rapidly changing developments in the Chinese society. Social media has added yet another dimension as it enables researchers to follow events and public debates as they unfold as well as facilitate engagement and interactivity with informants and other contacts. This article is based on the author’s own experiences and discusses the possibilities and challenges of using Chinese social media platforms. It calls for an explicit reflexivity on rapidly changing technologies. The article also addresses the fact that the researcher leaves many digital footprints on the internet and social media, and the advantages and possible dangers in an authoritarian society such as China. The article is written as a reflection piece and a call for more open and systematic discussions on how digital technologies change research practices in and on China.

‘I’m Not an Alien. I’m a Digital Ethnographer’: Doing Online Research with China’s Social Media

“…Alternatively, scholars have focused their research exclusively on their own involvement in Chinese social media platforms and their impact on their research methods. Svensson (2017) examines her socialization and experience with Chinese social media, WeChat, and Sina Weibo, emphasizing that the 'digital leap' has been an equal or a more transformative experience for her than classic ethnographic research. She states that one of the advantages of a researcher using Chinese social media is that 'it allows you to gain a better understanding of how Chinese citizens integrate social media into their daily lives, resulting in a "thicker" understanding and more "embodied" experience of what it means to live in the Chinese (digital) society' (Svensson 2017: 99).…”