Mobile Communication, Popular Protests and Citizenship in China
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Mobile Communication, Popular Protests and Citizenship in China. / Liu, Jun.
I: Modern Asian Studies, Bind 47, Nr. 3, 2013, s. 995 - 1018.Publikation: Bidrag til tidsskrift › Tidsskriftartikel › Forskning › fagfællebedømt
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Mobile Communication, Popular Protests and Citizenship in China
AU - Liu, Jun
PY - 2013
Y1 - 2013
N2 - Digital telecommunication technology has expanded the potential of the mobile phone to be increasingly used as a weapon against authoritarian rule and censorship. Since the content of mobile communication is unpredictable and unregulated, mobile phones have the potential to breach state-sponsored information blockage. This in turn helps the Chinese people to maintain contact with each other, receive information from outside the country, and make political waves in an aggressive battle for control over information. This paper examines spontaneous mobilization via mobile phones, with a focus on two concrete popular protests in rural and urban areas, demonstrating how Chinese citizens have expanded the political uses of mobile phones in their struggle for freedom of information flow, social justice, and the rule of law, while seeking to build an inexpensive counter-public sphere. These processes destabilize China’s conventional national public sphere by shaping political identities on the individual level as well as the notion of citizenship within the evolving counter-public sphere. The political significance of mobile phones in the context of contemporary China’s political environment can be observed by various social forces that communicate their struggles with the aid of this technology, pose challenges in governance, and force the authorities to engage in new kinds of media practices.
AB - Digital telecommunication technology has expanded the potential of the mobile phone to be increasingly used as a weapon against authoritarian rule and censorship. Since the content of mobile communication is unpredictable and unregulated, mobile phones have the potential to breach state-sponsored information blockage. This in turn helps the Chinese people to maintain contact with each other, receive information from outside the country, and make political waves in an aggressive battle for control over information. This paper examines spontaneous mobilization via mobile phones, with a focus on two concrete popular protests in rural and urban areas, demonstrating how Chinese citizens have expanded the political uses of mobile phones in their struggle for freedom of information flow, social justice, and the rule of law, while seeking to build an inexpensive counter-public sphere. These processes destabilize China’s conventional national public sphere by shaping political identities on the individual level as well as the notion of citizenship within the evolving counter-public sphere. The political significance of mobile phones in the context of contemporary China’s political environment can be observed by various social forces that communicate their struggles with the aid of this technology, pose challenges in governance, and force the authorities to engage in new kinds of media practices.
KW - Faculty of Humanities
KW - mobile phone
KW - China
KW - popular protest
KW - public sphere
KW - citizenship
U2 - 10.1017/S0026749X12000340
DO - 10.1017/S0026749X12000340
M3 - Journal article
VL - 47
SP - 995
EP - 1018
JO - Modern Asian Studies
JF - Modern Asian Studies
SN - 0026-749X
IS - 3
ER -
ID: 40363544