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Digital Asia and Activism

Chinese Media Censorship and the Rise of a Digital Public Sphere

In Nina Li’s, “Rethinking the Chinese Internet: Social History, Cultural Forms, and Industrial Formation,” and Michael Anti’s TED talk, “Behind the Great Wall,” both scholars introduce the history of internet and media censorship in China and discuss its effects on emerging digital cultures and the public sphere. In Li’s article, she focuses more in-depth on the cultural effects of piracy and parody practices in China through investigating the emergence of amateur satire and fan-subbing on p2p video-sharing websites as well as the influence of pirated content on artistic productions. For example, Li discusses how the rise of p2p video-sharing websites and fan-subbing in China have served to deconstruct longstanding Chinese cultural touchpoints like martial arts films through the production of amateur satire and parody. Through using comedy to interact with Chinese cultural mythology and ethos as well as standardized state broadcasting, amateur creators were able to illuminate and criticize the public’s longstanding dissatisfaction with Chinese State media and cultural production. This same spirit of revolution is also explored in Michael Anti’s TED talk as he discusses the influence of “the great firewall of China” on the birth of a digital public sphere and hybrid social media. According to Anti, despite strict government censorship, Chinese netizens still enjoy a robust network of social media and micro-influencers through the development of new vernacular coded language and memes. With some public figures amassing tens of millions of followers, Anti goes on to discuss how Chinese social media has grown into a hybrid public sphere in which individuals not only use this technology to disclose personal information amongst their networks but also as a means of sharing and discovering news. In fact, Anti argues that for many Chinese netizens popular social media influencers have become one of their primary media channels with such authority that if a story is picked up by them it is determined to be legitimate.

- Jonathan

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Hello! Please attach your name to the post :) M's comments: This post does a great job at summarizing the articles and finding a line of connection between them. One intervention that might be helpful is to look more critically at them in ways that bring up a question or impression of the reading you might have had.
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1. Chinese Media Censorship and the Rise of a Digital Public Sphere In Nina Li’s, “Rethinking the Chinese Internet: Social History, Cultural Forms, and Industrial Formation,” and Michael Anti’s TED talk, “Behind the Great Wall,” both scholars introduce the history of internet and media censorship in China and discuss its effects on emerging digital cultures and the public sphere. In Li’s article, she focuses more in-depth on the cultural effects of piracy and parody practices in China through investigating the emergence of amateur satire and fan-subbing on p2p video-sharing websites as well as the influence of pirated content on artistic productions. For example, Li discusses how the rise of p2p video-sharing websites and fan-subbing in China have served to deconstruct longstanding Chinese cultural touchpoints like martial arts films through the production of amateur satire and parody. Through using comedy to interact with Chinese cultural mythology and ethos as well as standardized state broadcasting, amateur creators were able to illuminate and criticize the public’s longstanding dissatisfaction with Chinese State media and cultural production. This same spirit of revolution is also explored in Michael Anti’s TED talk as he discusses the influence of “the great firewall of China” on the birth of a digital public sphere and hybrid social media. According to Anti, despite strict government censorship, Chinese netizens still enjoy a robust network of social media and micro-influencers through the development of new vernacular coded language and memes. With some public figures amassing tens of millions of followers, Anti goes on to discuss how Chinese social media has grown into a hybrid public sphere in which individuals not only use this technology to disclose personal information amongst their networks but also as a means of sharing and discovering news. In fact, Anti argues that for many Chinese netizens popular social media influencers have become one of their primary media channels with such authority that if a story is picked up by them it is determined to be legitimate.
  
  - Jonathan