A Comparative View of Censored and Uncensored Political Discussion: The Case of Chinese Social Media Users

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Author(s): Qihao Ji (Florida State University, USA)
Copyright: 2017
Pages: 14
Source title: Handbook of Research on Citizen Engagement and Public Participation in the Era of New Media
Source Author(s)/Editor(s): Marco Adria (University of Alberta, Canada)and Yuping Mao (California State University Long Beach, USA)
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-1081-9.ch015

Keywords: Business Science Reference / Digital Communications / Government and Law / Media & Communications

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Abstract

Through a content analysis on Chinese online dissidents' social media discourses, this study examines the impact of Internet censorship on Chinese dissidents' political discourse in two social media platforms: Weibo and Twitter. Data was collected during a time period when China's Internet censorship was tightened. Results revealed that Chinese online dissidents are more likely to post critical opinions and direct criticism towards the Chinese government on Twitter. In addition, dissidents on Twitter are more likely to engage in discussing with others, while Weibo dissidents tend to adopt linguistic skills more often to bypass censorship. No difference was found in terms of dissidents' civility and rationality across the two platforms. Implications and future research are discussed in detail.

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A Comparative View of Censored and Uncensored Political Discussion: The Case of Chinese Social Media Users

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