University of Groningen
Engaging in politics Sun, Yu
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Sun, Y. (2018). Engaging in politics: Everyday political talk in online China. University of Groningen.
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Engaging in politics
Everyday political talk in online China
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ISBN (print): 978-94-034-0835-4
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2018 Yu Sun
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Engaging in Politics
Everyday political talk in online China
PhD thesis
to obtain the degree of PhD at the University of Groningen
on the authority of the Rector Magnificus Prof. E. Sterken
and in accordance with
the decision by the College of Deans. This thesis will be defended in public on
Thursday 12 July 2018 at 11.00 hours
by
Yu Sun
born on 1 July 1986 in Hebei Province, ChinaSupervisor
Prof. M.J. Broersma
Co-supervisor
Dr. T.S. Graham
Assessment Committee
Prof. T.A.C. Witschge Prof. J. van der Harst Prof. R. Vliegenthart
To my parents
Acknowledgements
I travelled to Groningen from Beijing in the autumn of 2013, embarking on my PhD with a vague imagination of the PhD world. Time flies fast! Now, I am so near to the end of it. It is a relief but also makes me feel sad to say bye to my PhD! Recalling the first time meeting my supervisors, I was full of excitement, with a new world in front of me to explore, both academically and culturally. From then on, I have been experiencing the tale of two adventures, which brought me a lot of joy in the past years and also made me what I am today. For that, I would like to take the chance to express my gratitude for people who have encouraged and supported me in my PhD journey. First, I felt very honored to have two great supervisors and now it is time to say “thank you” to them. Prof. Marcel Broersma, both my promoter and first supervisor, said “yes” to my application of the PhD project and later guided me through the academic journey. During my PhD study, I benefited a lot from his historical perspectives to understand the media landscape. He often pushed me to think harder about the contextual background of Chinese society in my study of citizen interactions on the Chinese internet, based on which I found the unique meanings of my research and feel more passionate of doing research in the broad field of Chinese studies. Every time when I was lost in researching, he pulled me back on track with timely guidance. Dr. Todd Graham, my daily supervisor, also has supported me a lot in doing research. He read my writings carefully and provided me with valuable feedback. He also shared with me a lot of his experiences in academia as a senior researcher at drinks or coffee time. He gave me many tips on how to live a happy life as an overseas PhD student when I just came to the university of Groningen. I appreciate all his supervision and help! As supervisors, both of them are inspiring, nurturing, and very willing to listen to my opinions. I enjoyed all the discussions I had with them at research meetings. It was a great pleasure and joy to work together with them. I have learned a lot in terms of academic writing and making presentations. Without their careful supervision and support, I could not have grown to be a mature researcher. This will be part of the best memory of my PhD.
I’d like to thank the assessment committee for their careful and critical examination of my manuscript. Thanks for your affirmation and compliment of my work. Also thanks for your constructive feedback, based on which I realize there is still room to improve my dissertation. In addition, I want to thank Scott Wright for providing me with valuable suggestions and comments for my methodological chapter. I also want to thank Diandian Guo, for her assistance in doing the inter-coder reliability test for my coding scheme. I am grateful to many other scholars who have discussed and commented on my work at conferences, summer or winter schools in the past years. I’m very happy to have met all my colleagues at the Groningen center for media and journalism studies. Their passion for research, writing and sharing has brought me a lot of positive energy and has been encouraging me to work harder. Special thanks go to Dana, Ansgard, Michael, Marc, Robert, Rik, Frank, Ana, Elizabeth, Scott, Berber, Tamara, Huub and Garrie for their comments on my work at different stages and spiritual support.
At the department, I met my best PhD friends, Stefan, Joëlle, and Amanda. It was a great pleasure to start the PhD journey at the same time with Stefan. It seems that he is doomed to be the first mover among us in exploring the PhD work, writing the TSP, the first-year evaluation, and then finishing the PhD thesis. I appreciate all the adventure experiences you shared with me. Plus, your super sense of humor and friendliness made it very joyful to share a lot of stories about Chinese culture with you. Wish you all the best! It was a great pleasure to do the PhD together with Joëlle, too. We went to workshops, summer schools and conferences together, in the Netherlands or abroad. They were wonderful experiences. I was never lonely in the PhD journey because of your accompany! As you have said, we finish our PhD and the party will be over, but friendship stays! We will keep in touch, no matter which part of the world I end up.
Amanda is such an innovative person, not only because she is doing fascinating research but also because of her passion for baking. Thank you for bringing us cakes of various recipes. I was surprised with the happy birthday cake she made for me. With this innovative and productive spirit, I am sure that she will become a very successful PhD candidate (she is already!). And let me know if you are going to take part in any
baking program on TV or YouTube, I’ll vote for you! Alisa, my best officemate. Alisa and Stefan are the first two people talking with me after meeting my supervisors. I was actually feeling a bit of cultural shock on the first day coming to the Harmonie building. Thank you, Alisa, for warmly welcoming me to our first office. She has shared with me her enthusiasm for Dutch history and literature. I learned so many wonderful stories about the Netherlands in history. I overcame my cultural shock in the end, because Dutch friends, like Alisa, have introduced me a lot about the culture, food, people, and life in the Netherlands. I’m very happy to have you as my paranymph. A lot of thanks for your help in arranging my PhD ceremony and for your effort in translating the summary of my thesis to Dutch.
Bin Jiang, my nerdy sister at the faculty of arts. It was a lucky coincidence to meet her here in Groningen. She has such a perfect mixture of nerdy and non-nerdy hobbies, which might be the reason why we become good friends. Over the past years, we have explored Groningen, the Netherlands and many other places in the Europe together. Bin, because of your friendship, Groningen became of a place of wonder for me. Wish you the best, no matter where we will end up in the future.
At the PhD building (Rode Weeshuisstraat), I met many talented and funny orphans: Justine, Ruben, James, Martijn, Jan, Bregtje, Sanne, Sieger, Audrey, David, Jonne, Germán, Kim and quite a few more. I had a very good time, having lunch or just chatting with you guys in the building. With all of you, we made the orphanage a fancy place, which people dream of moving into.
Many thanks go to my Chinese friends, who are also fellow PhDs at University of Groningen: Huanlin Lang, Linlin Li, Cong Duan, Eva Zhang, Yingying Zeng, Xingyu Yan, Qi Xu, Qian Li, Yingying Cong, Yang Heng, Boqun Liu, Lei Lv, Yingruo Wang, Miao Wang, Yanglei Yi, Haojie Cao, Yang Pu, Shasha He, Juping Hou, Ting Huang, Minghui Li, Junjie Jiao and quite a few more.
I also want to thank my old BFSU classmates, Fang Zhang, Yi Pu and Xinwei Zhu who are having their PhD adventures in different countries, for your support and encouragement via Wechat. And my former teachers at BFSU who have always been keen on knowing how I am doing with the PhD project. Also PhD friends I met during
summer schools or conferences: Tim, Wilfred Yang Wang, Ping Sun, Yuchao Zhao, Yi Liu, Shuhan and quite a few more.
Last but foremost, I’d like to thank my parents whose love travels with me, no matter where I am; and my dear sisters who support me in whatever I like to do.
最后也是最重要的，我要感谢亲爱的爸爸妈妈一直以来给予我无私的爱，让我 勇敢地追求梦想，坚强乐观地面对挫折。
Table of Contents
1. Introduction _____________________________________________________________________________________ 1
1.1 Everyday political talk in minjian: alternative structures of citizen
interactions in China _________________________________________________________________________________ 2 1.2 The internet and the public sphere in China _____________________________________________ 7 1.3 Research aims, questions, and contributions __________________________________________ 10 1.4 Structure of the thesis_________________________________________________________________________ 12
2. Deliberative Democracy, Political Talk, and the Everyday Sphere in
Minjian ________________________________________________________________________________________________ 14
2.1 Deliberative democracy, the Public Sphere, and Political Talk ___________________ 15
2.1.1 Deliberative democracy and deliberative system ______________________________________________________ 15 2.1.2 The Public Sphere _________________________________________________________________________________________ 16 2.1.3 Everyday political talk ____________________________________________________________________________________ 18
2.2 Authoritarian deliberation and the Chinese minjian ________________________________ 22
2.2.1 Public Deliberation and China __________________________________________________________________________ 22 2.2.2 Everyday political talk and the everyday sphere in Minjian _________________________________________ 25
2.3 Normative conditions for deliberation ___________________________________________________ 28
2.3.1 The normative conditions for the process of deliberation ____________________________________________ 29 2.3.2 Beyond the framework of deliberation _________________________________________________________________ 34
3. Everyday Political Talk in Online China ___________________________________________ 36
3.1 Chinese internet and the deliberative public sphere _________________________________ 37 3.2 The Chinese internet and civic activism _________________________________________________ 41 3.3 The Chinese internet as a tool of authoritarian governance _______________________ 43 3.4 Advancing a new agenda ______________________________________________________________________ 45 3.5 Chinese internet as a hybrid sphere and everyday political talk __________________ 47 3.6 Conclusion: everyday political talk on the complex Chinese internet __________ 52
4.1 Research Design _________________________________________________________________________________ 55 4.1.1 Normative analysis ________________________________________________________________________________________ 55 4.1.2 Descriptive analysis _______________________________________________________________________________________ 56 4.1.3 Comparative analysis _____________________________________________________________________________________ 57 4.2 Cases ________________________________________________________________________________________________ 58 4.3 Data Collection __________________________________________________________________________________ 60 4.3.1 Keyword searches _________________________________________________________________________________________ 60 4.3.2 Identifying political talk _________________________________________________________________________________ 63 4.3.3 Sampling ___________________________________________________________________________________________________ 64
4.4 Methodology _____________________________________________________________________________________ 65
4.4.1 Pilot Study _________________________________________________________________________________________________ 66 4.4.2 Coding Scheme ____________________________________________________________________________________________ 66 4.4.3 Validity and reliability ___________________________________________________________________________________ 77
4.5 Archiving, organizing, and managing the data _________________________________________ 79 4.6 Research ethics __________________________________________________________________________________ 80
5. Environmental talk in the Chinese Green Public Sphere ____________________ 86
5.1 Introduction ______________________________________________________________________________________ 86 5.2 Chinese Internet and the Public Sphere in China _____________________________________ 88 5.3 Everyday Political Talk as an Agent of Change in Digital Age in China _________ 89 5.4 Political talk about the environment in the Chinese green sphere ______________ 91 5.5 Methods ___________________________________________________________________________________________ 93 5.6 Findings and Discussion _____________________________________________________________________ 96
Level 1 Process of Deliberation ________________________________________________________________________________ 96
Level 2 Civic Behaviors ________________________________________________________________________________________ 100
Level 3 Expression of sentiments ____________________________________________________________________________ 103
5.7 Conclusion _______________________________________________________________________________________ 105
6. Informing the government or fostering public debate? _____________________ 109
6.1 Introduction _____________________________________________________________________________________ 109 6.2 The Position of the Public in Healthcare Governance ______________________________ 110 6.3 The Chinese Internet and the Public Sphere __________________________________________ 112
6.4 Online Spaces and Everyday Political Talk in China ________________________________ 113 6.5 Research Focus and Methodology ________________________________________________________ 114
Three Cases _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ 116
Sampling ________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 116
Content Analysis _______________________________________________________________________________________________ 117
6.6 Findings __________________________________________________________________________________________ 117
Level 1: Normative conditions of deliberation _____________________________________________________________ 118
Level 2: Other social-civic communicative practices ______________________________________________________ 120
Level 3: The expression of emotions _________________________________________________________________________ 124
6.7 Discussion and Conclusion _________________________________________________________________ 127
7. Complaining and sharing personal concerns as political acts ___________ 135
7.1 Introduction _____________________________________________________________________________________ 135 7.2 Bridging the private sphere and the civic sphere _____________________________________ 137 7.3 Everyday Political talk in Chinese online public sphere ____________________________ 138 7.4 Research focus and methodology _________________________________________________________ 140
The Three Forums _____________________________________________________________________________________________ 141
Sampling ________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 142
Content Analysis _______________________________________________________________________________________________ 143
7.5 Findings ___________________________________________________________________________________________ 143
Level 1 Normative conditions of deliberation ______________________________________________________________ 143
Level 2 Other social-civic communicative practices _______________________________________________________ 146
Level 3 Emotional expressions _______________________________________________________________________________ 150
7.6 Discussion and Conclusion _________________________________________________________________ 154
8. Conclusions ___________________________________________________________________________________ 159
8.1 Research findings ______________________________________________________________________________ 160
8.1.1 The deliberative process _________________________________________________________________________________ 160 8.1.2 Social-civic communicative practices __________________________________________________________________ 164 8.1.3 The expression of emotions _____________________________________________________________________________ 167
8.2 Theoretical implications _____________________________________________________________________ 170
8.2.1 Government-run online political space: authoritarian deliberation _______________________________ 170 8.2.2 Online spaces outside of the realm of conventional politics: a transition to democratic
8.3 Final conclusion ________________________________________________________________________________ 177 8.4 Limitations ______________________________________________________________________________________ 180 8.5 Societal impact _________________________________________________________________________________ 181 Bibliography _______________________________________________________________________________________ 184 Nederlandse samenvatting ___________________________________________________________________ 203 Curriculum Vitae _________________________________________________________________________________ 209
