The Understanding Society blog reviews Yang Guobin’s new book, The Power of the Internet in China: Citizen Activism Online
Yang puts his view of the role that internet activism is playing in China in these terms:
Analyzing online activism will both reveal the new forms, dynamics, and consequences of popular contention in the age of the Internet and will shed light on general patterns and dynamics of change in contemporary China. I show how Chinese people have created a world of carnival, community, and contention in and through cyberspace and how in this process they have transformed personhood, society, and politics. This book is about people’s power in the Internet age. (1)
So what is the significance of the online presence of China’s internet users? Does the internet represent a new tool for organizing and expressing grievances? Is it simply “performative” — a space where feelings and reactions can be more safely aired than in physical spaces? Yang takes the view that the activism expressed on the internet is “active” — it is engaged, it leads to groups having stronger affinities with each other, and it can lead to a different kind of politics and democracy in the world of factories, officials, corporations, and homeowners. And in the 1990s and 2000s, these forms of collective action are more likely to be non-confrontational than was true in the mobilization leading up to 1989.
Read an article by Yang and watch an interview with him about the book.
