Abstract
This chapter examines Chinese young people’s online activities as a form of political participation through which their different political subjectivities are formed and flexibly enacted. By examining their everyday online political participation, I identified three dispositions apparent in their online participatory activities in different circumstances: “angry youth”, “powerless cynics”, and “realistic idealists”. Reflecting their accounts of these participatory activities, these dispositions as manifestations of subjectivities are shaped by the contingent participatory circumstances of the young people and are connected to their previous history of participation. Their online political participation serves as a vehicle for the formation of their subjectivity in the distinctively Chinese context. This chapter will discuss the key strategies employed by young people in their online political participation, strategies which illustrate their tactical engagement with social structures and power relations to effect social change. They also illustrate their understanding of politics in terms of social change initiatives embedded in people’s everyday activities rather than in merely confrontational practices. I argue that the online political participation of young Chinese people is a channel through which individuals can make sense of the material and social conditions of citizenship in China. The Internet as a medium extends the realm of participants’ social engagement, affording an accessible venue for young people’s social participation. It facilitates their negotiation and formation of subjectivity, an essential element of citizenship that informs the (changing) understanding of their positions in and relationships with their society (Lehmann, 2004).
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Notes
- 1.
The People's Daily is an official newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party, and also the biggest newspaper group in China. It provides direct information on the policies and viewpoints of the government, and its content is deemed to be authoritative statements of official government policy.
- 2.
An island province located at China’s southernmost point.
- 3.
A Chinese professional rally driver, best-selling author, and China's most popular blogger. He was known (especially among Chinese youth) for his blog articles which poignantly criticised the Chinese government and social problems. He was interviewed by CNN in 2010 as China's rebel writer who has become the unofficial voice of his generation (the generation born in the 1980s).
- 4.
A prefecture-level city in the southeast of Guangdong province.
- 5.
It is well-known in China that the current president Xi Jinping likes football. He has expressed his high expectations for the Chinese national football team on many public occasions.
- 6.
Fuyun, literally meaning floating cloud, is a popular internet lexicon in China, usually used to describe things people chase that are actually meaningless or unreachable.
- 7.
Zhejiang is a province in eastern China bordering the East China Sea. It is about 1500 kms from Beijing.
- 8.
Children left behind at their rural homes by their parents who are migrant workers.
- 9.
The capital of Jilin Province in the north-east of China.
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Fu, J. (2021). Online Political Participation and Formation of Subjectivity. In: Digital Citizenship in China. Perspectives on Children and Young People, vol 12. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-5532-6_5
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