Regulating social media in China : Foucauldian governmentality and the public sphere / Bei Guo.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Guo, Bei, author.

Contributor:

Todd and Elizabeth Donovan Endowed Fund For Television and Broadcast Media.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Social media.

Government policy.

Internet--Government policy.

Internet.

Internet--Social aspects.

China.

Internet--Social aspects--China.

Internet--Government policy--China.

Social media--China.

Social media--Government policy--China.

Physical Description:

viii, 197 pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : Peter Lang, [2018]

Summary:

Regulating Social Media in China: Foucauldian Governmentality and the Public Sphere is the first in-depth study to apply the Foucauldian notion of governmentality to China's field of social media. This book provokes readers to contemplate the democratizing potential of social media in China. By deploying Foucault's theory of governmentality as an explanatory framework, author Bei Guo explores the seemingly paradoxical relationship of the Chinese party-state to the expansion of social media platforms. Guo argues that the Chinese government has several interests in promoting community participation and engagement through the internet platform Weibo, including extending the presence of its own agencies on Weibo while simultaneously controlling the discourse in many important ways. This book provides an important corrective to overly sanguine accounts that social media promotes a Habermasian public sphere along liberal democratic lines. It demonstrates how China, as an authoritarian country, responds to its citizens' voracious hunger for information and regulates this by carefully adopting both liberal and authoritarian techniques.

Contents:

Introduction

Theoretical foundations: public sphere and governmentality

Background of China's Internet and social media

Transformative regulatory measures of Weibo

Weibo broadcast of the bo Xilai trial

Patriotic citizenry in China's Weibo community

Conclusion.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Todd and Elizabeth Donovan Endowed Fund For Television and Broadcast Media.

ISBN:

9781433152719

1433152711

OCLC:

1029791172

Publisher Number:

99980189290