Informing the government or fostering public debate?
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[1] Zhejiang University
Zhejiang University
China
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[2] University of Leeds
University of Leeds
Reino Unido
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[3] University of Groningen
University of Groningen
Países Bajos
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- Localización: Journal of language and politics, ISSN 1569-2159, Vol. 20, Nº. 4, 2021, págs. 539-562
- Idioma: inglés
- Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
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Resumen
This article focuses on a popular form of civic practice in China: casual political talk that occurs in online spaces that are not ostensibly political. We investigate how Chinese citizens engage in politics through a comparative analysis of everyday talk on health issues across three popular online discussion forums: a government-orientated forum (Qiangguo Luntan), a commercial-lifestyle forum (Tieba), and a commercial-topical forum focused on parental advice (Yaolan). Our findings show that conventional deliberation directly involving conflictual and resistant attitude against state authorities is not prominently embraced by Chinese citizens in everyday online settings. However, communal and less confrontational forms of discourse are important for the proto-political talk to turn political, thus serving as prerequisite conditions for the emergence of an online public sphere. We argue that to explain how the public sphe
