ABSTRACT
Much attention paid to the Chinese Internet has focused on two areas: the formation of online communities and modes of sociality (Damm 2007; Giese 2004; Hjorth and Gu 2012), and the role of the Internet in the transforming relationship between state and society in a tightly regulated media environment (Yang 2009; Zheng 2008).1 With the appearance of microblogging (Weibo in Chinese), especially Sina Weibo (“China’s Twitter”), which launched in 2009, much scholarship has tended to focus on this latter area.2 Academics in and outside China have analyzed the use of Weibo (used interchangeably with microblog hereafter) during societal crises to spread information, expose government corruption, and/or force greater transparency and accountability from the party-state (Bondes and Schucher 2014; Qu et al. 2011; Yang 2013). During such extraordinary events, microblogging has indeed served as a platform for citizens to have a voice that is heard even in the midst of official media censorship.
