ABSTRACT
This chapter reflects on the ways that SNSs are transforming modernity in China through transformations to guanxi.This argument is sustained twofold. First, this chapter reviews evidence from the previous chapters to arguethat SNSs are transforming guanxi by liberating the social and geographical boundaries to networking across three networking mechanisms (tie-formation, tie-maintenance, and tie-activation) and two networking conditions (proximity and information flow). Second, this chapter draws upon modern theorizations of the public sphere and modernity to argue that these transformations to guanxi are refractions of changes in the social and ontological structures of Chinese modernity, pushing it beyond amoral familism and shifting its public sphere to a novel digital agora: an intermediary space between the public and private spheres now essential to social survival.
