Masaryk university
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DiscussionThis chapter investigated how the use of Weibo affects collective action involvement. Collective action involvement is related to specific usage of Weibo in terms of purpose, usage frequency, and activism use. By means of a survey conducted online, this research was able to collect original evidence on how Weibo was used among young Chinese netizens and how it influenced their collective action involvement. Specifically, Weibo use frequencies, informational Weibo use, and Weibo activism use were used to predict collective action involvement. Individual factors (age, gender, education, monthly income) were excluded because they appeared to have no relationship with Weibo activism. Principally, this research found that Weibo activists were more likely to use Weibo more frequently, and were driven by information purposes to use Weibo. Weibo activism use does not contribute to involvement in collective action. Meanwhile, Weibo use only affects involvement in online protest and Weibo-driven events. Boycott and petition participation were not associated with Weibo use in general. Only about 20 percent of the total Weibo sample population is involved in Weibo-driven events or online protest, which is still low. No participant in this survey had joined in any offline protest within the past year. Thus, this research has answered the central question of this thesis: Does Weibo use affect collective action involvement? The answer is in two-fold: 1) frequent Weibo use and informational Weibo use will lead to more involvement in online protests and Weibo-driven events; 2) Weibo use has no impact in mobilizing people to join in boycotts, petitions, and offline protests. One question still remains from the results: why is Weibo activism use not associated with collective action involvement? According to the survey, more than 20% of people forward Weibo posts about activism issues frequently, which is higher than the participation rate of any type of collective action. But Weibo activism use is not associated with any forms of collective action involvement. This finding seems to confirm one pessimistic prophecy brought about by Weibo or the Internet in general: “slacktivism” in the Web 2.0 era, or “lazy (mouse-clicking) support for causes” as suggested by Simon Kuper (2012). Kuper (2012) argues that Twitter’s “contribution” to the globe is actually keeping the world quiet and peaceful. Even though the Arab Spring, Iranian revolution, and London riots are all tagged as Twitter-sponsored, the wave of revolution is dying in the Western world. Those electronic devices are the “perfect narcotic” for young people, as confirmed by reports that young American people aged from eight to eighteen spend about eight hours with the computer, Smartphone or TV every day (Rideout, Foehr, and Roberts 2010). Moreover, SNSs like Twitter serve as a self-satisfaction tool for their users: the retweet action is often an end in itself, but the users feel satisfied with themselves for having contributed to the issue (Nouwen and Werner 2010). Looking back on this research, there are two possible explanations for the lack of a relationship between Weibo activism use and collective action involvement: 1) due to the small size of the sample, some relationships cannot be identified; 2) the Weibo activists are content with the simple action of clicking on “forward”, or forwarding posts several times to different websites or friend groups, but lack any motivation to become personally involved in any offline collective action. The fact that no association was found between boycotts, signing petitions and Weibo activism use, and no respondent had joined in any offline protest might further strengthen this conclusion. Weibo users are only willing to choose the least troublesome form of collective action: online protest and charity-oriented Weibo-driven events. While past research has been arguing about whether the “networked authoritarianism” (MacKinnon 2010) built by the Chinese government breaks the “illusion of free speech” and has “neutralized any urge to join a movement calling for radical political change” (Sullivan 2011), Weibo itself might pose a perfect inhibitor for any radical revolution in China. The results suggest that those who joined in online protest or Weibo-driven events were also spending much more time on Weibo than average users. Those who participated in Weibo-driven events were also mainly using Weibo to share information with others. No wonder they have no time to join in any offline collective action—they are busy sitting in front of the computer with mouse-clicking collective action. However, the number of “collective incidents” such as riots, strikes, and road blocks has increased exponentially in recent years (Cai 2010). But who are the main actors? Migrant workers and peasants who are least represented in the Internet population or the Weibo population, as well as in this survey. Although the Wukan protestors successfully gained their demand, hundreds of other protestors were suppressed. One factor one has to bear in mind when considering the Wukan event: Guangdong province, where the village is located, is one of the most developed coastal provinces in China, with a relatively free political atmosphere. The provincial leader, Wang Yang, is also one of the most out-spoken liberal politicians in China now. The political opportunity provided by Guangdong province, combined with the Wukan villagers’ clever collaboration with the world media and Weibo, and helped them succeed. However, with Weibo users’ collective compassion and online support alone, the Wukan villagers might not have been successful in such a short time. However, is it true that Weibo activists are only content about forwarding Weibo posts about activism issues instead of becoming personally involved in collective action? If yes, what is the main factor that prohibits them from joining in collective action? What are the Weibo users using Weibo for? In order to confirm the conclusions drawn from the survey data above, as well as to further explore the under-represented research questions, the next chapter will present findings from online synchronous interviews gathered from voluntary respondents from the online survey.
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