Social Media and Collective Remembrance: The debate over China’s Great Famine on weibo

Hui Zhao, Jun Liu

13 Citationer (Scopus)
480 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

This paper provides one of the first studies on the role of social media in articulating individuals' experiences and memories and (re-)shaping collective memory in contemporary China. It investigates how social media enable and facilitate the participation of ordinary citizens in distributing and accumulating alternative narratives and memories of the past against the authoritarian version by taking the debate over China's Great Famine - a topic long considered a political taboo - on Sina Weibo, one of the country's most popular social media sites, as the case study. This study demonstrates that weibo provides people with an alternative communicative sphere for sharing previously suppressed, marginalised, "unofficial" memories as civil disobedience and accumulating them into an alternative collective memory that is relevant to the changing socio-political context of China.

OriginalsprogEngelsk
TidsskriftChina Perspectives
Udgave nummer1
Sider (fra-til)41-48
Antal sider8
ISSN1011-2006
StatusUdgivet - 1 jan. 2015

Fingeraftryk

Dyk ned i forskningsemnerne om 'Social Media and Collective Remembrance: The debate over China’s Great Famine on weibo'. Sammen danner de et unikt fingeraftryk.

Citationsformater