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Blogging Alone: China, the Internet, and the Democratic Illusion?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 October 2011

James Leibold
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Abstract

Drawing on recent survey data, digital ethnography and comparative analysis, this article presents a critical re-appraisal of the interactive blogosphere in China and its effects on Chinese social and political life. Focused on the discursive and behaviorist trends of Chinese netizens rather than the ubiquitous information control/resistance paradigm, it argues that the Sinophone blogosphere is producing the same shallow infotainment, pernicious misinformation, and interest-based ghettos that it creates elsewhere in the world, and these more prosaic elements need to be considered alongside the Chinese internet's potential for creating new forms of civic activism and socio-political change.

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Research Article
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 70 , Issue 4 , November 2011 , pp. 1023 - 1041
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 2011

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