The nature of public opinion on social media in China

Abstract

The political implications of the Internet on China has drawn much interest. Without an effective government system of grievance address, Chinese citizens have directed their complaints first to the news media and then social media as de-facto petition offices. Without the vote in political elections, the Chinese have exercised their citizenship through onlooking, producing and sharing information, expressing opinions and discussing with each other, and mobilizing action about public issues online. The launch of Sina Weibo in 2009 and its rapid rise in popularity saw objectionable projects scraped and corrupt officials dismissed. In response, the Chinese state struck back with tightened control on uses and in early 2013 arrested some and terminated the accounts of other prominent users, while increasing its own use of social media. At the same time, Weixin, which has been popular since its launch in 2011, has introduced public accounts that publish posts to their subscribers, and allow them to comment on the posts. Many scholars have analysed these changes from the perspective of development of the civil society, formation of the public sphere, and change in state-society relationship. Recently, big data analyses have produced results about the type of topics discussed and network distribution of messages on social media spaces. Far fewer have investigated these changes as phenomena of public opinion beyond using the term as description. This is surprising as journalists and the Chinese authorities themselves tend to frame these changes as the rise of online public opinion, and the Chinese authorities have responded by building an industry of online public opinion research. Against this background, this paper aims to propose a conceptualization of public opinion on social media. Following Arnold’s (2007) (“Tönnies’ concept of public opinion and its utility for the academic field,” Javnost-the public, 14(2), 7-29) framework, it suggests the existence of mass sentiment, published opinion, public opinion, and opinion of the public on social media in China. It considers the expression of public opinion on social media, and conceives the articulation of online public opinion as a process of co-production—in contrast to articulation of “offline” public opinion as a product. Social media posts that communicate information, emotion, and action-indication, in addition to analysis and judgement, are considered relevant to the formation of opinion of the public. With reference to China’s weibo, a networked stimulus-response process model is proposed for the formation of public opinion on social media in China.